[SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

gulatihardik10 · 2020-06-18 12:30:39

Hello All,

Need some suggestions for fast and efficient alternative for MS Excel only.
It should not contain other office things like powerpoint, pdf viewer, etc.
I have searched a lot on web about this but doesn't find good alternatives which should also on arch linux package list.
Tried Libreoffice and Gnumeric, but doesn't meet the expectations.

Is there any other alternative for excel which should be fast, open source and user-friendly.
I just need it to open excel spreadsheets in xlsx format, some editing and can save in this format.

Thank you

Last edited by gulatihardik10 (2023-06-04 07:40:23)

seth · 2020-06-18 12:35:57

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/freeoffice/
Not OSS, though but it's lightweight and looks the part.

Slithery · 2020-06-18 12:41:55

To be honest none of the open source alternatives will give you 100% compatibility with .xlsx files.

Personally for the basic usage you describe I'd just use Office online, that would also avoid installing proprietary software on your machine.

VoDo · 2020-06-18 12:42:47

I use onlyoffice appimage.

seth · 2020-06-18 12:47:42

I'd just use Office online

… with the downside that you're uploading pot. private data for sure …
Online Offices are good for home users, managing their club tab or so.
For several usages it might, depending on your location, be outright illegal to use them - so you should cross check the situation w/ your usecase.

Trilby · 2020-06-18 12:49:25

As noted above, Excel is the only thing 100% compatible with Excel. So by not using Excel you'll be sacrificing some features. If you specify which features you really don't need or use, it may open up more possibilities.

For example, do you need plots / graphs? Do your spreadsheets have embedded images (raster and/or vector)? Do they have scripts? Do you need to be able to enter and edit formulas? If not editing formulas, do formulas need to be preserved from the original when saved? Do formatting, coloration, and borders need to be preserved? Are there multiple worksheets in the excel file?

At the far end of this feature reduction there is just a single text-only worksheet with no formulas, plots, or formatting. And at this extreme it is trivially easy to convert the xsls file to another format like json for use in a web spreadsheet widget which can be damn fast, or csv for modifying in any text editor which could be customized to work well with column data (e.g., vim). Then after editing it could be converted back to xlsx.

Last edited by Trilby (2020-06-18 12:50:47)

seth · 2020-06-18 12:51:20

OP wrote:

…and user-friendly

Trilby wrote:

(e.g., vim)

You gotta love this board

VoDo · 2020-06-18 13:00:43

here is a license
https://help.onlyoffice.com/products/fi … zNzMxMjIi0
I also use ms office on the web.

Last edited by VoDo (2020-06-18 13:02:52)

Trilby · 2020-06-18 13:33:51

VoDo, Seth was not suggesting using that may be a violation of the software license, but that depending on what data one was working with it may be illegal to use *any* online tool. A doctor opening medical records in google docs would most likely be in serious trouble at least in the USA (and most developed countries have comparable patient privacy laws).

gulatihardik10 · 2020-06-18 14:58:38

Thanks for everyone's answers

To be honest none of the open source alternatives will give you 100% compatibility with .xlsx files.

I don't want 100% compatibility, just able to open some sheets and without much images, charts, etc

I use onlyoffice appimage.

It's great, light weight, but contain other office programs like word and presentation.

For example, do you need plots / graphs? Do your spreadsheets have embedded images (raster and/or vector)? Do they have scripts? Do you need to be able to enter and edit formulas? If not editing formulas, do formulas need to be preserved from the original when saved? Do formatting, coloration, and borders need to be preserved? Are there multiple worksheets in the excel file?
At the far end of this feature reduction there is just a single text-only worksheet with no formulas, plots, or formatting. And at this extreme it is trivially easy to convert the xslx file to another format like json for use in a web spreadsheet widget which can be damn fast

It can just be a column and row program with excel like formulas.

I just want fast spreadsheets editing software which can view and edit ms excel format xlsx simple files.
I have tried LibreOffice which is very slow and also Gnumeric but doesn't like its UI and it also lack certain features.

Last edited by gulatihardik10 (2023-06-04 07:18:07)

progandy · 2020-06-18 15:06:30

gulatihardik10 wrote:

sorry not want that, i want software from official repository
[...]
I just want fast spreadsheets editing software which can view and edit ms excel format xlsx simple files.

There are no other options than gnumeric and libreoffice.
Edit: There is also calligra.

Last edited by progandy (2020-06-18 15:18:59)

gulatihardik10 · 2020-06-18 15:09:43

There are no other options than gnumeric and libreoffice

Yes, tried calligra too, but its UI is not user friendly.

Last edited by gulatihardik10 (2023-06-04 07:19:09)

progandy · 2020-06-18 15:18:32

The AUR is not official, but there would be onlyoffice, wps-office and freeoffice (as well as softmaker office, the commercial variant). Use them at your own risk.

Maybe you can also try calligra. It is in the extra repository.

VoDo · 2020-06-18 15:21:57

I think appimage from developers is safer then some AUR package from middleman, just my 2c.

gulatihardik10 · 2020-06-18 15:23:13

These are alternatives to ms office not to ms excel.
I only want a software to open excel files fast due to lack of space in my system

Last edited by gulatihardik10 (2023-06-04 07:20:18)

VoDo · 2020-06-18 15:36:52

@Trilby I am not suggesting to use online services, I am suggesting to download appimage of onlyoffice which is opensource (at least it is written next to download button) anyway they need just excel an I do not know if it exists on Linux I just know that onlyoffice is compatible with excel sheets for my usage better then freeoffice or other free options.
https://www.onlyoffice.com/download-desktop.aspx

Last edited by VoDo (2020-06-18 15:49:05)

Roken · 2020-06-18 15:42:46

Trilby wrote:

As noted above, Excel is the only thing 100% compatible with Excel

Honestly, sometimes not even Excel is compatible with Excel.

I have, on several occasions, used LibreOffice to open Excel files from clients that Excel wouldn't open.

seth · 2020-06-18 18:51:21

VoDo wrote:

I think appimage from developers is safer then some AUR package from middleman, just my 2c.

The AUR is a PKGBUILD that you can (and are told to!) inspect and it will either fetch and build sources or fetch a binary as provided by the vendor (in case of the onlyoffice-bin the debian package, afaics there's no AUR entry to build the sources)
If there's sth. fishy going on, a look into the PKGBUILD will tell you that and the package itself will be built on your system.
The benefit is that you're not sidestepping package management and to maintain that, cutting out the "middleman" would essentially require you to write the PKGBUILD yourself instead of just inspecting it.

If by "appimage" you explicitly mean sth. like a docker, flatpak or snap image, well… the IT news recently - again - kindly reminded us of the flaws of bundling a truckload of dated libraries w/ your binary.
https://www.google.com/search?q=docker+ … &tbs=qdr:w

Ultimately, software outside of the repos is, no matter how, completely unvetted and requires trust in all external sources - which are however going to be more for "appimages" than for a binary (let alone a source build) that mostly relies on system libraries from the repos.

seth · 2020-06-18 18:58:08

VoDo wrote:

@Trilby I am not suggesting to use online services, I am suggesting…

I think that happened because in your initial post, before the edit, you seem to have mistaken my comment on Slithery's post as reply to your post.
Trilby got that by mail and will largely have replied to that, notably since your remaining "he's the license" post appears somewhat unmotivated ;-)

peterklarc · 2020-06-18 21:30:16

Lately I have used spreadsheets wps-office (aur) and the basic office online and no one notice the difference. The wps pdf it's very basic compared with libreoffice but that's it.

gulatihardik10 · 2023-06-04 07:38:12

After this post tried mostly all office programs available suggested in the thread and other found in linux

Listing these office applications for others:
(i) Libreoffice: Have lot of other applications like database, draw, etc which makes it somewhat slow on low end systems, can be found in official repository.
(ii) Gnumeric: It is only spreadsheet program and is fast but have only basic formulas, is in arch official repository
(iii) WPS office: Used it for long time and also using currently, it has good compatibility with MS office, only cons is its proprietary thing and sometimes need optional packages too for run.
(iv) Onlyoffice: Not used but seems great while searching online.
(v) Freeoffice: Have only 3 programs and is really fast as suggested by @seth but lacks smoothness of UI.
(vi) Calligra office: It is part of KDE program thus have great linux compatibility having in arch official repository, but its UI is very different from MS office.

Last edited by gulatihardik10 (2023-06-04 07:55:07)

c00ter · 2023-06-05 14:08:23

OnlyOffice Desktop Editors has worked the best for me...in Arch or Windows. It seems to have the closest compatibility to MS Office that I have found. Prior to that I used WPS Office. I check out LibreOffice from time-to-time--and it is a great standalone suite in its own right--but for cross-platform compatibility, there are other, better ones. OnlyOffice also has an online cloud-thingy if the user desires.

Last edited by c00ter (2023-06-05 14:11:50)

Arch Linux

#1 2020-06-18 12:30:39

[SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

#2 2020-06-18 12:35:57

Re: [SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

#3 2020-06-18 12:41:55

Re: [SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

#4 2020-06-18 12:42:47

Re: [SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

#5 2020-06-18 12:47:42

Re: [SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

#6 2020-06-18 12:49:25

Re: [SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

#7 2020-06-18 12:51:20

Re: [SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

#8 2020-06-18 13:00:43

Re: [SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

#9 2020-06-18 13:33:51

Re: [SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

#10 2020-06-18 14:58:38

Re: [SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

#11 2020-06-18 15:06:30

Re: [SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

#12 2020-06-18 15:09:43

Re: [SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

#13 2020-06-18 15:18:32

Re: [SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

#14 2020-06-18 15:21:57

Re: [SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

#15 2020-06-18 15:23:13

Re: [SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

#16 2020-06-18 15:36:52

Re: [SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

#17 2020-06-18 15:42:46

Re: [SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

#18 2020-06-18 18:51:21

Re: [SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

#19 2020-06-18 18:58:08

Re: [SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

#20 2020-06-18 21:30:16

Re: [SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

#21 2023-06-04 07:38:12

Re: [SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

#22 2023-06-05 14:08:23

Re: [SOLVED] Alternative to MS Excel and Office

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