At a Glance
Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Includes document, spreadsheet, and presentation editors in a single app
- Excellent Microsoft Office compatibility
- Familiar, Microsoft-like interface
Our Verdict
OnlyOffice is a free and customizable document, spreadsheet, and presentation editor that provides an excellent Office-like experience in a single app.
OnlyOffice is a business-class productivity platform designed for internal team collaboration. While most of its products are targeted at small and enterprise businesses, it also offers a Microsoft Office alternative for home use. It’s unique in that it includes document, spreadsheet, and presentation editors in a single desktop app. It works with most popular file formats including DOCX, ODT, XLSX, ODS, CSV, PPTX, and ODP, and is free to use on Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms.
This review is part of our roundup of best Microsoft Office alternatives. Go there for details on competing products and buying advice.
Michael Ansaldo/IDG
The familiar Office-style interface makes it easy to get started working.
Hands on
Like most Office alternatives, OnlyOffice hews to the Microsoft ribbon interface. The tabbed toolbars are uniform across all three editors. Home is where you’ll find editing and formatting tools; Insert allows you to add images, shapes, and other elements to your document/spreadsheet/presentation; Layout tools controls page margins, orientation, and size; and so on. Each editor also includes tool tabs specific to its document type—the document editor’s References toolbar includes options for adding a table of contents, footnotes, hyperlinks, and image captions, while the spreadsheet editor has tabs dedicated to formulas, data, and pivot tables.
All three editors include Collaboration and Protection as top-level navigation items. The first lets you track editing changes and add and review comments when connected to a cloud solution. With the second, you can add your signature to a document or encrypt the file with a password. Several plugins are included to extend the functionality of each editor, as well. You can embed a YouTube video into your document or presentation, translate text into multiple languages, email files directly from the editor, and more.
Michael Ansaldo/IDG
OnlyOffice faithfully formats all Microsoft Office file types.
Working with documents is exceedingly easy. Each file opens in its own tab, similar to a web browser; and because OnlyOffice is a standalone app …….
Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/394967/onlyoffice-desktop-editors-review.html