We get down and dirty with Collabora Office 26.04, the new desktop twin to Collabora Online, to see how it stacks up against LibreOffice, OnlyOffice, Euro‑Office and, yes, Microsoft Office.
It’s been almost exactly a month since we told you about the release of Collabora CODE 26.04 as the latest free community version of Collabora Online. Last week, the company released Collabora Office 26.04 for those who want to do away with the cloud and access the software locally. It’s open source, available for Windows, Linux (as a flatpak or snap).
Who is it for? The UK-based company behind it would probably tell you it’s for anybody who’s looking for a full featured productivity suite. It’s likely going to be most appealing to those using Collabora Online through a company Nextcloud portal at work, who would like to have the same software available on a home computer without having to run a server or find a host.
It offers similar features to LibreOffice, on which it’s based, as well as to Euro-Office, OnlyOffice, and (heaven forbid!) MS Office.
The Fifty-Cent Tour
How is it to use? I’m an old LibreOffice/OpenOffice.com user (I actually cut my teeth on StarOffice, the upstream proprietary source to both of those apps), and I’ve been trying this new release out by doing all of my work on it since it was officially released on July 2. So far it hasn’t stumped me, so I’m figuring that anyone who’s had a fair amount experience on LibreOffice, OpenOffice, or MS Office, will adapt just fine. It’s totally stable on my Linux box, with no stumbles, freezes or crashes. If anything, it’s more nimble than the other three, and seems to be a bit quicker on its feet than either Microsoft’s Office or LibreOffice – not that I’ve ever had any problems in that regard with either app.
As far as look, feel, and workflow goes, Collabora’s Office takes the same web app approach as its Online and CODE apps – which only makes sense considering its raison d’être is to be a locally running version of Collabora. Those coming from LibreOffice or Microsoft should adapt easy enough, as the UI combines elements of traditional menus (à la LibreOffice and ancient versions of MS Office) as well as ribbon components similar to Microsoft’s approach for the last 20 years or so. At one point, I did have a little trouble figuring out how to access “find and replace,” but eventually found it in the part of the screen I’m calling the “ribbon” as (of all things!) “Replace.”
If you’re coming from OnlyOffice or Euro-Office (or something even more esoteric such as a modern versions of WordPerfect), I can’t tell you what the learning curve might look like. I’ve never used OnlyOffice or Euro-Office, and the last time I used WordPerfect was when I was running Windows 3.11 on MS DOS 6.22.
Tire Kicking
I’ve been using the app to write this article, which has been going nicely, but I’ve stayed away from using the spreadsheet function, simply because I hate working with spreadsheets. Also out of habit, I’ve stayed away from the app’s Impress alternative, Presentations, which is a habit I should break, since that’s a skill I need to hone.
However, I did give creating a table in a word processing document a try, since that’s something I frequently do in LibreOffice. Creating the table was easy enough, almost exactly how it’s done in LibreOffice, but I was unable to figure out how to create the function to total a column of dollar amounts. I was able to copy an existing formatted table from a LibreOffice document into Collabora, and the Sum function remained intact, so evidently there is a way to do it. I just haven’t figured out how.
The other thing I checked out was inserting an image into a text document. This was easily done simply by selecting Insert from the menu, and then selecting Images. After that, it was just a matter of finding the image in the file system and selecting it. After that, it was easy enough to size, and to have the article’s text wrap around it.
Following the Brass Tacks
Probably the biggest standout when it comes to new features included in this release is the inclusion of AI, which was probably inevitable since, like it or not, AI is showing up in practically all apps these days.
“The AI sidebar works on the document you’re actually in,” Collabora explains. “It can draft and refine text in Writer, build and troubleshoot formulas in Calc (there’s even a help button right on cells with formula errors), turn rough notes or long source material into structured slides in Impress, generate images, and summarise long documents, all without leaving your work.”
Another like it or not thing is that the built-in AI is agentic, meaning that if you evoke it, it has direct access to your document. That might be a good thing if your writing skills are fair to middling and your exacting boss wants you to draft a letter to an important client. Me? I don’t want to hand anything I write over to AI.
The good news is that when writing this article I had no problem keeping AI at bay. In fact, when I wanted to look at it, I had to spend a minute or so looking for it. That’s a good thing.
Collabora will likely get some grief from some open source quarters over its approach to document formatting. It’s obvious from the release notes that company execs have been paying attention to the recent rapid forking and development that led to last month’s release of Euro-Office, which at this point is Collabora’s biggest competitor – especially in the EU.
Euro-Office was forked from OnlyOffice specifically because of the latter’s ability to render documents created in OOXML on Microsoft software accurately, which is something that Collabora’s upstream LibreOffice is not very good at. Document compatibility is something the EU thinks is important in its quest for digital sovereignty, because the EU’s aim isn’t to quit doing business with American companies so much as it’s to not be dependent on US technology.
In light of this, Collabora is advertising “advances in document compatibility” when it comes to this release, which includes “excellent and ever-improving handling of OOXML interoperability in Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats.”
How improved is its rendering of OOXML? I wouldn’t know. I stay as far away from Microsoft’s products as possible.
Test Driving It
If you want to take this one around the block a few times to check it out, that’s easy. It’s available at the Microsoft Store for Windows users and at the App Store for Mac for the Apple crowd. Linux users with machine’s that are flatpak-ready can install it from Flathub, or if you’re using Ubuntu – or one of the officially sanctioned baby *buntus, you can install it as a Snap.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
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