5 stand-out LibreOffice features that make it my go-to office suite

I've watched LibreOffice evolve over the years. In the beginning, it was an awkward office suite that struggled to keep up with the primary competition (MS Office). The GUI was baked with an old-school recipe and it would often leave a bad taste in your mouth.

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However, over time, LibreOffice has grown into an office suite I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to anyone. I realize that everyone needs specific features for their office suite but in the end, the most important thing is that it works and makes it possible to collaborate with others who depend on or have no choice but to use MS Office.

For me, a few features have helped to make LibreOffice my go-to office suite, and here are 5 features that should be on your radar if you're looking to change up your office suite.

1. Customizable GUI

This is a very personal thing but the ability to customize the GUI to meet my specific needs goes well beyond anything the competition can offer. One of the reasons why this is important for me is because I often use a different GUI option for different purposes.

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For example, when writing a novel, I want the sidebar always readily available because I need quick access to formatting options. If I'm working on a more traditional document, I might go with the tabbed UI. For spreadsheets, I want the simplest UI that I can use, such as the contextual single UI. 

LibreOffice makes this possible, with the ability to switch between a standard toolbar, tabbed, single toolbar, sidebar, tabbed compact, groupedbar compact, and contextual single. You can even make changes to different tools, which allows you to have one UI for Writer, one for Calc, and one for Presents.

2. Customizable styles

The customizable styles feature ensures that I can have styles exactly the way I want them (or how an editor/publisher might need them). What I like about this feature is that it allows me to get very granular with the styles, even to the point where I can define what style comes next, how drop caps are handled, transparency, borders, indents & spacing, text flow, font, position, highlights, much more. 

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I primarily use this feature for writing fiction because it means I can worry less about having to manually format things and just write. Anyone who's ever written anything long form understands that staying in the flow isn't just about efficiency but keeping your train of thought running smoothly and customizable styles make this possible. 

3. No AI

Some office suites have been slowly adding artificial intelligence (AI) to the feature list. With MS Office you have Copilot and Apple will most likely be infusing iWork with AI as well. 

Personally, I'd rather AI keep its mitts off my writing. I have spent over 30 years developing my writer's voice and I would be dismissing that hard work by opting for a shortcut. Most fiction authors feel the same way and would rather keep AI out of the mix.

Thankfully, LibreOffice does that very thing with no indication it will be adding AI any time soon. Even the Grammarly desktop app doesn't interact with LibreOffice and I am perfectly okay with that.

4. MS Office compatibility

There's no way around this. MS Office is still the de facto standard office suite, especially for businesses. For a while, I was writing everything in Google Docs; that is, until one of my editors complained of incompatibility issues (even when exporting to the .docx format with Docs). Once I switched from Google Docs to LibreOffice (for my fiction writing), those issues all went away.

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Now, my publisher's editor (who strictly uses MS Office) doesn't have a single problem with any document I send her way. LibreOffice might not have perfect 1:1 compatibility with MS Office, but it's about as close as I've seen, and (at least for me) that's good enough. 

5. Document export

LibreOffice document export allows you to export your Writer documents to XHTML, PDF, EPUB, MediaWiki, Writer Indexing Export XML, JPEG, Writer Layout XML, PNG, and WEBP. You can also save as ODF, ODF Template, Flat XML, Unified Office Format, Word 2010-365, Word 2007, Word 2007 Template, Word 2003 XML, Rich Text, Word 97-2003, and other types. If there's a format you need, more than likely LibreOffice can export it. 

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Sometimes when I need to export a book manuscript to EPUB to verify the formatting, it works perfectly. I can also ask what version of MS Office a collaborator is using and make sure to export it to the most compatible version. Not every office suite can do that and LibreOffice makes it very easy.

If you'd like to give LibreOffice a try, you can install it on Linux, MacOS, and Windows. Download the version you need from the official LibreOffice site. As always, LibreOffice is open-source and free to use.