Microsoft Office is a household name at this point, with over 400 million paid commercial seats as of January 2024. LibreOffice, one of its fiercest competitors, has been trying to discourage its adoption for a while now.
We saw this about a month ago when it accused Microsoft of deliberately using overly complex file formats to "lock in" users to its Microsoft 365 and Office products. Now, LibreOffice has released a free guide to help you migrate to Open Document Format (ODF).
In its complaint against Microsoft last month, LibreOffice championed ODF, an open standard that is not controlled by any single company, against Microsoft"s own Office Open XML (OOXML) found in .docx and .xlsx files.
Both are collections of XML files that define a document"s structure, but LibreOffice argued Microsoft was "weaponizing" its Office formats by making it needlessly convoluted for competing products to parse, leading to weird formatting issues when you open a .docx file in LibreOffice, for example.
In its latest guide, LibreOffice maintains that argument, also adding that using proprietary formats jeopardizes privacy and threatens long-term access and data ownership when compared to ODF"s "transparent" specifications.
Proprietary formats such as Microsoft Word’s DOCX or Excel’s XLSX dominate the workplace, but at the same time they lock users into a specific vendor and its business strategies, which tend to exploit users to the maximum in every way.
The Open Document Format (ODF) offers an open, standard alternative that protects users and their privacy, promotes interoperability, long-term access and data ownership.
According to LibreOffice, Microsoft is not the only company in on this, as there are other "freeware clones" like OnlyOffice and WPS Office that "do everything they can" to prevent users from switching.
As for the migration, the first step LibreOffice says you should take is to understand ODF"s advantages, like freedom from a single vendor and better security. Secondly, it suggests you perform a document inventory to sort active files from archival ones.
Thirdly, you should plan the migration workflow, deciding whether to convert documents in bulk or gradually. Next, you convert the files. LibreOffice has an export function ("Save As") for this, and even supports command-line scripts for converting large volumes of documents. The guide notes that you should back up your original files until the process is complete.
Lastly, you need to monitor the process, set ODF as the default format in your internal policies, and make sure no one changes it back.
The fact is, for editing personal documents and handling light office work, LibreOffice is a capable suite. But in a demanding business setting, for example, when you"re dealing with something heavy like a complex PivotTable, Microsoft Office can reign supreme. LibreOffice says it is not to blame for this, instead pointing the finger at the "lock-in strategies of proprietary formats."