LibreOffice 4 for Mac-Not Perfect, but darn cheap

In my last post, I promised I would cover LIbreOffice, an offshoot of OpenOffice.org.

LibreOffice occurred because several developers and corporate sponsors of OpenOffice.org felt dissatisfied with the way that Oracle dealt with it. Oracle acquired OpenOffice when it bought Sun Microsystems. It finally gave it to the Apache Foundation, which sponsors the Apache Web server program. “Here, you deal with it.” So several developers left OpenOffice.org and started LibreOffice.org

Anyway, LIbreOffice’s development has continued. It now offers version 4.02 for Windows, Linux, and Mac.

When it comes to word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation software, it’s run of the mill. It doesn’t offer the flashy graphics of iWorks, nor the corporate ubiquity of Microsoft Office for Windows.

What it does offer is a free office suite that will meet 90% of your needs, plus an amazing ability to read numerous formats.

If you want a program to read WordPerfect text and graphics files, then save them in another format; try LibreOffice!

If you want a program to read Microsoft Works, try LibreOffice!

If you need to use a graphics in the archaic ZSoft .PCX format, try LibreOffice!

Below are screenshots of all the formats LibreOffice will open

It will NOT write or export to all these formats:

Text Documents:

OpenDocumentFoundation (ODF) Text Document (*.odt) (read/write)

ODF Text Document Template (*.ott) (read/write)

OpenOffice.org 1.0 Text Document (*.sxw) (read/write)

OpenOffice.org 1.0 Text Document Template (*.stw) (read/write)

OpenDocument Text (Flat XML) (*.fodt;*.odt;*.xml) (read/write)

Unified Office Format (*.uot;*.uof) (read/write)

Microsoft Office 2007/2010 XML (*.docx;*.docm)(read/write only *.docx)

Microsoft Office 2007/2010 XML Template (*.dotx; *.dotm) (read only)

Microsoft Word 2003 XML (*.xml; *.doc) (read/write)

Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP/2003 (*.doc) (read/write)

Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP/2003 Template (*.dot) (read only)

Microsoft Winword 5 (*.doc) (read only)

Microsoft Works Document (*.wps) (read only)

AportisDoc (Palm) (*.pdb) (read/write)

DocBook (*.xml) (read/write)

Hangul WP 97 (*.hwp) (read only)

HTML Document (Writer) (*.html; *.htm) (read/write)

Lotus WordPro Document (*.lwp) (read only)

T602 Document (*.602;*.txt) (read only)

Text (*.txt) (read/write)

Text Encoded (*.txt) (read/write)

WordPerfect Document (*.wpd) (read only)

Office Open XML Text (*.docx;*.docm) (read/write *.docx)

Office Open XML Text Template (*.dotx;*.docm) (read only)

PDF- Portable Document Format (Writer) (*.pdf) (read/export)

Spreadsheet Documents:

OpenDocumentFoundation (ODF) Spreadsheet (*.ods) (read/write)

ODF Spreadsheet Template (*.ots) (read/write)

OpenOffice.org 1.0 Spreadsheet (*.sxc) (read/write)

OpenOffice.org 1.0 Spreadsheet Template (*.stc) (read/write)

OpenDocument Spreadsheet (Flat XML) (*.fods; *.ods; *.xml) (read/write)

Unified Office Format spreadsheet (*.uos; *.uof) (read/write)

Microsoft Excel 2007/2010 XML (*.xlsx; *.xltx) (read/write)

Microsoft Excel 2007/2010 XML Template (*.xltm;*.xltx) (read only)

Microsoft Excel 2007 Binary (*.xlsb) (read only)

Microsoft Excel 2003 XML (*.xml; *.xls) (read/write)

Microsoft Excel 97/2000/XP/2003 (*.xls;*.xlc;*.xlm;*.xlw;*.xlk) (read/write)

Microsoft Excel 97/2000/XP/2003 Template (*.xlt) (read/write)

Microsoft Excel 4.x-5.0/95 (*.xls;*.xlc;*.xlm;*.xlw) (read only)

Microsoft Excel 4.x-5.0/95 Templates (*.xlt) (read only)

• Data Interchange Format (*.dif) (read/write)

dBASE (*.dbf) (read/write)

HTML Document (Calc) (*.html;*.htm) (read/write)

Lotus 1-2-3 (*.wk1;*.wks;*.123) (read only)

Pocket Excel (*.pxl) (read/write)

Quattro Pro 6.0 (*.wb2) (read only)

Rich Text Format (Calc) (*.rtf) (read only)

SYLK (*.slk;*.sylk) (read/write)

Text CSV (*.csv) ) (read/write)

Web Page Query (Calc) (*.html;*.htm) (read only)

Office Open XML Spreadsheet (*.xlsx; *.xlsm) (read/write)

Office Open XML Spreadsheet Template (*.xltx; *.xltm) (read only)

Presentation Documents:

ODF Presentation (*.odp) (read/write)

ODF Presentation Template (*.otp) (read/write)

ODF Drawing (Impress) (*.odg) (read/write)

OpenOffice.org 1.0 Presentation (*.sxi) (read/write)

OpenOffice.org 1.0 Presentation Template (*.sti) (read/write)

OpenOffice.org 1.0 Drawing (Impress) (*.sxd) (read/write)

OpenDocument Presentation (Flat XML) (*.fodp; *.odp;*.xml) (read/write)

Unifed Office Format presentation (*.uop;*.uof) (read/write)

Microsoft PowerPoint 2007/2010 XML (*.pptx;*.pptm) (read/write only *.pptx)

Microsoft PowerPoint 2007/2010 XML Autoplay (*.ppsx) (read/write)

Microsoft PowerPoint 2007/2010 XML Template (*.potm;*.potx) (read/write only *.potm)

Microsoft Powerpoint 97/2000/XP/2003 (*.ppt) (read/write)

Microsoft Powerpoint 97/2000/XP/2003 Autoplay (*.pps) (read/write)

Microsoft Powerpoint 97/2000/XP/2003 Template (*.pot) (read/write)

CGM-Computer Graphics Metafile (*.cgm) (read only)

Office Open XML Presentation (*.pptx; *.pptm) (read/write only *.pptx)

Office Open XML Presentation Autoplay (*.ppsx) (read/write)

Office Open XML Presentation Template (*.potm;*.potx) (read/write only *.potm)

PDF-Portable Document Format (Impress) (*.pdf) (read/export)

Graphics formats:

ODF Drawing (*.odg) (read/write)

ODF Drawing Template (*.otg) (read/write)

OpenOffice.org 1.0 Drawing (*.sxd) (read/write)

OpenOffice.org 1.0 Drawing Template (*.std) (read/write)

OpenDocument Drawing (Flat XML)( (*.fodg; *.odg;*.xml) (read/write)

WordPerfect Graphics (*.wpg) (read only)

DXF-AutoCAD Interchange Format (*.dxf) (read only)

• EMF-Enhanced Metafile (*.emf) (read/export)

EPS -Encapsulated PostScript (*.eps) (read/export)

MET- OS/2 Metafile (*.met) (read/export)

PCT-Mac Pict (*.pct;*.pict) (read/export)

SGF-Starwriter Graphics Format (*.sgf) (read only)

SGV-StarDraw 2.0 (*.sgv) (read only)

WMF-Windows Metafile (*.wmf) (read/export)

BMP-Windows BItmap (*.bmp) (read/export)

Corel Draw (*.cdr) (read only)

Corel Presentation Exchange (*.cmx) (read only)

GIF-Graphics Interchange Format (*.gif) (read/export)

JPEG -Joint Photographic Experts Group (*.jpg;*.jpeg;*.jfif;*.jif;*.jpe) (read/export)

PBM-Portable BItmap (.pbm) (read/export)

PCX-Zsoft Paintbrush (*.pcx) (read only)

PGM-Portable Grayamp (*.pgm) (read/export)

PNG-Portable Network Graphics (*.png) (read/export)

PPM-Portable Pixelmap (*.ppm) (read/export)

PSD-Adobe Photoshop (*.psd) (read only)

Microsoft Publisher 98-2010 (*.pub) (read only)

RAS-Sun Raster Image (*.ras) (read/export)

SVG- Scable Vector Graphics (*.svg) (read/export)

TGA-Truevision Targa (*.tga)

TIFF- Tagged Image File Formats (*.tif, *.tiff) (read/export)

Microsoft Visio 2000-2013 (*.vdx; *.vsd; *.vsdm;*.vsdx)

XBM- X Bitmap (*.xbm) (read only)

XPM -X PixMap (*.xpm) (read/write)

PCD-Kodak Photo CD (768 x 512) (*.pcd) (read only)

PCD-Kodak Photo CD (192 x 128) (*.pcd) (read only)

PCD-Kodak Photo CD (384 x 256) (*.pcd) (read only)

PDF-Portable Document Format (Draw) (*.pdf) (read/export)

SWF-Adobe Flash (export only)

HTML related formats:

HTML Document (*.html;*.htm)

HTML Document Template (*.oth)

OpenOffice.org 1.0 HTML Template (*.stw)

Text (StarWriter/Web) (*.txt)

Text Encoded (Writer/Web) (*.txt)

ODF Master Document (*.odm)

OpenOffice.org 1.0 Master Document (*.sxg)

Text Encoded (Master Document) (*.txt)

ODF Database (*.odb) (read/write)

ODF Formula (*.odf)

OpenOffice.org 1.0 Formula (*.sxm)

MathML 1.01 (*.mml)

Tom Briant

Editor, MacValley Blog