OnlyOffice. A free multi-platform office suite for education

Last updated on 6 December 2022

You are already familiar with the ONLYOFFICE online collaborative toolkit for educational institutions that have been presented in this Article. A look back at this suite incorporating, among other things, a word processor, a spreadsheet and a quality presentation tool. We will talk more specifically this time about ONLYOFFICE desktop applications.

ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors targets both students and teachers looking for a solid alternative to the MS Office suite for Windows, Linux and macOS.

OnlyOffice’s desktop applications are particularly well suited for educational activities and use in the world of education.

Work on office documents of different formats

What if your students send you presentations created with different office suites? How to evaluate slideshows if their content is not displayed correctly when you open them on your workstation?

ONLYOFFICE desktop applications solve this problem by providing you with a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation tool compatible with MS Office formats (OOXML – DOCX, XLSX, PPTX). They also support most other common formats such as ODT, ODS, ODP, PDF, RTF, etc.

Desktop editors have a tabbed interface with formatting tools that are as smooth as those in the online version.

Add additional features

Digital and multimedia are increasingly taking centre stage in teaching practices and teaching. How to insert a video so that students can see it directly in a document and better understand the subject? How do I translate an extract of text or an entire document into another language without leaving the editor’s interface?

It is obvious that even ONLYOFFICE editors, which are full of useful tools, are not equipped for all situations. However, you are able to extend existing functionalities or add additional tools. ONLYOFFICE provides additional modules, including for example:

• Highlighted code: serves to highlight the syntax of the code by choosing the necessary language, style and background color;
• OCR: performs optical character recognition on images and their insertion into documents;
• Word: it is the speech synthesis to convert a selected text into words;
• YouTube: allows you to embed YouTube videos in your document;
• Telegram: allows you to communicate with your co-authors without leaving the publisher’s interface;
• HTML: is used to import the content of the document in the form of a code;
• Word counter: to know the number of words, characters with or without spacing, paragraphs in a part of a file or an entire document;
• Google Translate: translates the text into another language;
• Typograf: helps to eliminate spelling errors and correct formatting.

Other tools are available. New features appear regularly thanks to APIs freely provided by ONLYOFFICE.

Protect documents from unwanted changes

Documents often come and go from one computer to another. How to secure them so as not to lose the content of the initial form? How to keep a summary of the progress made by each separated and protected student?

ONLYOFFICE desktop applications offer several protection options. Their interface contains the ‘Protection’ tab. The "Encrypt" button allows you to store documents by encrypting them with a reliable password.

In addition, you are able to add a digital signature in your text documents, spreadsheets, presentations to certify that they do not contain any undesirable changes. In this way, the addressees are assured of the provenance and authenticity of the document received.

Collaborate on online documents

OnlyOffice does not forget its functions as a collaborative working tool. To start teamwork, simply switch to online mode.

Go to the ‘Connect to the cloud’ section and select a web service (the ONLYOFFICE cloud, Nextcloud, ownCloud, Seafile) to edit online the documents stored there or start collaboratively writing your files in real time directly from the ONLYOFFICE desktop application interface. Practical.

Also read: 3 OCR tools to extract the text present in an image.

Open and view multiple documents at the same time

How can I open two or more files to compare them or to draw information from each other?

In ONLYOFFICE desktop applications, you can view and work on multiple documents simultaneously in a single window through the tab-based user interface. If you use two or more screens, you are able to view, view and edit different documents in separate windows.

Download ONLYOFFICE desktop applications

Desktop applications also provide access to advanced features that you can enable and use by being a user of one of the commercial editions. Some of the advanced tools include:

• comparison of documents which saves time during marking by allowing teachers to compare dissertations and follow revisions;
• content checks to create personalised tests or assessments with checkboxes or drop-down lists, assess students’ progress and manage questionnaires;
• the table display allowing you to apply custom filters without disturbing your co-authors to display your schedule or consult a student’s grades.

To access advanced features, connect desktop applications to the paid version of ONLYOFFICE and create a new document or open an existing file. Once enabled, these tools will be available when connecting to the cloud, but also when working on local files.

ONLYOFFICE and GNU/Linux distributions used for educational purposes

ONLYOFFICE desktop applications have been implemented in the Linkat Edu 18.04. This GNU/Linux distribution, developed by the Department of Education of Catalonia, aims to promote the use of free tools in non-university educational institutions. From now on, Linkat users are able to work on office documents in offline mode.

ONLYOFFICE desktop applications are also included in the environment Escuelas Linux, a GNU/Linux distribution for educational environments, totally free and non-profit.

To explore all available features, you can download freely ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors.