No scientific survey was conveyed to proved that OOXML is more widely used than ODF. The old files still exist in binary formats, but OOXML is catching up quickly. But putting aside the moral aspects of their monopolistic approach, we have to say they were brilliant and also put much time and effort in their document editors.Įven with such alternatives as OpenOffice (back then) and LibreOffice (now), Microsoft Office stays the most popular office suite in the world and the majority of office docs ever created was saved in Microsoft formats. Note that the word ‘open’ here did not mean being open source because the formats were protected by Microsoft patents. In 2007 Microsoft launched a new version of their Office that by default saved documents in the newly created OOXML (Office Open XML) formats – docx, xlsx, pptx. Even Microsoft tech guys saw that and took the idea. The abbreviation stands for Open Document formats, and the word ‘open’ here reveals their open source nature and that they could be used without restrictions. Luckily, the Jedi knights from open source community created an alternative – new XML-based formats called ODF. They were strictly closed so that Microsoft could maintain a monopoly. Once all of the office formats were binary. No special procedure should be required.Here’s a quick primer on office software history. Make your decision, and stay with it, or if required, go back to previous suite. So, my advise would be: just uninstall the old application using your OS standard application management tools then install LibreOffice. So - I suppose that simply installing LibreOffice in no way can disable your access to your data. All of them also supports many other file types LibreOffice supports the greatest number of such external file types. So, installing any of them gives access to all these types of files.

All of these suites are based upon the same ODF standard (ODT, ODS, ODG, ODP files).

So, no removal of the program might affect your data files. The documents are kept on your filesystem (like, in Documents directory).

Neither of those suites store your documents inside themselves.So, just in case you’s not be satisfied with your experience with LibreOffice, you can always remove it and return back to OOo/AOO. All of, Apache OpenOffice, and LibreOffice are free software, that don’t require any commitment from you: you are free to uninstall them at any time, and then install them back wherever you want.Well - I don’t know of a resource with a step-by-step instructions for this case.

Openoffice or libreoffice 2018