And it does! Better still, it performs rather well, opening files up quickly, tackling just about every file I threw at it with ease, and generally playing nicely when I sent documents to and from Microsoft's apps. Of course if LibreOffice is going to be a suitable replacement for Microsoft Office, it's going to have to offer a suitable alternative for just about every single piece of the puzzle. The classic Office experienceĪnd there are a quite a few apps.

But I've grown accustomed to the clear, easily navigable UIs of modern tools like Google Docs, which don't require any fussing about - LibreOffice's wares look cluttered and archaic, proving especially daunting if you're new to the suite and dipping your toe in to all the apps that it has to offer. It's also very easy to customize those toolbars, whether you'd like to scrap some of the functions you don't use, replace those icons with text descriptions, move things around, add new buttons or get rid of the toolbars altogether. Yes, I know what all of the buttons do, and generally navigate by keyboard shortcut anyway. LibreOffice (top) vs Microsoft Word 2007 (center) vs Google Docs (bottom) Screenshots by Nate Ralph/CNET

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