Anyone deploying WPS Office or LibreOffice, OpenOffice across low use workstations?

Posted by joshymochy@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 31 comments

We’ve been re-evaluating our Microsoft licensing after getting hit with another round of absurd ProPlus quotes. For context, we’ve got around 140 shop floor workstations used by employees without email accounts, basically just for viewing and editing basic Word and Excel documents. Nothing advanced, just basic .docx and .xlsx compatibility.

I know LibreOffice and OpenOffice are the usual go to suggestions, but I’ve also come across WPS Office, which looks like it might hit the sweet spot between full MS compatibility and ease of deployment. The interface is a bit more modern than Libre, and I’ve heard it preserves formatting better when opening MS files. Has anyone used WPS Office in a Windows business environment at scale?

Also curious about general thoughts on performance and security. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, just want something secure, lightweight, and easy to use for non-technical staff. Any pitfalls to watch out for? If we can cut down on licensing costs here, that budget could finally go toward endpoint management, still holding out hope on that….

Would appreciate any insight from folks who’ve been down this road.

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BWMerlin@reddit

The online versions of Word and Excel might be enough for your users.

Edexote@reddit

Libre Office works just fine and is more compatible than people think. The only issue is that the interface is too old school for people these to know how to work with it.

dustojnikhummer@reddit

Libre does have a Ribbon UI but the thing I miss the most is just a search bar. If you don't know where a particular function is you can't just search it. I think MS Office 2010 added that, 15 years ago.

themikeosguy@reddit

LibreOffice has had this feature for a few years. Go to Help > Search Commands.

I genuinely don't see the Help menu in RibbonUI but Shift+ESC works.

Yeah this really needs top billing, there needs to be a search bar in the right corner or in the middle at all times

SAugsburger@reddit

This. Most of your users are likely going to be more familiar with MS Office or Google Apps these days. The UI for Libre is a reminiscent of Office 2003, but at this point few likely remember using it these days.

Waste_Monk@reddit

Office 2003, but at this point few likely remember using it these days.

😬 Stop making me feel old

Darth_Atheist@reddit

My vote is also for OnlyOffice. It's the best of the bunch (my opinion). 😉

rmeman@reddit

Russia agrees

F*ck guess it's back to LibreOffice. 🤬

DGC_David@reddit

I mean didn't OpenOffice stop new builds? I thought it couldn't handle XML based documents.

Yes, OpenOffice is no longer getting updated (and has years-old unfixed security issues). It can't export in .docx either. LibreOffice, the successor project, handles .docx way better and is actively maintained and improved.

Kyla_3049@reddit

Use desktop editors as it is open source then firewall it.

panopticon31@reddit

WPS is a nonstarter due to its origin

donscabin@reddit

Are you suggesting that it's back doored by the Chinese or something similar? What's your concern here?

Exactly that. Or that they collect tons of telemetry and hand it over to the CCP.

PurpleTechie@reddit

The main issue with different office program is the styling across them.

If you get a word file and open it in one of the mentioned programs, the styling will likely be a mess, same for the files you send to others.

This can be worked around if you export them as PDF, but then you lose the ability to easily edit the documents.

UnexpectedAnomaly@reddit

Do they need spell check because libre offices spell check is pretty non-existent.

LForbesIam@reddit

Use Libre Office 3. I like it has Visio in it.

-RYknow@reddit

We deployed Libreoffice for our entire school district staff machines. There has been some grumblings... But overall, it works, and people have figured it out.

And... The price is right.

BasicIngenuity3886@reddit

where will you host all of this

Horsemeatburger@reddit

We use Softmaker Office in some situations. It’s a German developer.

https://www.softmaker.com/en/

Medium_Ad_4568@reddit

WPS is indistinguishable from malware and often cannot be removed fully.

ThePierrezou@reddit

You could also take a look at onlyoffice, at least it looks better privacy wise.

cbiggers@reddit

You literally picked the most Russian one.

It doesn't matter much when it's possible to selfhost it.

vnpenguin@reddit

I have always LibreOffice on my Windows Laptop & Linux workstation. This office software works like a charm, even with Microsoft docx, xlsx or pptx.

Brather_Brothersome@reddit

hmm office.com is free as well as google docs those are online

bunnythistle@reddit

That's Microsoft Office - it has a free version for home users, but using the consumer version for business usage likely wouldn't sit well with Microsoft's licensing. Even then, there'd be no user management or anything, so it'd be a bunch of people with their own personal account and little consistency between them.

rUnThEoN@reddit

We had libreoffice. WPS office acts like malware because it replaces file association in kinda an illegal way.

Pwnagecoptor@reddit

We put LibreOffice on most of our users without an email. Works good enough, and keeps costs low.