What is LibreOffice?
LibreOffice (libreoffice.org) is a suite of free office applications available for Windows and Linux. It's considered a free alternative to Microsoft Office and includes:
- LibreOffice Writer: a rich text editor comparable to Microsoft Word.
- LibreOffice Calc: a spreadsheet editor comparable to Microsoft Excel.
- LibreOffice Impress: a presentation and slideshow editor comparable to Microsoft PowerPoint.
- LibreOffice Base: a file database editor comparable to Microsoft Access.
- LibreOffice Math: a mathematical equation editor.
- LibreOffice Draw: a vector graphics editor for creating diagrams, flow charts, and logos.
None of these are really as capable as their commercial equivalents, but they do come with enough features to satisfy the needs of many businesses.
For example, Writer can create multi-page documents with headings, bold text, italic text, different fonts, margins, tables, bar graphs, images, bullet lists, footnotes, etc., ready for printing. It's enough for a lot of use cases, and it's free.
Calc, as the name implies, can create spreadsheets with cells that automatically calculate values from other cells in the sheets. It can also create charts from the cell values. It can display cells in various formats (e.g. percentage, date). It can style cells. Filter rows. You can write macros for it in multiple programming languages.
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