Install and Use FreeOffice 2021 on Ubuntu 20.04|18.04

FreeOffice is a free and open-source alternative tool for the MS Office created by the German SoftMaker Software GmbH. It is one of the best alternatives for MS Office by offering full compatibility to MS suite formats. Although Free Office does not offer all applications as available in Microsoft Office, it focuses mainly on day-to-day used applications such as Text (an alternative to MS Word), PlanMaker (SpreadSheet), and Presentation (like PowerPoint).

SoftMaker has released the latest version of FreeOffice(FreeOffice 2021) a totally free version that is compatible with Linux, Windows, and Mac systems. This new version, FreeOffice 2021 has the following features:

• TestMaker 2021 supports simultaneous use of footnotes and endnotes in the same document.
• Presentations 2021 comes with new animation and slide transitions based on OpenGL.
• PlanMaker 2021 offers conditional formatting, extended pivot tables as well as full compatibility with Microsoft Excel 2019, 2021 and 365.
• Has support for multiple languages

FreeOffice consists of the following packages:

• TextMaker – this is a word processor
• SoftMaker Presentations – for presentations and graphics.
• BasicMaker – a VBA-like programming tool
• PlanMaker – this is a spreadsheet application

In this guide, we will systematically walk through how to install and use FreeOffice 2021 on Ubuntu 20.04|18.04.

Install FreeOffice 2021 on Ubuntu 20.04|18.04

In this guide, I will demonstrate two ways to get FreeOffice 2021 installed on your Ubuntu 20.04|18.04 system. These are:

• Using the Softmaker repository.
• Manually using a .deb file

Option 1 – Install FreeOffice 2021 on Ubuntu 20.04|18.04 using the SoftMaker repository.

There is a repository for FreeOffice that can be used to download and install any FreeOffice version on Ubuntu.

First, add the GPG key for the repository.

wget -qO - https://shop.softmaker.com/repo/linux-repo-public.key | sudo apt-key add -

Now add the SoftMaker repository on Ubuntu 20.04|18.04.

sudo apt-add-repository "deb http://shop.softmaker.com/repo/apt stable non-free"

Then update your APT package index.

sudo apt update

Now that the repository has been successfully added to our system, we can easily install the latest FreeOffice 2021 on Ubuntu 20.04|18.04 using the command:

sudo apt install softmaker-freeoffice-2021

Dependency tree:

Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  libcurl4
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libcurl4 softmaker-freeoffice-2021
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 22 not upgraded.
Need to get 131 MB of archives.
After this operation, 281 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y

Option 2 – Install FreeOffice 2021 on Ubuntu 20.04|18.04 Manually

Using this option, you will be required to download the latest .deb file from the Official SoftMaker FreeOffice downloads page. Alternatively, you can obtain the download link and pull the .deb package as below.

wget https://www.softmaker.net/down/softmaker-freeoffice-2021_1036-01_amd64.deb

Once the package has been downloaded, navigate the download path, if you used Wget, the package will be in your working directory. Proceed and install it using the command:

sudo dpkg -i softmaker-freeoffice-2021_1036-01_amd64.deb

Sample Output:

Preparing to unpack softmaker-freeoffice-2021_1036-01_amd64.deb ...
Removing document icons...
Removing icons from theme Adwaita /1 of 2/
Removing icons from theme hicolor /1 of 2/
Removing icons from theme HighContrast /1 of 2/
Removing icons from theme Humanity /1 of 2/
Removing icons from theme Adwaita /2 of 2/
Removing icons from theme hicolor /2 of 2/
Removing icons from theme HighContrast /2 of 2/
Removing icons from theme Humanity /2 of 2/
.......
Creating /etc/SoftMaker folder...
Installing for user thor
Cleaning the cache from folder: /var/tmp/kdecache-*/*
Adding icons to the menu...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.60ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.13.3-11ubuntu1.1) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.23-1ubuntu3.18.04.2) ...
Processing triggers for shared-mime-info (1.9-2) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.27-3ubuntu1.4) ..

With Freeoffice installed using this method, you are required to configure automatic updates on your Ubuntu 20.04|18.04.

sudo /usr/share/freeoffice2021/add_apt_repo.sh

Sample Output:

APT repository directory found.
/usr/share/freeoffice2021/add_apt_repo.sh: line 40: /tmp: Is a directory
Adding the SoftMaker repository to keep SoftMaker Office up to date...
Importing the key for the SoftMaker repository...
OK
All done!

Update your system.

sudo apt update

Now you will receive FreeOffice updates using the upgrade command.

Use FreeOffice 2021 on Ubuntu 20.04|18.04

With FreeOffice 2021 installed on your Ubuntu 20.04|18.04 using one of the methods illustrated above, now proceed and launch it from the App Menu.

You will see the 3 separate programs, that is FreeOffice Plan maker, FreeOffice Presentations, and FreeOffice TextMaker.

Let us begin with the FreeOffice Plan maker as below. Select your preferred them from the list.

You will then be required to provide your user information. If you do not need this at the moment, click cancel and proceed

You will then proceed to the FreeOffice Plan maker page, here, you can create spreadsheets similarly to what is done in MS Excel.

Now for saving options, FreeOffice gives you two options for saving your Plan maker document as below.

You can also launch the FreeOffice TextMaker, similar to MS word.

Also for this application has two options for saving a document as below.

Finally, the third package is the FreeOffice Presentations. This is similar to Powerpoint but has new animations/transitions added.

For this application, you are also provided with two saving options.

That was enough learning! We have successfully installed and used FreeOffice 2021 on Ubuntu 20.04|18.04. We have seen the improved MS Office compatibility in FreeOffice 2021 coming with two saving options.

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