Only office. Which is Better OnlyOffice or LibreOffice

– more than just office suite in the browser. This is a multifunctional collaboration portal that includes document and project management. It allows you to schedule work tasks and milestones, store corporate or personal documents and collaborate on them, use tools social network, such as blogs and forums, as well as communicate with team members through the corporate instant messaging program.

OnlyOffice is designed for small and medium sized companies looking for an efficient business process management platform.

The package includes:

• document management
• online document editors with support for Word, Excel and Powerpoint formats
• project management
• gantt chart
• mail aggregator

After the publication of an article about OnlyOffice in InfoboxCloud, speculation appeared on the Internet that OnlyOffice was in fact not a Russian product and that something else should be used.
Comment from the developers:
OnlyOffice is being developed in Russia by CJSC New communication technologies” (100% Russian company), all development and all management is located in Russia, in Nizhny Novgorod. The company has a Latvian subsidiary Ascensio System SIA for sales in Europe and the USA. As part of the import substitution program, the product took 1st place in the category "Custom office software". This victory is due to the fact that the developers were really able to create excellent editors and a good corporate environment for them.

Another good news is that the package is open source and you can change and modify the project as needed.

OnlyOffice developers have a SaaS solution, but it is hosted in foreign data centers. You can comply with the requirement to place personal data in Russia using the Moscow region of the cloud. In our solution, data will not be lost thanks to triple replication and backup all user data.

The basic version of the package is free including for corporate users. An Enterprise version will also be released soon, which will include the following features:

• version control
• peer review
• mail merge
• desktop applications

However, all existing functions free version will remain free.

Generally this decision will be as economical as possible, which is very important for a small business.

In this article, you can get acquainted with the capabilities of OnlyOffice and simply install a corporate portal in the InfoboxCloud cloud. If you have any questions - we will be happy to help.

Capabilities

Edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations online

Document management

Collaboration coordination

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Project coordination with a Gantt chart

Online project management

user management

Setting permissions

Installing OnlyOffice

Creating a cloud server

If you do not yet have access to InfoboxCloud, by clicking on the "Order right now" button. After registration is completed, you will receive access data to the control panel on your email.
To comply with the requirement to store personal data in Russia, select a data center in Moscow during registration.

The minimum configuration to run OnlyOffice according to the results of testing the configuration:

• 4 CPU cores at 2.3 GHz
• 8GB Ram
• swap file 4Gb
• 20GB disk space
• Virtual machine with CentOS 7

Enter the control panel at https://panel.infobox.ru.
Click on the "Create Server" button.

Specify the required amount of resources, 1 external IP address and the maximum network speed. Check the box "Allow OS kernel control" and click Next.

Select CentOS 7 from the list of available OSes and finish creating the server.

You will receive the data for accessing the server by e-mail. Connect to it via SSH.

Quick installation

We have prepared a quick installation script specifically for users that takes into account the specific configuration of the product and simplifies deployment.

Install OnlyOffice with the command:
bash<(curl -s http://repository.sandbox..sh) domain.tld , где domain.tld – имя домена, который будет использоваться для OnlyOffice.

If you find an error in the script, please let us know.
After installation, restart the server with the command
reboot
After loading the server, enter the server's IP address or domain name (if DNS has already been updated) in the browser.
The system will initialize:

After a few minutes, you can start using.

If you need manual installation instructions, they are .

How to update OnlyOffice?

The update is very simple:
bash<(curl -s http://repository.sandbox..sh) domain.tld , где domain.tld – имя домена, который необходимо использовать для OnlyOffice. Если в процессе эксплуатации пакета необходимо изменить домен - просто запустите скрипт обновления и укажите новый домен. Данные при этом повреждены не будут, т.к. хранятся отдельно от контейнеров приложений.

Getting Started

To get started, set:

• administrator password;
• email address to which system notifications will be sent;
• Timezone;
• system language.

After that click "Save".

The OnlyOffice portal is ready to go!

Account activation

For full operation, the administrator account must be activated. Without activation, when you go to any section of OnlyOffice, you will see a warning:

Check your email (including spam). You will see an email from OnlyOffice. Activate your account using the link in the email.

To prevent emails from being classified as spam, specify the SMTP server settings in the OnlyOffice settings. You can also configure the built-in mail server in OnlyOffice, set the required parameters in DNS, but we recommend using

ONLYOFFICE is a multifunctional software package for deploying a company's Internet service. Allows you to optimize the company's document flow, facilitates project management and communication with customers.

There are two main distributions of ONLYOFFICE: paid use of the service, which does not require special knowledge and skills in administration, or server use (with the purchase of a license) within a private or corporate network. The server version can be installed on platforms running Windows and Linux (installed exclusively on licensed versions).

The CRM module allows you to create a company's client base, editing it to the needs of the organization, by adding new types of contacts, special information fields and categories of tasks. To automatically replenish the list of potential customers, it is enough to embed the ONLYOFFICE CRM contact form into the company's website.

ONLYOFFICE has a list of ready-made tools for group work and advanced integration tools (API, application programming interface) within the company and customer relationships. The mail aggregator is not tied to a specific mail service; in the program settings, you can easily set the receipt and processing of mail messages from various sources.

Using the "Document Management" module, you can use accounts of different cloud resources (and edit them), which will be displayed on your computer in the "My Documents" folder. Any text document, table or presentation located on the cloud servers of the network can be edited online in special editors. The calendar module of the program is integrated with ONLYOFFICE project management CRM system.

The only disadvantage of the modules of the OnlyOffice system is the impossibility of using them offline.

Key features and functions

• cloud service for document management;
• two distributions;
• Russian-language interface;
• confidentiality guarantee;
• cross-platform server version of the distribution;
• equipped with a number of self-sufficient tools for the implementation of the company's activities (mail aggregator, file storage, document editors, etc.);
• project management system;
• well-built CRM-system;
• adding documents to the repository using the drag-n-drop method;
• only works online.

Special requirements

• random access memory (RAM) 4 GB or more;
• processor (CPU) dual-core 2 GHz or more;
• free disk space (HDD) at least 2 GB;
• operating system: 64-bit Red Hat, CentOS, or compatible with kernel version 3.8 (or later), and 64-bit Debian, Ubuntu, or compatible.

That day has come: we have opened the source code of ONLYOFFICE desktop editors. Now they are absolutely free for home and commercial use. AGPLv3 license, download, code on GitHub.

And in this article, we will simply give a few arguments in favor of switching to ONLYOFFICE, and not to Libre, if you abandon Microsoft Office for economic or ideological reasons. Read on to experience the pain.

You probably expect that now we will measure functionality and argue with foam at the mouth, who has what is better implemented. Nope. Of course, you can find what we implemented better, and what they did better. We didn’t finish something, somewhere they have bugs. And yes, it's all very subjective. Let's take a closer look at the factual side of the matter.

Reason #1. ONLYOFFICE correctly opens more documents

The shortest history of formats

Long ago in a galaxy far, far away, the main document formats were binary. And they were called doc, xls and ppt. The world of documents was already ruled by the Microsoft Empire. But there were brave OpenOffice rebels who wanted to free the galaxy from the oppression of the Empire and create their own document editors.

The difficulty was that the Microsoft formats were closed, and it was possible to learn their secrets only by the method of reverse engineering forbidden by the Jedi code. And the brave rebels of OpenOffice made their open format based on XML and called it ODF (odt, ods, odp). They did very well! Even representatives of the empire understood this, who simply took advantage of the idea of ​​resourceful rebels and in 2007 released a new version of their office that saved documents in a new format - OOXML (docx, xlsx and pptx, painfully familiar to us). What happened next was that Microsoft had more resources and programmers, and they just made their format cooler by improving and expanding it. By the way, the old Microsoft binary formats were also opened, removing the veil of secrecy so that developers who did not have enough midi-chlorians could also legally use them.

I must say that the seemingly related formats ODF and OOXML turned out to be completely incompatible with each other. One has objects that are not in the other, and the second has properties that are not in the first. In general, in order to overtake one into another, a simple XSLT transformation will not do.

Almost all documents are stored in doc or docx

Now let's go back from history to the present moment and realize this: almost 99% of all text documents in the studied part of the galaxy are stored in doc or docx formats. What does most of it still in docx, because since 2007 every new document created by MS editors is saved to it by default. doc contains mostly old documents. (And by the way, for older versions of Word "and Microsoft has washed down a plug-in that allows you to save documents in docx. Their goal is to completely get away from the old format). At the same time, a little more than one percent of text documents in the odt format in the world.

You can say: you took these numbers from the ceiling (no, it's not, we did a lot of analytical work before our editors started writing). Perhaps someone will try to prove that the ratio is 90 to 10. But this does not change the essence, since it is not 50 to 50 or even 60 to 40. Otherwise, Libre Office (as the heirs of Open Office) would now rule the world on a par with Microsoft . And Microsoft really rules: after all, in the docx format, not just most of the documents, but ALMOST ALL the documents on the planet.

When we chose which of the open formats - ODF or OOXML - to make the main one, we had almost no doubts. We wanted to open and work correctly with most of the documents, and not with less.

When we display a document, we are essentially displaying a set of objects - a specific object model. In LibreOffice, the document object model corresponds to the ODF format created by Open Office programmers, in our case, the object model fully corresponds to the OOXML format created by Microsoft. Therefore, we open docx files better than Libre, and odt files are worse. But there are many more docx files. Thus, we are better able to open most of the text documents that exist on the planet.

(Please note: we are not saying now that Libre Office is worse. Their format is objectively rarer, so there will be much more problems and difficulties with compatibility)

But what about odt?

Of course, we work with this format as well. How to support it when our main format is docx incompatible with it? There are two options: either develop a separate editor (expensive and expensive), or convert. We chose the conversion option: when you try to open odt in the ONLYOFFICE editor, odt is automatically converted to docx. Unfortunately, some conversion losses are very likely, although we, of course, strive to keep losses to a minimum.

You can save the edited file back to odt. You will get a scheme with two conversions: odt - docx - odt. Here it must be taken into account that if the conversion is hay passed through the horse, then the double conversion is hay passed through the horse twice.

What we want to say with this part of the article: we had to sacrifice the quality of opening odt. However, we believe that quality loss in 1% of cases is much less significant than quality loss in 99% of cases. If you understand where we are driving.

Reason number 2. Online work and co-editing

The world is moving into the clouds, and the joint work on documents for many is no longer just a pleasant bonus, but a vital necessity. Libre Office is also working on an online version of editors (Collabora Office).

How the online Libre editor works (no way)

The developers have chosen a scheme in which the desktop editor is running on the server, and the image of what is happening in the cloud is broadcast to the end user in the browser. The actions of the user himself are transmitted to the server, the changes made are processed by the editor, after which a new picture is sent to the user. Thus, the developers decided not to develop an online editor, but simply put their finished desktop in the cloud and debug the translation mechanism.

This approach has pros and cons. Plus: with such a scheme, all the functions that are in the Libre desktop will be available online. Minus: in order for a large number of users to work in such an online editor, you will have to raise REALLY MANY servers. Something tells us that it will not be cheap and very slow.

Also, Libre doesn't currently have co-editing. Generally. And since their online editor is a desktop placed in the cloud, in order to make any kind of collaboration, someone will have to get into its core (more precisely, into the code of three different desktop editors, which were also written by different teams) and produce significant changes, since all the mega-functionality of editors should be available in collaboration. In other words, three editors will have to be refactored. As you understand, rewriting the code of editors and creating a relaying mechanism are tasks that are quite far from each other. In general, our forecast is that LibreOffice will not have co-editing for a long time. But all the functions of the desktop will be.

ONLYOFFICE desktop is a browser

We believe that we were more fortunate in this regard: we first wrote an online editor, and then converted it into a desktop. Let's just say that we have co-authoring by default, since the ONLYOFFICE desktop is essentially a browser that does not open all pages, but only ours - documents. To do this, we use the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF), you can read more about this in our article on the anatomy of desktop editors.

On the other hand, we believe that our editors are the editors of the "future", they will work on everything that supports HTML, whether it be a new Chinese operating system or alien technology with the ability to access the terrestrial Internet (we assume that aliens are all- they decide to set up the Internet for themselves in order to better study our civilization).

(Very) Brief Conclusions

• The main format ONLYOFFICE works with is OOXML (docx, xlsx, pptx). Libre's main format is ODF (odt, ods, odp).
• ONLYOFFICE opens docx better, Libre - odt. But most of the documents existing on Earth are stored in docx.
• Libre Office is in the process of creating an online version. There is no talk of co-editing yet.

ONLYOFFICE is a service for creating your own online office, teamwork and business. The system provides a package for working with documents without additional toolbars and integrates built-in editors in companies. Shared access, version and revision control, the ability to embed documents in a single workspace, and create corporate mailboxes are provided.

Manufacturers suggest using the program for educational institutions, personal office corporations, or non-profit organizations. It is especially useful for the back office, including marketing and sales departments, or administrative departments.

ONLYOFFICE has options for linking email threads and single messages to and integration with the calendar. It provides quick registration of potential customers, online billing, drawing up a project hierarchy using milestones, tasks and subtasks. will allow you to analyze the progress of work, and the differentiation of access rights - to control the participation of personnel. The effectiveness of the team can be assessed using the time management function. The service's editors combine the quality of Word's formatting with Google's collaboration capabilities. The platform supports all popular document formats, and also allows you to create online presentations to visually demonstrate the project and use third-party add-ons, such as YouTube videos.

Key features

• Document control
• Connecting accounts to the mail archive
• Creation of corporate mailboxes
• Sales management
• Cloud and server version

Working in Linux, we always have to choose which of the office packages for working with documents to choose to work with tables, with ordinary text files word, excel, with presentation files, with formulas, etc. Yes, the choice is not easy, today I will try to describe the features of OnlyOffice and LibreOffice of these two wonderful office suites.

libreoffice

Office suite which contains:

• - a very convenient text editor that is included with LibreOffice. You can use it for any text documents, for example (writing letters, laying out a book, publishing illustrations, writing a biography or something else, compiling a portfolio, creating charts. You can also use the functionality (auto-completion, auto-formatting and built-in spell check) , these are complex tasks for WPS Office but easy for LibreOffice You can disable all these features if needed Writer is powerful enough for everyday desktop tasks such as creating newsletters and multi-column brochures Your text styling options are only limited by your imagination!

• Calc- master of numbers and assistant in solving difficult problems. Using Calc, you can analyze many mathematical data, which you can finally display in a form that is convenient for you (for example, in the form of a graph or chart). Calc's fully integrated help system helps and makes working with complex formulas a breeze. It is also worth adding that you can import data from external databases (such as SQL or Oracle), then sort or filter them, if necessary, for subsequent statistical analysis. You can use the graphic functions to display a large number of 2D and 3D graphs from a list of 13 categories (including - lines, areas, bars, pie charts, XY) - among the dozens of options, you are sure to find one that suits your project.

• - Presentation Master, the fastest and easiest way to create spectacular multimedia presentations. You can use animation or add special effects to impress your audience for which the presentation was being prepared.

• Draw- the master of diagrams, allows you to create diagrams and sketches from scratch. Using this tool you can easily draw eg line charts possibly rectangles. Or go even further and create 3D illustrations using effects. Draw is a very simple and at the same time very powerful toolkit with which you can do a lot, it all depends on your wishes.

• Base- database master, allows you to work with databases from the LibreOffice package without using additional software. With the Base tool, you can easily integrate existing databases into LibreOffice components, or create an interface for using and managing data as a separate application. You can import tables from MySQL, PostgreSQL, Microsoft Access and many other sources, you can also create your own database with a convenient front-end that can provide support for managing modern forms, reports, etc. There is built-in support for HSQL, MySQL, Adabas D, Microsoft Access and PostgreSQL, in addition you can easily use many other DBMS.

• Math- Lord of formulas LibreOffice. A very simple formula editor that allows you to easily display mathematical, chemical, electrical or, if necessary, scientific equations using standard symbols. Even complex calculations you can present in an understandable form, for example E = mc2.

The main file format used in the application is the international open document format OpenDocument (ODF, ISO/IEC 26300), but it is possible to work with other popular formats, including Office Open XML, DOC, XLS, PPT, CDR.

The office suite is distributed under the GNU LGPL public license, so it can be freely installed and used in budgetary and commercial organizations, as well as on home computers and in educational institutions.

Installing LibreOffice

If you installed from scratch and it's Ubuntu or Linux Mint and similar Debian-based distributions, this office suite is installed by default without the need to install manually. In the event that you have uninstalled, you can install it very simply, open the terminal CTRL + ALT + T and run the command:

sudo apt install libreoffice

as an option, you can download the deb package from the official site:

Removing LibreOffice:

sudo apt purge libreoffice && apt autoremove && sudo apt -f install

An excellent multifunctional office application, the package of which includes the ability to work online allowing you to work with text, tables and create presentations using in addition the functions of co-editing, document management system, CRM, project manager, email client, calendar, corporate social network. Using ONLYOFFICE, you should understand that using this office application, you will be able to work with documents both locally without the Internet and online storing your documents in the cloud. The data is stored on remote servers in a point of the world convenient for you.

OnlyOffice features:

• Support for word, excel, presentations and formulas.
• Online document editor (you can edit your documents using a browser).
• Support for working with doc, docx, pptx, xlsx formats will also open (odt, ods, odp and odf) without any problems, only it is worth noting that when opening documents in odt format, the application converts them to docx.
• Collaboration and document management system (there is a built-in functionality for editing documents together with colleagues in offices, built-in chat, the ability to comment on documents, editing a document for several people, the ability to edit documents hidden and other other functionality).
• CRM system (It has a built-in CRM system that allows you to integrate mail, a calendar for managing sales, monitoring possible transactions and maintaining a customer database, etc.).
• Project manager (built-in task scheduler, you can schedule work for each employee and monitor deadlines).
• Built-in calendar and email client.
• ONLYOFFICE desktop editors (you can install the editor on Windows, Mac OS and Linux).
• In terms of performance, the speed of OnlyOffice is inferior to LibreOffice; when creating or opening documents, this is very clearly visible or when the application is launched.

The developers honestly admit that when converting odf and odt to docx, you will have a loss in document quality of 1%, yet this is good and tolerable, this is not a loss of 40-50%, but only 1%.

Installing OnlyOffice

Open a terminal CTRL+ALT+T and run the commands:

cd /tmp && wget http://download.onlyoffice.com/install/desktop/editors/linux/onlyoffice-desktopeditors_amd64.deb && sudo dpkg -i onlyoffice* && sudo apt -f install

Uninstalling OnlyOffice

sudo apt purge onlyoffice-desktopeditors && apt autoremove && sudo apt -f install

To use or not to use and what to use is up to you, and the first and second office suites are very good, of course, the first is a little weaker in functionality than the second, but you can use it. This concludes our brief overview of the features of LibreOffice and OnlyOffice, if you have any questions, ask in the comments.

I would advise you to familiarize yourself with the materials - a great review of both office suites and