1y ago

Micro***t Word on Linux and alternatives

Are there good Microsoft word alternatives that support Linux (I don't mind closed source)? Libreoffice is meh and only office is quite good, but are there any better ones? Also, is there a way to install word on Linux using wine? When I do that my laptop just overheats and loses internet connection.

55 comments

What is it with Microsoft Word that makes you prefer it to others?
LibreOffice and OnlyOffice are pretty much the only free software office suites that really hold a candle to Microsoft Office's functionality. LibreOffice defaults to the Toolbar interface but changing it to Tabbed will make it look like Microsoft Office. It takes some getting used to and isn't as smooth but once you start using it for a few weeks you will get used to it.
WPS Office is a Microsoft Office clone that works fine on Linux. It's a pretty common Microsoft Office substitute and is nearly identical in most aspects of its interface. It's made by Kingsoft, a Chinese company. The software is closed-source and there is a free version that contains advertisements.
Microsoft Office Online is available through your browser free of charge at portal.office.com. It contains Word, PowerPoint, and Excel but only has basic functionalities. Collaborative editing is still supported on it which you might care about.
Microsoft Office can be installed using WINE but in my experience, it is usually not stable enough for daily use. I would not bother with it. You should not install things manually using WINE. It's highly recommended that you use some wrapper software like Bottles, PlayOnLinux, or Lutris (common for games).
- Not op, but what drives me back to word (and other ms office like pp and publisher and win is:
  90%: Far Superior spell and grammar and style check
  10%:
  Easy integration of a good tts to read my own texts to me as well as lecture for university.
  Easy citavi integration
  Auto complete sentences (at least in English)
  superior layout presets (on click and OK and modern enough style to submit without even thinking about it) (Far superior for publisher)
  
  Have you tried languagetool? There is an integration for Libre Office, Obsidian, MS Word and others. It offers spell checking, rephrasing and is superior to the build in checker in my experience. You could compare it to DeepL versus Azure Translate.
  
  As someone with dyslexia, the superior spell and grammar check is what I miss most in libreOffice. I usually have to use an external tool for spell check like grammarly.
- For libreoffice, does it support change tracking and digitally signed documents with digital signature + photo of physical signature?
  
  @JustEnoughDucks @NateNate60 I'm sure about the first two features: Yes. I don't know about a picture of your manual signature, unless you talk about simply embedding it in a document: That's for sure possible.
- Where doed WPS office source it's ads? I mean, if you run it in a (more or less) sandbox (well, you might want to have access to the files you're editing), and without access to internet, how does the ad interface behave?
  
  I actually don't remember seeing adverts on the Linux version when I tried it out a few years ago. Maybe that's changed, or maybe they just don't run adverts on the Linux version.
  Disabling WPS's Internet access will remove the advertisements. Strangely enough, the WPS blog gives instructions on how to do this in Windows.
- For me, I use the office suite at work, and one of the simplest things that makes me wish i could use it at home is that damn search bar in the top.
  After that, I appreciate that libreoffice introduced the ribbon UI. I grew up with word 2003, so i know what it was like, but after they introduced the ribbon ui, it immediately felt more easy to use. Especially the style picker.

Your use case matters here. Perhaps there are other specialized tools for what you want to achieve.
Why is LibreOffice “meh”? I have used it for the last 10 years and would like to know what it is you find off with it.
- Not OP, but my personal (mild) meh with Libre is it’s visual style. But to be fair, I use it rarely and for those few occasions I’ve been too lazy to check if there are design alternatives (which most definitely exist, we’re on Linux after all).
  
  Try the other UI layouts, like the notebook bar. LO can look pretty close to MS office if you change the settings some.

These are 90s problems. Just open word files in o365 in chromium or Firefox.
- These are 90s problems. Just open word files in o365 in chromium or Firefox.
  Compatibility with legacy files is still limited. Microsoft never achieved full compatibility between their various ports.
  
  Yeah, but it's still pretty much as good as it gets with the original. Like, this is ms office. It opens ms office files. Even if it doesn't do it as it did twenty years ago it can be pretty much considered the way it just looks now.
- You got any way to to this offline? Else you overestimate the state if Internet in countrys like Germany
  
  Lol. What the hell are you talking about? Internet could be better in some parts, but it's certainly fine for Web apps.
  
  Germany has great internet. We provide about half of it.

https://www.onlyoffice.com/
What's your goal? Markdown / latex may work better for your use case than word. https://typora.io/ https://obsidian.md/ https://logseq.com/ https://github.com/marktext/marktext
- Dear God, anyone who doesn't already use LaTeX should not be told to use LaTeX. It's really a great departure from traditional word processors and I firmly believe that people really need to discover it on their own, or else they will just be confused and think it's an arcane, dated, and useless piece of software.
  
  come on :D I provided ressources to markdown, not latex. markdown is easier than word.
  
  Now do VIM.
- Found the "I use Arch, BTW" guy.

Your question is likely too general for a good answer.
What do you need specifically? What makes the solutions you've tried 'meh'? What would make an office suite 'better'?
There used to be a wine-based project specifically for Microsoft office. It was called crossover office. Not sure if it's still maintained.
Good luck!

Have you tried the different interfaces that libreoffice has? Try switching to their ribbon-like ui and see if it matches what you are looking for.
What exactly are you missing?

As a long-time Linux user, I feel like it says something about the maturity of desktop Linux that it is good enough now for the kinds of users that find LibreOffice insufficient.

You can just use the browser version of word.

OnlyOffice is the only one that I’ve used that has a good looking UI, works out of the box and very good compatibility (across Microsoft and other document standards). Install is just one flatpak away. Highly recommend.
- I second this. I use it for university. Good software.

Softmaker Office uses .docx natively, so you don't have compatibility issues with Word at all.
Its UI is also very close to MS Office. It's a drop-in replacement for current MS Office.
- Softmaker does also offer a free of charge light version FreeOffice you could try out before committing to pay for their full version.

What does Microsoft Word give you that OpenOffice Writer or LibreOffice Writer don't?
- My writing instructor always tells us to use the grammar checking in Word and there's the occasional formatting or compatibility issue. Nothing that I haven't been able to get through but it has resulted in a couple marks every here and there
  
  I use language tool for that in libre. Works great!

If libre/open office isn't your thing, there's always cloud based ones like office365 and google docs.
I also found this. Never heard of some of these things, so I can't really recommend them.
https://itsfoss.com/libreoffice-alternatives-linux/
You can also use ms word in wine if you're writing. However; if you're opening docs from the internet, I wouldn't recommend opening them up in anything running in wine. Remember, wine is a windows emulator based on windows 2000.
- Wine is not a Windows emulator. The name literally means “Wine Is Not an Emulator”.
  It’s also not based on Windows 2000. In fact, it started out translating syscalls from Windows 3.1.
  The syscalls themselves are pretty stable between Windows versions, which is why you can run a Windows XP application on Windows 11 without recompiling it, as long as it’s for the same architecture.

Use the online version of Word if you want Word. If you want the desktop version use an older one, the Office 365 ones don't really work on Linux.
Why is LibreOffice 'meh'?

Microt 🤮

Really trying to understand what "meh" means in terms of office software.
They all are kinda meh. I dont get overly excited with office stuff do you?
Over the years I have used both Libre and ms office. Some use cases were so much better with Libre. Now days it's kind of a wash really. You write words or you calculate cells. If you are calculating any large amount of cells do your self a favor and get it into a database.
And if it's a presentation, reveal.js is miles better than PowerPoint.
- has i undestand meh is better that fuu but less good that okay

I did a look into this. softmaker is best when it comes to compatibility of displaying files. Wps office is ok, but some text would be on top of others. I did find that there is a free version of softmaker, which should be ok.

If you really want word, you could try Microsoft 365, where its in your browser instead of a thing you download.

Emacs or Neovim could also serve to replace Word, depending on what you need it for.
- They obviously need it to open docs made in Word by other people...

There's softmaker office, it's from a german company: https://www.softmaker.com/en/products/softmaker-office

55 comments