Hi all,

I have 5 really old Windows Vista computers which are no longer supported. I'd love to update the OS to something that IS supported, and since we're a not-for-profit, the price tag of Linux is very attractive

The only thing stopping me from going forward is our requirement for Microsoft Office (LibreOffice isn't an option for us). We have current, valid licenses for Office 2010, 2013 and 2016.

The technical ability level of our users is very basic, so using online Office within a browser (which requires a MS account) or launching a virtual machine is not acceptable to us. It needs to be able to be launched from a shortcut on the desktop and have as close to a Windows-like, native app experience as possible.

I've found some online tutorials suggesting Office can work within Linux with programs like Wine and PlayOnLinux (e.g. https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/instal...-office-linux/) and I'd like to hear your experiences to help me decide if Linux is still an option for us or not.

Thanks!

Many years ago I had ms-word running on a Linux desktop using WINE, so it is possible.

You might check the WINE application database to see what the current status might be,

https://www.winehq.org/

You could also check Codeweavers, https://www.codeweavers.com/products/crossover-linux

https://askubuntu.com/questions/5346...it-wine-prefix

says it works well for them, your just going to have to try it and see.

I've never used it but have you checked out the free online MS Office?
https://products.office.com/en-US/of...-office-online

Also, the company Codeweavers makes "crossover office" which is customized wine for running windows apps on Linux. It is commercial but no clue how much it costs or how well it works.

Why is libreoffice not an option?

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Check out Softmaker Office. It works very well with Microsoft files:
https://www.softmaker.com/en/

This is what I'd like to know as well.

There isn't much that LibreOffice can't do these days. It even had its own version of VB built in.

The problem is that LibreOffice is not fully compatible with MS Office. For me it is irrelevant, so I can use LO, but if you really wish to use the full power of MS Office you can't use anything else. For simple cases LO is a really good "replacement".

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as others, i'd also like to hear an explanation.
it might even help us help you better.

fwiw, it is possible to have a clickable desktop shortcut that starts a vm that autostarts ms office.

but if ms office is known to work with wine, that's what i'd use.

I installed PlayOnLinux on my Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver. This installation went well with no problems and I have had no problems with either PlayOnLinux working as expected nor with PlayOnLinux affecting other systems.

OP said his users are of basic skill level, so it is highly unlikely that they are using any advanced features of MSO.

I recently completed a course which required the final assignment to be submitted in Word format using the template which was supplied. They had no trouble opening the file after I had edited it in LO.

Recently, I was reviewing a legal brief in LibreOffice that was created in ms-word. Looked just like the original.

I would also encourage the user to investigate LibreOffice and share my experience with the program. I am a student and have used it extensively with minimal problems for academic purposes. There was one issue where a professor could not open a file, but that was my mistake because (if memory serves) I was using OpenOffice and saving it in an outdated format.

During another course, there was also some formatting issues during a group project. However, to be honest, I am not sure if it was LibreOffice, the particular version of Office the team member was using (as only one member of the group seemed to have any problems), or during transfer/intermediate storage (we were using Google Docs for collaboration). I have also had issues with PowerPoint presentations. One where the professor was/is using "SmartArt" (or something like that), that did not translate to LibreOffice and another when creating presentations. However, I believe the latter was primarily due to font issues. Linux will not come with standards Windows fonts such as Arial, Times New Roman, etc. In the case of the PowerPoint presentation, this actually had some impact in my scenario. However, I have had submitted many papers written using LibreOffice and/or OpenOffice, as well as a few PowerPoint presentations, and, aside from the aforementioned, never encountered any real problems.

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I did 100% of my graduate work in LO/OO but was fortunate to be able to turn in all papers in PDF format and not ".doc/x". Never had a single issue. PlayOnLinux is predominantly meant for games so not entirely sure I'd use it for other apps, although it would probably work.