LibreOffice is a free suite of application for creating text documents, spreadsheets, presentations which you can then save in Microsoft Office formats. If you are open source lover and if just a user, you know about the benefits of the LibreOffice and the new version, i.e., 5.0 which deserves to top the list of contenders for best performance in this category. This version was released last month for Windows, Linux and Mac OS. It has been a harsh ride for LibreOffice to stand on top even after the contenders being able to come up with unique features.
The launch of LibreOffice coincided with the rollout of Windows ten making it a contender with the new Microsoft office which also featured cross-platform. Even with the head to head competition, LibreOffice was able to stand out well. The success of LibreOffice even after such great features of the contenders is because of the vast improvements made by LibreOffice which made using other office apps unnecessary. It is a full-featured open source office suite that compares head to head with every product in the same category, but the main reason it can stand out is that of its superior interchangeability features.
The main project open office was the one who was leading in the open source community. However after it got fractured into two projects namely Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice, they both have been working on their new versions, and they have been far better than the previous open office suite. What LibreOffice forked from open office makes a clear distinction about the limited features of the public office. Now Libre office has a bright look, good user interface and proper use of the screen space. That might also be the reason why most of the distributions have switched their office suite from openoffice.org to LibreOffice.
LibreOffice has been a good contender with some of the areas it has improved on the suite. Improvements are also seen in different modules of the suite. The upgrades that LibreOffice bring are hefty, and they have just gone through three development cycles since 2010, and you can image how much improvement they can bring in such a long period. Even though the looks have not changed that much, there is an ease of use in the package which makes users more comfortable to use the office suite after every update.
With the new improved UI, it provides more space for writing and editing for the users. The changes can be seen to a user who has been working on it for a long time. And even the new user can find the new UI compatible with their regular use. There is also a thing that makes it more reliable. The number of defects for 1,000 lines of code is now consistently below 0.001. That indicated the new version would have fewer bugs and much of the bugs solved from previous versions which will also create ease for developers to develop, maintain and debug.
