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Add to SafariWhen comparing Abiword + Gnumeric + Dia (formerly GNOME Office) vs WPS Office, the Slant community recommends WPS Office for most people. In the question“What are the best office suites for UNIX-like systems?” WPS Office is ranked 4th while Abiword + Gnumeric + Dia (formerly GNOME Office) is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose WPS Office is:
WPS has the best compatibility with MS Office files of all major office suites that support Linux.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Lightweight
Both AbiWord & Gnumeric are designed with low resource consumption in mind. As such they are great applications for older computers.
Pro Great import/export features
Pro Free and open-source
Pro Straight forward
'Old' style menu structure is lovely to support users.
Pro Multilingual
Over 30 languages are supported.
Pro Collaborative editing
Abiword is able to edit online collaborative documents.
Pro Excellent Microsoft Office compatibility
WPS has the best compatibility with MS Office files of all major office suites that support Linux.
Pro Ribbon-like UI
WPS is the only Linux office suit to offer a Ribbon-like UI for better ease of use. Although, if you wish to keep using a classic drop-down menu style UI, you can.
Pro Free version
WPS comes in three flavors: Free, Standard ($49.95) and Professional ($69.95).
Pro Cross-platform desktop and mobile
Available on Windows, Linux, iOS and Android.
Pro Pdf viewer
Has support to view pdf files.
Pro Multilingual
WPS Office is available in more than 40 languages.
Pro Tabbed interface
Instead of open up a new instance of the program for each document, WPS opens each document as a separate tab, allowing for easy switching between them.
Pro Smooth integration with many different cloud services at the same time
WPS integrates with multiple cloud service's at once such as Dropbox, One Drive, Google Drive and more.
Pro Integrated backups
WPS will automatically save your document over time to prevent data loss.
Pro Encryption support
WPS allows you to encrypt and password-lock files.
Pro It is not owned by Microsoft
Supporting linux & open source and leaving Microsoft because of their greed and instability with updates etc.. (personal preference)
Pro View documents side by side
You can split the window allowing to view different parts of the same document, or open two documents for comparison, also imitating Microsoft Word.
Pro Clean edition when sharing your document
Text modifications can be verified at the margins, not mixed with the text, imitating Microsoft Word. On the other side, LibreOffice/OpenOffice don't have this very useful feature.
Pro Change pdf documents to word
Pro Available on snapcraft and flathub too
Cons
Con Almost abandoned
Very few updates and bug fixes.
Con Default format is only readable with Gnumeric
Gnumeric is able to read/write a lot of file formats including ODS, XLS, XLSX, but it's default .gnumeric format is only readable with Gnumeric.
Con AbiWord has a dated aesthetic
The interface hasn't had a facelift since it's inception in 1998.
Con File interchangability
You may like it or not, but this is an O365 dominated world. And at some time you will need to send somebody the result of your work digitally. Then not being able to share a compatible file format is a pain. Even if your application is great and light (which it is).
Con Chinese software
Might be a security problem for some end-users.
Con Proprietary software
Although some versions/programs are free to download, they're all proprietary licenses utilizing a freeware model.
Con No HiDPI support
Problematic with 4K screens.
Con No equation editor in Linux
Equation editor for Linux has been "under development" for several years with no real additional info from the developers. Safe to say it's just not going to happen. No equation editor is a deal breaker for some, which is a shame. Otherwise this office suite performs very well.
Con Lacks ODF support
WPS Office does not support importing or exporting OpenDocument Format, the default file format of LibreOffice and OpenOffice.
Con Installing can be a hassle
A .deb file is offered, but missing fonts can be a problem.
Con No hyphenaton, no help or real forum
Lack of hyphenation in Writer is a terrible mistake. Reading the few forums about it will let you know that it breaks the words without rules and without hyphens in any language. The question was stated in 2013 and still doesn't have an answer. Their help system practically doesn't exist, everything leads you to a 404 page. Maybe this issue could be easily resolved by developers with a plugin or something like that, but the Linux community doesn't show interest for the product.
Con Ads
There are in-app ads.
Con Default font styles are not pretty
Con Only the basic office tools
WPS has software for word-processing, spreadsheets and presentations. No tools for database management, note-taking, graphics, etc.
Con Very slow to load
I looks like there is a splash screen, but it doesn't appear until just before the full interface loads, which can be about 20 seconds. It is often slow enough to cause the user to click again and again, resulting in the app loading multiple times in succession.
Con Some Ms Fonts are not available (ie Ariel)
Con Dumps configuration files onto the desktop that are visible to the user
Each of the apps in the suite has a .desktop configuration file that is created at first launch and remains thereafter. Removal results in re-creation.
Con There are better Office alternatives for Linux
In my testing of office suites for Linux, WPS Office was not as comprehensive as LibreOffice, and the resemblance to Microsoft 365 applications was better in OnlyOffice Desktop Editors. Moreover, Linux users can also access the online applications of Microsoft 365 via Google Chrome or other web browsers.
