LibreOffice64 vs LibreOffice32

Phantom54 · February 14, 2022, 10:51am

I have done some searches but have not been able to find an up to date answer. I can run both 64 bit apps and 32 bit apps on my reasonably up to date windows 10 laptop. Which is the more efficient version of libreoffice? I note the latest 64 bit version is 6.2.4 and the latest 32 bit version is 7.3.0. Why is there a difference?

Cheers

robleyd · February 14, 2022, 11:02am

Both 7.3.0 and 7.2.5 are available in both 32 and 64 bit versions at Download LibreOffice | LibreOffice - Free Office Suite - Based on OpenOffice - Compatible with Microsoft

Villeroy · February 15, 2022, 11:00am

32-bit is for those who can not run 64-bit software. Everybody else should install the 64-bit version.

Zizi64 · February 15, 2022, 6:44pm

“I note the latest 64 bit version is 6.2.4 and the latest 32 bit version is 7.3.0. Why is there a difference?”

Where you got this information from?

EarnestAl · February 15, 2022, 9:16pm

Maybe you were looking at system requirements for a particular extension? Some extensions such as odt2braille require the use of 32 bit, others might need 64 bit. If you’re looking at using a particular extension you might be limited in your choice of LibreOffice to use with it.

Happily, there are ways to install different versions in parallel (search wiki.documentfoundation.org for help on this) or more easily, you can use a portable version in addition to an installed version.

Phantom54 · February 15, 2022, 10:01pm

I was installing for a friend so I looked at the internet to download for him there. I could not give him a copy of the setup from my pc because I use PatchMyPC to update and my latest setup copy is not the latest LibreOffice. The first website I found that looked safe gave me the above information. Mmmm - I might uninstall that version and reinstall with the latest stable LibreOffice. Thanks for getting me to recheck.

Zizi64 · February 17, 2022, 7:06am

Always download the installer files from the official download site:
https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download/?lang=hu

On this page there is a link to the “official” portable versions too:
https://www.libreoffice.org/download/portable-versions/
And you can use the Portable Apps versions:
https://portableapps.com/apps/office/libreoffice_portable

Wanderer · February 14, 2022, 1:11pm

I’d say 32bit, because it sometimes will use less memory, but in times where people have 40 open tabs in chrome - who cares.

This is a historic question. If you start anything new, use 64bit anywhere. If you have to use something not convertible to 64 bit then keep the 32bit-system.

64bit is nice for hard-disk partitions bigger than 2 or 4 GB and videostreams bigger than older filesystems, but most users will never feel a big difference.

Over time support for 32 bit will dwindle in the same way as 16bit was dropped in 64bit-windows (32 bit Win7 and 8.1 were the last to run old dos-programs like dbase3)

mikekaganski · February 14, 2022, 2:48pm

Oh.

Please never measure “efficiency” based on memory consumption. It is plain wrong to think that if it uses less memory (by how much BTW? Did you measure?), it will provide better UX in any way.

Performance. Even without speaking about 32-vs-64 bit version of the same software, the ability to use more memory usually gives huge boost to any software, just because it may keep more in RAM, instead of using slower persistent storage. RAM is there to be used; and you would be wrong if you would enjoy the look of free RAM on your system: that unused RAM just means that you paid for something that you don’t use.
But then goes performance coming from 64-vs-32bit integers. And we do use lots of such 64-bit calculations.
Stability. Little to say here. You won’t be surprised if I tell you that it takes not long to fill 1.7 GB RAM using several moderately heavy spreadsheets in parallel, or using large images, before 32-bit application on Windows will run out of memory (and crash). Yes, one may argue that the memory usage (and stability) should be improved - you are right; but we discuss here the current status, and not some imaginary bright future of LO.
Capabilities. Partially coming from the previous points - you simply can do more with 64 bit version. Even working with new large spreadsheets (16 M rows, 16 K columns) is simply impossible with 32-bit LO.

So - hard to say in which way would 32-bit version be more efficient, except when used on memory-constrained embedded system…