Other tools

What else can you accomplish with these programs?

Word processor, spreadsheet and presentation application are three of the most commonly used tools in an office suite. Our selection of suites for this Roundup each offers other applications as well.

Google Docs’s Forms can be used to quickly create some of the most common ones, such as contact, RSVP and party invite. The templates provide a vast selection of the commonly used ones across many different categories such as Personal, Word (job application, event feedback), and Education (assessment, worksheet). You can also use Google Drawings to create flowcharts and mind maps, but not artistic works.

Calligra provides you with Karbon, a vector graphics drawing application, but the tool is no longer maintained. If you’re interested in a graphical application for building databases, you can try your hands at Kexi. Calligra Plan is a project management tool that can be used to manage even moderately large projects.

Like Calligra’s Kexi, LibreOffice Base is a graphical database management application similar to Microsoft Access. Base boasts of various wizards to help new users, or even skilled hands create tables, queries, forms and reports. It also features pre-defined table definitions for tracking assets, customers, sales orders and invoices to ease quick deployment. It provides native support for most of the widely used database engines, such as MySQL, MS Access, PostgreSQL and others. In comparison, Calligra’s Kexi doesn’t support MS Access and isn’t as well developed as Base.

Unlike the other tools, WPS Office and OnlyOffice only feature the three essential components, and there’s no word on whether they’ll ever provide a drawing or database application.