Do I need to uninstall MS-Office before installing LibreOffice?

[rudypark79]

Do i need to uninstall windows office version e.g office 2007/2010 before install the LibreOffice in the same windows operating system e.g. windows XP? Can it both install together?

Last but not least, what are the important things that i have to consider when installing LibreOffice to prevent errors; is it important to setting the user profile?

In some cases some of the Word documents that were saved using Office 2007 cannot be correctly opened by LibreOffice Writer e.g. documenting setting for thesis writing up like creating captions for equations, pictures, tables, font types, size and etc…

One more thing is can i open documents that have XML links (in case document saving using 2010 office version).

[qubit1]

Hi @Anonymous2,

Looks like you have a handful of questions, so let’s try to answer them one at a time:

1. Does one need to uninstall Microsoft Office before installing LibreOffice?

No. MS-Office and LibreOffice can both be installed concurrently on a Windows system (e.g. WinXP, Win2k, Windows 8, etc…)

2. “what is the important things that i have to consider when installing LibreOffice to prevent errors, is it important to setting the user profile?”

I’m not sure what question you’re asking here. Choosing the default options during an install will usually work.

3. “In some cases some of the words documents that was save using office 2007 cannot be correctly open when using writer LibreOffice e.g. documenting setting for thesis writing up like creating captions for equations, pictures, tables, font types, size and etc…”

I do know that some incompatibilities can exist between MS-Office and LibreOffice. I can’t speak to all of the items on your list, but captions and tables sound like two items that I have heard brought up previously when testing compatibility. Regarding fonts, unless specific fonts are embedded into a document, two different computers may not have the same set of fonts and thus may display a given document differently.

Do you have any specific documents produced with Office 2007 that do not render correctly in LibreOffice? Having those documents attached to bug reports would help us track down and eliminate incompatibilities in file import.

4 “One more thing is can i open document that has XML links (in case document saving using 2010 office version).”

Hmm…what’s the default file format for MS-Office 2010? Docx? I’m not sure if LibreOffice can properly import XML links from a .docx file. And what do you mean ‘XML links’? Do you just mean any reference to an internal/external resource?

[ROSt53]

Let me add to the excellent explanations of qubit just encouraging comments, experienced based:

I installed about 6 month ago LibO parallel to MS Office 2003 on my XP / SP2 old PC without any special considerations. After the installation I opened Tool/Options and made here and there a change to the default settings and just started working with LibO (with experience I changed a few more). I tested LibO for about 2 month parallel to MSO 2003. There are things, which I found better in MSO but there are more things I found better in LibO. Thus, my new PC (originally W7 but downgrade on purpose to XP /SP3) contains only LibO and no MSO anymore.

Compatibility is not really 100%. docx or doc format? I tend to say doc is better compatible but I never made a real comparison. Reason is that I converted to LibO because I like it better and tackle the problem of MSO compatibility on a case by case basis.

Should you use Writer often, I am pretty sure you will like it soon better than Word. I found that Writer is much easier to be used. Especially the Styles in LibO are much better structured and easier to be used. I never understood the MSO Styles really and they always caused me head aches.

And there is the bug report and enhancement request possibility. In LibO I can see what happens to my bug reports and enhancement requests and sometimes I get even questions back. With MSO I don’t know about such a possibility.

So, go ahead and install LibO (I am running 3.6.4.3) still in this year and have a great start with it in the next year, which starts next week.

And if you have a question, you know already where to ask.