Alternative apps: Office Suites

Obviously everyone of us need a somewhat capable text editor at some point to deal with paperwork. Others might need way more features. Here you find all you need for your office needs. All of the below should be able to open all common types of documents.

LibreOffice

Currently the most used office suite on Linux, perhaps even the most used free office suite in general. With Writer, Impress, Calc, Base, Draw and Math it offers a complete and convincing replacement for all your office needs.

KDE Calligra

While the Calligra Suite isn’t as widespread as the other two competitors, it is a valid option to take if you look for an alternative to your former office suite. With 7 tools it is the biggest suite of them, including a vector design tool called Carbon. Next to that you have your usual tasks covered with Words, Stage, Sheets, Plan, Gemini and KEXI.

ONLYOFFICE

ONLY OFFICE currently is the second most recommended office suite for Linux next to LibreOffice. Its biggest advantage is its ability for collaboration – if you have your own Nextcloud (hosters like Hetzner do offer them) you’re able to add ONLY OFFICE as an App to work together with others on documents just like in Google Docs.
ONLY OFFICE comes with a document editor, presentation editor, spreadsheet editor, form editor (like LibreOffice Draw) as well as comprehensive PDF reader & editor.

WPS Office

A more lightweight Office Suite made by Kingsoft. It is made for all operating systems, even Smartphones, and can therefore be very useful to get work done depending on your machines. The downside however is that WPS Office, while being free, is not Open-Source but proprietary. It is also developed by a chinese company, so it is up to you how much you want to trust this software.

CryptPad

Unlike the others, CryptPad is not a local app but rather a web application. It is fully Open-Source and the most easy way to work together with your friends. You do not need any cloud of yourself – simply open a document on an existing web instance of CryptPad, send others the invite link and immediately start working in your project!
Public instances that can be used by everyone are found here. The official is cryptpad.fr, very fast and reliable.

SoftMaker Free Office

A small but capable office suite that is made in Germany by the company Softmaker. It is a free version of their full Office Suite and therefore missing a few features. However, it is also available for Android.

Espanso

Espanso is a single tool dedicated to make your writing jobs faster and more comfortable by learning from you to automatically complete not just words, but whole paragraphs. It is also able to add variables like the current date, time and other informations. Very unique and useful.
Unfortunately it’s not commonly in your Software Store, but you can get it here.

Scribus

Scribus is a single DTP tool for publishers, meaning it’s an editor for Page Layout and Desktop Publishing. It gives you professional features like CMYK and spot colours, easy PDF creation, Encapsulated Postscript import/export and more.

Regain Privacy – Your Computer [Linux Megaguide]
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