OpenOffice or LibreOffice? Apples or oranges?

[Rath Darkblade]

Hello all,

I've been using Apache OpenOffice since it was made by Sun, but I've recently been made aware of a similar version of the same office suite called LibreOffice. It's made by the same people who originally made OpenOffice, but then were "eased out" when OO was bought out by Oracle and then abandoned and sold to Apache.

I've also come across another Office suite called "Kingsoft Office". Since it doesn't offer a database tool, it is smaller than any of the other Offices, which means it loads quicker. It also has all the usual features you'd expect from an word processor (spell check, ClipArt, tables etc.) though it lacks a thesaurus. However, it has some features that Word does not - such as moving paragraphs around with your mouse, opening multiple documents at once (under tabs), built-in conversion from document to PDF, and support for all the Microsoft Office formats - .docx, .xlsx and .pptx.

My question is this: Both KO and LO seems to be supported much better than OO. The also offer more options (such as font embedding), and supports more formats (including Microsoft's .docx/.xlsx/etc. formats). I think I would like to give either KO or LO a try, but do I have to uninstall OO first? Or can I run them both concurrently and see?

I know that running two anti-virus programs, or two anti-malware programs, concurrently is a Bad Idea(TM). Is it the same with office suites?

Thanks!

[Tawmis]

They should in no way conflict with one another. Only thing is determining which one will open the files you want if they're both looking to do the same thing.

[MusicallyInspired]

OpenOffice was bought out? How is that possible? Isn't it open source and under some GPL license or something? I gather not. Lame.

[adeyke]

I'd been using OpenOffice since before that whole Oracle fiasco, but this thread made me think about it and realize that my only reason for doing so was inertia. I've made the switch to LibreOffice.

[DeadPoolX]

I use LibreOffice, and I like it. My preference is still Microsoft Office, but I don't feel like paying for it, so my options are pirate it (which I won't do) or get a free office suite. Obviously, I opted for the latter.

Oh and Rath, the reason running two anti-virus programs can be bad is because those programs run automatically, always scanning and looking for potential threats.

A program that only activates when you want it to (such as most anti-malware programs that don't auto-scan or just about any other piece of software, including office suites) won't conflict with another program of the same type.