Google Trends service, for instance, shows us that docx is being googled way more often than odt. Moreover, the majority of organizations has closed document circulation, so we’ll never know anything about their documentation.

No scientific survey was conveyed to proved that OOXML is more widely used than ODF. The old files still exist in binary formats, but OOXML is catching up quickly. But putting aside the moral aspects of their monopolistic approach, we have to say they were brilliant and also put much time and effort in their document editors.Įven with such alternatives as OpenOffice (back then) and LibreOffice (now), Microsoft Office stays the most popular office suite in the world and the majority of office docs ever created was saved in Microsoft formats. Note that the word ‘open’ here did not mean being open source because the formats were protected by Microsoft patents. In 2007 Microsoft launched a new version of their Office that by default saved documents in the newly created OOXML (Office Open XML) formats – docx, xlsx, pptx. Even Microsoft tech guys saw that and took the idea. The abbreviation stands for Open Document formats, and the word ‘open’ here reveals their open source nature and that they could be used without restrictions. Luckily, the Jedi knights from open source community created an alternative – new XML-based formats called ODF. They were strictly closed so that Microsoft could maintain a monopoly. Once all of the office formats were binary. There's just no comparison in development and speed of response to bug fixing.Here’s a quick primer on office software history. If you compare the releases since 2015 it appears OpenOffice is still on version 4.1 and has released just 3 bugfix releases in 3 years whilst LibreOffice has released 2 additional major version increments and dozens of bugfix releases for each version:

This is particularly important if you need interoperability with MS Office file formats. (See this article if you want more background info about the split.) IMO LibreOffice may be a better good choice than OpenOffice because development of OpenOffice has slowed, almost halted, since LibreOffice was forked and most developers jumped ship. For example, this shows LibreOffice 6.0.2: For example, even though set as the default for documents, this is what shows up:īy comparison, LibreOffice has been compatible with Windows 10 since version 5. It looks like OpenOffice 4.1.5 doesn't really understand Windows 10.

Openoffice or libreoffice 2018