The vast majority of people use Microsoft Office as their go-to office suite when it comes to desktop computers, though there are those who prefer using something else. In comes LibreOffice, a completely free and open source office suite. You might have heard of LibreOffice at some point or even used it, but most people have not. LibreOffice is really popular with Linux users, part of the reason being they can’t install Microsoft Office directly on their system, only through a third party program. The other part being, it’s a really solid office suite. I personally use Ubuntu (Linux) and I have been an active user of LibreOffice for a while now, though I use Google Docs more frequently and do load Microsoft Office from time to time when I use Windows OS.
LibreOffice is not available on mobile platforms at the moment, however Document Foundation (the people responsible for this suite) have announced their plans to bring LibreOffice to mobile devices at the first LibreOffice Conference. This of course means Android will be included in their plans. They intend to use 90% of the current code, which actually means the vast majority of the app is finished. The other 10% is of course the design, they’ll have to come up with something great though, because it’s definitely not easy to create a great interface when it comes to office suites and we all know design is extremely important nowadays.
Most of you probably just don’t care if LibreOffice comes to Android or not because you have some other apps you can use ATM, like Google’s suite, Office Suite Pro, WPS Office, Polaris Office and even Microsoft Office. People who use certain file types which are not cross-compatible between office suits do care though. Usually there are ways to get any file type running, but it can be a real hassle and really frustrating to do that sometimes, like with the ODT and ODS files Tech Republic took as an example. LibreOffice rids you of trouble when it comes to editing such files, and that’s why it’s important to a certain amount of people for this suite to make an appearance on Android and mobile platforms in general. Which office suite do you use on your personal computer and which on your Android device? Have you ever used LibreOffice?