The main difference between LibreOffice and OpenOffice is that LibreOffice is a free and open source office suite of The Documents Foundation while OpenOffice is a discontinued open source office suite which was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1999.
An office suite is a collection of software that is suitable for knowledge workers. It provides the required tools and a consistent user interface to allow users to manage the business and personal tasks easily and efficiently. Therefore, an office suite helps in improving productivity. LibreOffice and OpenOffice are two office suites. And, both support the OpenDocument standard.
Key Areas Covered
1. What is LibreOffice
– Definition, Functionality
2. What is OpenOffice
– Definition, Functionality
3. Difference Between LibreOffice and OpenOffice
– Comparison of Key Differences
Key Terms
LibreOffice, OpenOffice
What is LibreOffice
LibreOffice is a free, open-source office suite. It is a project of The Document Foundation. LibreOffice uses the international ISO/IEC standard OpenDocument file format (ODF) to save documents for all of its applications. Also, it has support for file formats of office suits such as Microsoft Office through different import and export filters.
LibreOffice is available in various platforms such as Microsoft Windows, MacOS and Linux. It is also available in the form of an online office suite LibreOffice Online. It is the default office suite in many Linux distributions. Furthermore, LibreOffice provides various benefits. The users can perform word processing, create and edit spreadsheets, presentation slides, draw diagrams, work with databases and perform various mathematical calculations using LibreOffice.
What is OpenOffice
OpenOffice is a discontinued open source office suite which was an open-sourced version of earlier StarOffice. Later, Sun Microsystems acquired StarOffice for internal use. In 2000, Sun open sourced OpenOffice suit as a competitor to Microsoft Office. In 2011, Oracle Corporation (owner of Sun) announced that it would no longer offer a commercial version of the suite and denoted the project to Apache Foundation. Then Apache renamed it as Apache Open Office.
Initially, Open Office was developed for Windows, Solaris and Linux, but later it was used in OS X with ports to other operating systems. OpenOffice consists of Word Processor (Writer), a spreadsheet (Calc), presentation application (Impress), a drawing application (Draw), database management application (Base) and a formula editor (Math). The default file format of LibreOffice was OpenDocument format (ODF) which was an ISO/IEC standard. It is also capable of reading different other file formats.
Difference Between LibreOffice and OpenOffice
Definition
LibreOffice is a free and open source office suite, which is a project of The Document Foundation. On the other hand, OpenOffice is a discontinued open source office suite which was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1999 for internal use. Thus, this is the main difference between LibreOffice and OpenOffice.
Developer
The Document Foundation is the developer LibreOffice, whereas Sun Microsystems and Oracle Corporation are the developers of OpenOffice.
Written in
Moreover, C++, XML and Java helped in developing LibreOffice while C++ and Java helped in developing OpenOffice.
Operating Systems
Also, another difference between LibreOffice and OpenOffice is that the LibreOffice mainly supports Linux, Windows, Mac OS and Android while OpenOffice supported Linux, OS X, Windows and Solaris.
Availability
Furthermore, LibreOffice is available in 115 languages, whereas OpenOffice was available in 121 languages.
Platforms
LibreOffice supports platforms such as x86-64, IA-32, ARMel, ARMhf, MIPS, PowerPS etc. while OpenOffice supported platforms such as IA-32, X86-64, PowerPC and SPARC platforms. Hence, this is also a difference between LibreOffice and OpenOffice.
Initial Release
The LibreOffice was initially released in 2011 while OpenOffice was initially released in 2002.
Conclusion
In conclusion, LibreOffice and OpenOffice are office suites. The original author of these two software programs was Star Division. The main difference between LibreOffice and OpenOffice is that LibreOffice is a free and open source office suite of The Documents Foundation while OpenOffice is a discontinued open source office suite which was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1999.
References:
1.“LibreOffice.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 24 May 2019, Available here.
2.“OpenOffice.org.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Apr. 2019, Available here.
Image Courtesy:
1.”LibreOffice Writer 5.1.0.2″ By The Document Foundation and contributors – Āgen weorc (Own screenshot) (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Commons Wikimedia
2.”openoffice -napríklad” By Jakub Stankovič – Own work (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Commons Wikimedia
Leave a Reply