One of the best free alternatives to Microsoft Office is FreeOffice, developed by a German software company- SoftMaker. Recently, they have upgraded their Office suite to version 21. And here we learn the steps to install FreeOffice 2021 version on Ubuntu 20.04 Linux using the command terminal.
This free office suite is a part of the commercial one from the same developers known as SoftMaker Office 21 (also available for Linux), of course, the premium will have more features but that doesn’t mean the free version- FreeOffice 2021 deprives to full fill all daily office documents (MS-Word alternative) related requirements. It offers a Microsoft office ribbon-like interface and three modules- TextMaker 21 to create documents; PlanMaker 21 to create sheets (Excel alternative) and Presentations 21 for making slides like MS-Powerpoint.
Steps to install FreeOffice 2021 on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa Linux
The given steps can also be used for Ubuntu 22.04/18.04 including LinuxMint, Debian 11, MX Linux, POP!OS and other common similar Linux distros.
1. log in as root
Let’s login with the root user:
sudo -i
2. Download and add GPG Key:
Before downloading the packages to install FreeOffice 2021, we need to add the GPG key used by its developers to sign the packages.
wget -qO - https://shop.softmaker.com/repo/linux-repo-public.key | apt-key add -
3. Add FreeOffice 2021 repository in Ubuntu 20.04
The package to install 2021 FreeOffice is not available in the official repository of Ubuntu 20.04, hence we need to add the one we get from the official website of SoftMaker.
echo "deb https://shop.softmaker.com/repo/apt stable non-free" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/softmaker.list
4. Update APT cache
To let our Ubuntu Linux know that we recently have added a new repository and made it cache the packages available in that, once run the system update command.
sudo apt udpate
5. Command to install FreeOffice on Ubuntu 20.04 Linux
Finally, use the given APT package manager command to download and install the packages we need to set up this latest free SoftMaker office suite on our Linux.
apt install softmaker-freeoffice-2021