Several new office packages (ElixirOffice — a recreation of the MS Office interface on the ONLYOFFICE engine, TinyLittleOffice — a browser-based office suite that saves documents via links, ALT Office — a LibreOffice build from ALT Linux developers):
- ElixirOffice — an office suite for users accustomed to Microsoft Office, offering a user interface in its style. It supports document editing in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint formats (.docx, .xlsx, and .pptx), as well as in OpenDocument format. The structure of panels, menus, dialogs, and keyboard shortcuts mimics Microsoft Office. It is available as a standalone desktop build and a server edition, which is accessed via a browser. The code is written in JavaScript and Python with the involvement of AI, and is open-sourced under the AGPLv3 license. The implementation is interesting as it utilizes developments and the engine from the Euro-Office project (a fork of ONLYOFFICE), with changes focused on redesigning the interface to align with MS Office.
The project was created for the developer's wife, who teaches at a school and has tried transitioning to open office suites several times, only to return to MS Office each time due to the unfamiliarity of alternative package interfaces and issues with displaying documents created by colleagues. Realizing that changing habits developed over years of using MS Office is not easy, it was decided to create a new office package that would make the transition from MS Office seamless.
- TinyLittleOffice — the key idea of the project is that a document is identified not with a file, but with a link. To share or copy a document, it is sufficient to share or copy the link from the address bar. No account is required to work with documents. It offers word and spreadsheet processors, a planner, a chart builder, a presentation system, a calculator, a vector editor, a calendar-planner, and a trip planner. Editing and working with data is done on the client side, with all content being saved directly in the link itself (the longer the document, the longer the link). Short links can be used to store documents in an encrypted form (the server part runs on the user's hardware). server в зашифрованном виде (серверная часть запускается на оборудовании пользователя).
Document contents are encoded in TLO format, which resembles Markdown. Import and export are supported in PDF, HTML, JSON, and Markdown, as well as in office formats like docx, rtf, pptx, and xlsx. The interface is minimalist, supporting only the essential features. The code is written in TypeScript with AI involvement and is distributed under the MIT license.
- Basalt SPB has introduced the office suite "Free Office" (ALT Office or Free Office), which includes word and spreadsheet processors, presentation editors, vector graphics editors, formula editors and databases, an email client, the Chromium browser (with tools for working with electronic signatures, the Ministry of Digital Development's certificate, and support for GOST cryptographic algorithms), the PDF document processing application Surguch, and the Alt-csp-cryptopro application for integration with CryptoPro CSP. It supports installation on both physical and virtual workstations using the freeoffice-installer (not to be confused with SoftMaker FreeOffice).
The ALT Office page does not specify the basis on which the product is built, only mentioning a depersonalized "office suite." Meanwhile, the provided user manual features screenshots that depict LibreOffice, which has also been mentioned in the rpm package freeoffice, supplied for a long time in ALT Linux. The email client used is ThunderBird. The product is distributed under a proprietary license that allows free use only by individuals and requires purchasing a license for legal entities.
Addendum: New versions have been released
- Euro-Office Lite (0.17.31-alpha) is a simplified version of Euro-Office, rewritten using AI in Rust with the Tauri framework. License AGPLv3.0.
- GenOffice (0.11.727) is an alternative to Microsoft Office, supporting .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx formats, PDF, Markdown, and HTML editing, and is notable for its close integration of an AI agent into the document workflow. The code is written in TypeScript and is provided under the Apache 2.0 license.
- WordCraft (0.7.0), GridCraft (0.7.0), DeckCraft (0.7.0) are clones of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint developed by the ArtCraft project, generated in Rust through AI. License MIT.
Source: opennet.ru
