How to install OpenOffice on Linux
Not a fan of Libre Office on Linux? Are you looking to install Apache OpenOffice on your system instead? Follow along with this guide as we go over how to install OpenOffice on Linux. We’ve got detailed instructions for Ubuntu, Debian, Arch Linux, Fedora, and OpenSUSE!
Ubuntu/Debian instructions
Apache’s Open Office used to be the default office suite for Ubuntu, and that meant it was incredibly easy to install. However, times change. No longer is OpenOffice the default suite, and no longer is it in the default software sources for Ubuntu. As a result, if you would like to use OpenOffice on Linux, you must download the DEB package from the internet and install it.
Note: these installation instructions work on Debian Linux, in addition to Ubuntu. If you are using Debian, follow along with the tutorial below, but change apt to apt-get when necessary.
To start the installation, open up a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T on the keyboard. After that, use the wget download application to grab the OpenOffice install package.
wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/openofficeorg.mirror/files/4.1.7/binaries/en-US/Apache_OpenOffice_4.1.7_Linux_x86-64_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz/download -O Apache_OpenOffice_4.1.7_Linux_x86-64_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz
The download for the OpenOffice installation package is not a standalone DEB package. Instead, it is a TarGZ archive filled with many, many different DEB packages. For this reason, the download process will take quite a while. Be patient.
When the downloading process is complete, extract the TarGZ archive in your home directory by running the tar command below.
tar xvf Apache_OpenOffice_4.1.7_Linux_x86-64_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz
When the extraction process is complete, your home folder will have a new directory with the name of “en-US.” Move into this directory with the CD command.
cd en-US
Once you’re inside of the en-US folder, run the cat command and take a look at the included “readme” file, which explains exactly what you can do with the included Apache OpenOffice text file.
cat readmes/README_en-US | more
Take a look at the readme file. When done, close it by pressing the Ctrl + C command to end the readme. Then, move into the “DEBS” folder, where all of the Apache OpenOffice installation files by using the CD command.
cd DEBS/
Run the ls command to view the contents of the DEBS directory. You’ll notice that there are dozens of different DEB package files. It is impossible to install all of these files one-by-one, file-by-file. So, instead, to quickly load everything up on Ubuntu, we’ll use the wildcard (*) function.
sudo dpkg -i *.deb cd desktop-integration/ sudo dpkg -i *.deb
Let the packages install on your Ubuntu PC. It may take quite a bit of time due to the sheer amount of files to go through. When the process is all done, run the apt install -f command to correct any dependency issues that may have arisen.
sudo apt install -f
Or, if you’re unsure about how to correct dependencies on Ubuntu, check out our guide on the subject.
Arch Linux instructions
Arch Linux does not have an official download link for OpenOffice on the developer’s website. Instead, you must use the AUR to get everything working. To start the installation process, use the Pacman command to set up both Base-devel and Git.
sudo pacman -S git base-devel
After installing the two packages, you must download Trizen AUR helper. The reason that this helper must be installed is that OpenOffice for Arch Linux has over 15 dependencies. These dependencies are tedious and time-consuming to install. With Trizen, this process is easy and virtually automatic.
To install the Trizen AUR helper, download the package build from the AUR.
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/trizen.git
Move the terminal window into the “trizen” folder with the CD command.
cd trizen
Inside of the “trizen” directory, call the makepkg command to install the Trizen AUR helper on your Arch Linux PC.
makepkg -sri
Finally, after installing the Trizen application on your Arch Linux PC, you can get Apache OpenOffice up and running by running the following installation command.
trizen -S openoffice
Fedora/OpenSUSE instructions
Apache supports Fedora, OpenSUSE, and all Linux distributions that use the RPM package format. To start the installation process, open up a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T on the keyboard. Then, from there, use the wget downloader tool to grab the latest OpenOffice RPM release package.
wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/openofficeorg.mirror/files/4.1.7/binaries/en-US/Apache_OpenOffice_4.1.7_Linux_x86-64_install-rpm_en-US.tar.gz/download - O Apache_OpenOffice_4.1.7_Linux_x86-64_install-rpm_en-US.tar.gz
When the download is complete, use the tar command to extract the TarGZ archive to your home directory.
tar xvf Apache_OpenOffice_4.1.7_Linux_x86-64_install-rpm_en-US.tar.gz
After extracting the TarGZ archive RPM files, move the terminal session into the “en_US” directory with the CD command.
cd en_US
Take a look at the included “readme” file for OpenOffice with the cat command.
cat readmes/README_en-US | more
Close the “readme” with Ctrl + C. Then, move into the “RPMS” directory to install the files on either Fedora Linux or OpenSUSE Linux.
cd RPMS/
Fedora
sudo dnf install *.rpm cd desktop-integration/ sudo dnf install openoffice4.1.7-redhat-menus-4.1.7-9800.noarch.rpm -y
OpenSUSE
sudo zypper --no-gpg-checks install *.rpm cd desktop-integration/ sudo zypper --no-gpg-checks install openoffice4.1.7-suse-menus-4.1.7-9800.noarch.rpm
After installing the RPM package files on your system, OpenOffice is ready to use!
