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I have to write a dissertation for my university. I have to respect various format guidelines, and my professor uses MS Word on his workstation. In my experience, LibreOffice has been faulty when it comes to MS Word compatibility, with many incorrect parameters (happened earlier this month). I can't afford a MS Office licence to install it in Wine, so I'd like to know if there are any alternatives for Linux.

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(Im sorry i cant comment so I have to post an answer) What are the restriction s you face? Maybe we can help you decide whether or not you can achieve them in LibreOffice too and then save it as a .pdf or .doc file for your professor. – Dominik Oct 16 '11 at 17:13
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Nothing, not even MS Word of some year-version other than the one your prof uses, is 100% compatible with MS Word. LibreOffice/OpenOffice is already the MOST word compatible alternative. You might want to ask a specific question about a specific incompatibility and how to work around it, rather than assume that something that is "more compatible" actually exists. It doesn't. – Warren P Oct 16 '11 at 17:42
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Check with your University to see if they offer student edition of MS Office for free or nearly free. – erjiang Oct 16 '11 at 17:43

5 Answers

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Your best bet will be IBM lotus symphony. It is free and most compatible with MS office when compared with Libreoffice/Openoffice. Official Ubuntu binaries are available from their website for both 32bit and 64 bit architecture.Though package says Ubuntu 8.0, worry not it works well on Ubuntu 11.10.

Also don't forget to download and install the service pack 3.

Link: http://www-03.ibm.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.nsf/home

Atul Kakrana

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Can you give a reference about "most compatible compared with Libre/OpenOffice"? I thought IBM Lotus Symphony was a forked OpenOffice. – zpletan Nov 17 '11 at 4:49
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There are a good compatible office suite for Linux, but unfortunately it’s proprietary.

It has the standard toolbar-based UI, no ribbons.

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Yozo Office is your superb choice.

For dissertation i recommend Tex , it's NOT a MSWord processor , but a powerful tool that many people use

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tex (latex) is not at all an answer to this person's question. If he wanted to do TeX he'd have asked for it. Yozo appears to be a commercial (paid) application. if this person can't afford a student license of MS office, maybe free apps would be better for them, since that seems to be looking for a free linux alternative. – Warren P Oct 16 '11 at 17:40
@WarrenP , Yes , it's commercial , i'm using it for years , better compatibility than any other suite , like StarOffice / LibreOffice / AbiWord – warl0ck Oct 16 '11 at 23:01
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I think that'd be the default word processor that comes shipped with Ubuntu, LibreOffice.
You can also choose to run Office 2007 under wine, that should work. To make things easier there are tools like Winetricks and PlayOnLinux.

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sadly the OP can't afford an MS office license. – Warren P Oct 16 '11 at 17:43
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There is also Open Office which many people still use for free. It is compatible with all word documents and you can save as a word document. I recommend this software.

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LibreOffice is itself a more up-to-date version of OpenOffice. Since the fork, OpenOffice has been on its way out anyway, so it might not be as good as a long-term solution. – WarriorIng64 Oct 16 '11 at 19:08

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