LibreOffice is a free and open-source office suite for Windows, macOS and Linux. It combines a word processor, a spreadsheet, a presentation program, a vector drawing tool, a database front end and a formula editor. All use the OpenDocument Format as their native file type. It suits anyone who writes documents, works with figures or builds slide shows and wants to do so without a commercial licence.
Six applications in one suite
The parts of LibreOffice open from a common Start Center and work as one system. You can place a chart made in Calc in a Writer report. A Math formula can appear on a slide, and you can drag items from the shared Gallery between open documents.
Writer for letters, reports and books
Writer is the LibreOffice word processor, covering everything from a one-page memo to a long, multi-part manuscript. Its structure rests on styles for paragraphs, characters, frames and pages; changing a style updates every part of the document that uses it. For long work, Writer generates tables of contents, indexes and bibliographies whose entries link back into the text. The Navigator shows the outline along with inserted tables, images and bookmarks.
Proofing tools include a spellchecker that marks errors as you type, a thesaurus, hyphenation and AutoCorrect. AutoComplete suggests words drawn from a built-in dictionary and from the documents currently open, and one document can mix text in several languages.
Multi-column layouts, frames and graphics make Writer usable for brochures and newsletters. Tables inside a document can perform calculations. Wizards help produce letters, agendas and minutes, and mail merge combines a template with address data to generate personalised copies.
Calc spreadsheets and data analysis
Calc offers a large library of functions, including statistical and financial ones, and a Function Wizard that guides the user through building a formula. You can sort, filter and hide data by range. Conditional formatting changes the look of cells that meet set conditions, and you can quickly calculate subtotals over lists.
For what-if work, Calc recalculates results as soon as one input changes, such as a loan term affecting repayments. Predefined scenarios help manage larger tables of alternatives. Pivot tables summarize a large data range, let you drill into one area and rearrange fields to view the data from another angle. You can build pivot charts from them. Ordinary charts update automatically when their data changes. You can also drag tables in from a database. A spreadsheet can serve as the address source for a Writer mail merge.
Impress presentations and the Presenter Console
Impress builds slide shows with text, charts, drawing objects and multimedia. Its views divide the work: Normal for editing a slide and Outline for organizing the text of the whole presentation. Notes is for speaker notes, Handout for printed material and Slide Sorter for reordering slides as thumbnails. Many of Draw’s vector tools are available on slides, along with Fontwork text effects and 3D scenes.
You can assign animations and transitions to objects and slides and rehearse timings. A show runs manually or automatically, with control over which slides appear and in what order. With multiple monitors, the Presenter Console shows the speaker the upcoming slide, the notes and a timer. You can also publish presentations as handouts or HTML pages.
Draw for diagrams and vector graphics
Draw is the vector graphics program of LibreOffice, building shapes from lines, curves, ellipses and polygons. Grids and snap lines help align objects. Connectors attach to gluepoints on shapes and stay attached when shapes move, which makes Draw practical for flowcharts, organization charts and technical diagrams. Dimension lines measure lengths in technical drawings. You can light simple 3D objects with an adjustable light source. Drawings export to image formats including PNG, JPG, GIF and BMP.
Base and database connections
Base is the database component. A Base file can store its own data with the embedded HSQL engine or act as a front end to an external database. Connection options include native connectors for MySQL/MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Microsoft Access and Adabas D, direct dBase file support, or JDBC and ODBC drivers. Wizards help create tables, queries, forms and reports. Ready-made table definitions cover assets, customers, sales orders and invoices. Data registered in Base also supplies Writer mail merges and Calc pivot tables, charts and linked ranges.
Math formulas
Math is the formula editor. It typesets fractions, exponents and indices, integrals, inequalities, systems of equations and matrices. It runs on its own or inside Writer, Calc, Impress and Draw.
OpenDocument and Microsoft Office files
LibreOffice saves natively as .odt for text, .ods for spreadsheets, .odp for presentations and .odg for drawings. OpenDocument is an ISO standard that other software can read, and you can password-protect files. LibreOffice also opens and saves Microsoft Office files: .doc and .docx in Writer, .xls and .xlsx in Calc, and .ppt, .pps and .pptx in Impress. You can set a default save format per document type. Someone who mainly exchanges files with Office users can therefore make .docx or .xlsx the standard choice. The Document Converter wizard converts every Office file in a folder to OpenDocument in one pass.
PDF export options
Every module exports to PDF. A hybrid PDF embeds the original OpenDocument file, so it opens in any PDF viewer yet stays editable in LibreOffice. PDF/UA output follows the accessibility standard and adds the tagged structure screen readers rely on. Form fields can become a fillable PDF form, and headings become PDF bookmarks. You can export comments as annotations and lower image compression and resolution to reduce file size.
Macros, templates and extensions
LibreOffice has its own Basic macro language and a Basic IDE for writing scripts. Its dialect differs from VBA, so Microsoft Office macros generally do not run as they are. However, some Excel VBA code can run when that option is enabled. You can view VBA macros in Office files. If you leave them unedited, LibreOffice keeps them when you save the file back to an Office format. You can also remove them on load or save.
The official extensions site adds spelling and hyphenation dictionaries for more languages, module-specific add-ons, automation and AI tools. It also adds templates for documents and presentations, alongside the templates Writer installs.
