Office docs
Open legacy Microsoft documents in Linux
Say goodbye to proprietary formats, as Nate Drake helps give your old Microsoft files a new lease of life on Linux.
LIBREOFFICE
Credit: www.libreoffice.org
OUR EXPERT
Nate Drake broke out of his cubicle at Apple eight years ago to become a freelance journalist specialising in cybersecurity and retro tech.
In 1989, the father of the internet, Tim Berners-Lee, made a momentous decision. To give HTML and the world’s first web browser to the world freely. Since then, there’s been much speculation about what would have happened if he’d tried to patent his code or web browser. The most likely scenario would be a fragmented internet behind paywalls, which not even Google could access.
As we continue to reap the benefits of a relatively open internet, it’s easy to forget the main advantages of embracing Linux and royalty-free code. Even if an open source project is abandoned, as recently happened to Neofetch, the source code is freely available for others to maintain and fork.
Sadly, the gods of Microsoft haven’t always read this particular memo. For decades, the company has released a number of closed-source products using proprietary formats.
Chief among these was the Microsoft Works productivity suite, which contained a basic word processor, as well as spreadsheet and database software. Official support for Works ended in 2012 and the software isn’t available for purchase through official channels.