Although LibreOffice is currently a very good office suite, there are cases in which a user has to use Microsoft Office and Libreoffice, something that in the long run gives problems with certain incompatibilities. This can be fixed using Microsoft Office for Ubuntu and not using WINE.
Nearly a decade ago, Microsoft released the web-based version of Microsoft Office, which has since been available on any operating system. And if this operating system works well with web technologies like Ubuntu, installation and execution are simple. Thus, a DEB package was created that installs the Microsoft Office web apps, OneNote, and PowerPoint included, on Ubuntu. Once installed, all you need is an Outlook account to run the standard Office on Ubuntu. Of course, we insist that They are web applications.
Why install Microsoft Office for Ubuntu
Until it happens to us, we don't think about it. In short, we'll use Microsoft Office for Ubuntu because of its compatibility. Sometimes they ask us for a Word document, and when we ask if it's just as easy to send it to them as an .odt or a LibreOffice .docx, they say no. And they have their reasons. Microsoft Office and LibreOffice aren't completely compatible, and it's possible, and even likely, that if we send them a document from the latter, there might be something that doesn't quite display correctly in the former.
So it's worth using LibreOffice whenever we can, but "going to die" with Microsoft Office when we can't.
Easy installation of Microsoft Office for Ubuntu
Ubuntu allows us to install dEB packages in two ways: one is easy and the other is a little more complicated, but not difficult. For the easy method, we'll do the following:
- We downloaded the Office DEB package for Ubuntu from here.
- Once downloaded, double-click on it and the installation wizard will begin.
If you have the latest version of Ubuntu, the system may tell you that the package is of poor quality, but ignore it and continue with the installation. Once it's complete, go to the Dash and search for any app you want to use, such as Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint.
Installation from the Terminal
This method of install Office for Ubuntu It is almost the same as the previous one but based on using the terminal, so once we have downloaded the previous package, we open the terminal and write:
cd /Downloads- sudo dpkg -i microsoft_online_apps.deb
After this, the installation of the package will begin and then we will have in the dash the shortcuts of the Microsoft Office web applications.
Alternative to use Microsoft Office for Ubuntu
There is currently at least one Microsoft Office alternative for Ubuntu. It is a snap package called Office 365 Web Desktop , and installing it involves opening the Application Center, searching for the package, and installing it. If you prefer, you can open a terminal and type
sudo snap install office365webdesktop --beta
Once installed, a single icon will appear in the app drawer or dash, and clicking on it will open an electron window that accesses office.com.
Personal opinion
Having LibreOffice On our Ubuntu, it might seem like a no-brainer to also have Microsoft Office, but this version of Office includes PowerPoint and OneNote, two applications that are hard to find good equivalents on GNU/Linux, and even harder to find ones that connect with Android/iOS and Windows. For that reason alone, it's probably worth using one of these versions of the most famous office suite, don't you think?
The truth is that even if we use a free office suite, the dependence of many people on Microsoft Office often makes the documents incompatible with each other or part of the format is lost. Even the absence of some fonts is already a problem that we can solve by having installed Office for Ubuntu on our PC.
If we don't work with third parties, we probably won't have the above problem. But even so, it is never bad to have Microsoft Office installed considering that it accounts for almost all the market share worldwide and although there are many alternatives, it seems that Word, PowerPoint and company continue to reign among users.