this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2026
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I'm looking to move my dad, who is not versed in technology, from Windows 10 to Linux. Windows 11 is not supported on his old laptops and given his computer usage I think it's not worth to buy a new laptop just to be on Windows 11 with Slopilot. He uses Excel a lot, but only basic functionality, which any office suite can do. The problem is he is accustomed to the Ribbon UI and although he has LibreOffice on his other computer, he seems not to like it, I think he's lost in its UI/UX. I would like to find an office suite for Linux that looks like MS Office. It doesn't need any bells & whistles, basic spreadsheet and document functionality is enough. I'd like to move all his Excel spreadsheets to that new program.

I looked at OnlyOffice -- I think it's the closest match. But it's Russian (I believe their HQ in Latvia is a smokescreen). WPS Office looks kinda Ribbon-like, but I see they focus heavily on AI and cloud. Collabora is based on LibreOffice. LibreOffice is not like Excel. I think it may not be possible to find what I'm looking for, but perhaps somebody can help.

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[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] steel_for_humans@piefed.social 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Hm... Worth a try. :) Somehow I didn't find it, I only saw something called "notebookbar". Thanks. I don't use any office suites (besides Google Spreadsheets to keep track of my video games spend) myself so I'm clueless.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 1 points 3 weeks ago

No problem. I only knew about it because I read some article when it was released a while back.

Hopefully your Dad will find it easy to use.

[–] Overspark@piefed.social 2 points 3 weeks ago

LibreOffice has multiple UIs you can choose from somewhere in the settings. It defaults to an old Office-like UI but it has a ribbon one too. Maybe try that out first?

[–] Melusine@tarte.nuage-libre.fr 2 points 3 weeks ago

Aside from peuple talking about LibreOffice's ruban interface, collabora could do the work but last time I tried in flatpak, the UI felt laggy, and yua can wait for EuroOffice, a fork of OnlyOffice by nextcloud and ionos

[–] muhyb@programming.dev 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Not open source but has a Linux version so might do the job >> Free Office

[–] steel_for_humans@piefed.social 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

This actually looks brilliant! And I see it's German, which is a plus. Thank you!

[–] muhyb@programming.dev 1 points 3 weeks ago

No problem! Hopefully it works well for your dad.

[–] DeckPacker@piefed.social 1 points 3 weeks ago

You could try Colabora