Liberated Office

Liberated Office

From Crossed Wires by James Bilsbrough & Jae Bloom

January 6, 2026 · 1h 23m · Episode 85

About this episode

The episode features a discussion with Mike Saunders from The Document Foundation about the importance of alternatives to Microsoft Office and the history of LibreOffice.

It's been a lot longer than we planned between episodes, but we're happy to be back in 2026 with a great chat with Mike Saunders from The Document Foundation who maintain the wonderful LibreOffice suite. We chat about why it's important to have alternatives to Microsoft Office, the history of LibreOffice, why a truly open document format is so important as well as random detours into the concept of modern word processors for vintage hardware! What's your view on LibreOffice and the reasons for needing alternatives to things like Office 365 and Google Docs? We'd love to hear from you, so please send us a note to podcast@crossedwires.net, or why not come join the discussion on our Discord server. If you liked this episode or any of our content, we’d greatly appreciate any little bit of support you can throw our way over at our Ko-Fi page. Affiliate Promotion "Don't you people backup? I backup, and I don't even know what backing up means!" - Nicola Murray, Secretary of State for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship If you have any kind of file that's important to you, be that a treasured family photo, your latest research paper, or just the list of the co-ordinates of…

People in this episode

Hosts: James Bilsbrough, Jae Bloom

Guest: Mike Saunders

Topics covered

  • LibreOffice
  • alternatives to Microsoft Office
  • open document formats
  • modern word processors
  • backup strategies

Keywords

  • LibreOffice
  • Microsoft Office
  • open document format
  • backup strategy
  • cloud syncing
  • word processors
  • technology

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: The Document Foundation, Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship

Products: LibreOffice, Microsoft Office, Office 365, Google Docs

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