Collabora Online is an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

online office suite that can be integrated with any web application, it is developed by Collabora Productivity, a division of Collabora. Collabora Online has

LibreOffice LibreOffice () is a free and open-source office productivity software suite, a project of The Document Foundation (TDF). It was forked in 2010 from OpenOffice.org, an open-sourced version of the earlier StarOffice. The LibreOffice suite cons ...

at its core and allows for

collaborative real-time editing A collaborative real-time editor is a type of collaborative software or web application which enables real-time collaborative editing, simultaneous editing, or live editing of the same digital document, computer file or cloud-stored data – s ...

of word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and vector graphics. Collabora is a commercial partner with LibreOffice's parent organisation

The Document Foundation The Document Foundation (TDF) is a non-profit organization that promotes open-source document handling software. It was created by members of the OpenOffice.org community to manage and develop LibreOffice, a free and open-source office suite, a ...

(TDF). The TDF states that a majority of the LibreOffice software development is done by its commercial partners, Collabora,

Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide. Red Hat has become ass ...

, CIB, and Allotropia.

Features

Any modern

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

without plug-ins or add-ons can access Collabora Online to edit or collaboratively edit in real-time; text documents, spreadsheets, presentations and vector graphics. Collaborative functions include comments which other users can respond to, and document version history enabling comparison of documents and restoring among other things. Advanced collaborative functions include things like integrated video calls or chat whilst collaboratively editing documents, these are possible as Collabora Online integrates with enterprise file synchronisation and sharing cloud solutions such as Nextcloud, ownCloud,

Seafile Seafile is an open-source, cross-platform file-hosting software system. Files are stored on a central server and can be synchronized with personal computers and mobile devices through apps. Files on the Seafile server can also be accessed direct ...

and EGroupware. Collabora Online Calc 6

Collabora Online Writer Screenshot with Estelle Johnson Poem 1920x1053

Apps for desktops, chromebooks, laptops, tablets and smartphones

Client apps are not required to access Collabora Online which only requires a modern web browser; However,

native software In computing, native software or data-formats are those that were designed to run on a particular operating system. In a more technical sense, native code is code written specifically for a certain processor. In contrast, cross-platform software c ...

apps are available for local installation on most devices. The apps for Google's Android and

ChromeOS ChromeOS, sometimes stylized as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is a Linux-based operating system designed by Google. It is derived from the open-source ChromiumOS and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user interfac ...

, plus Apple's

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

and

iPadOS iPadOS is a mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc. for its iPad line of tablet computers. It is a rebranded variant of iOS, the operating system used by Apple's iPhones, renamed to reflect the diverging features of the two product l ...

share a lot of the software with Online, and they are all built on the LibreOffice core software; improvements in one of these often helps the other apps. The apps work

offline In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" or ...

in full functionality without the need for a connection to the cloud or a server, although support for integrations with cloud storage services, such as NextCloud, is possible. They have touch-optimised interfaces for varying screen sizes such as smartphone and tablet. The

app which is used in Chromebooks, Chromeboxes, Chromebases, Chromebits and tablets, has a customised touch optimised interface and edits documents offline in the Play files folders. Desktop applications share the same core software and functionality of LibreOffice and are available for

Windows Windows is a group of several Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, W ...

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lap ...

and

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which in ...

, these will work online or offline.

File Formats

Collabora Online supports the

Open Document Format The Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF), also known as OpenDocument, is an open file format for word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and graphics and using ZIP-compressed XML files. It was developed ...

for Office Applications (ODF – odt, ODP, ODS, ODG), the

Office Open XML Office Open XML (also informally known as OOXML) is a zipped, XML-based file format developed by Microsoft for representing spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. Ecma International standardized the initial version ...

formats (DOCX, PPTX, XLSX) as well as legacy

Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketi ...

formats (doc, ppt, xls). Other formats supported include

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems ...

, CSV, RTF, and

EPUB EPUB is an e-book file format that uses the ".epub" file extension. The term is short for ''electronic publication'' and is sometimes styled ''ePub''. EPUB is supported by many e-readers, and compatible software is available for most smartphones ...

Microsoft Visio Microsoft Visio ( ) (formerly Microsoft Office Visio) is a diagramming and vector graphics application and is part of the Microsoft Office family. The product was first introduced in 1992, made by the Shapeware Corporation, later renamed Visio ...

Microsoft Publisher Microsoft Publisher is a desktop publishing application from Microsoft, differing from Microsoft Word in that the emphasis is placed on page layout and graphic design rather than text composition and proofreading. Overview Publisher is includ ...

, Apple Keynote,

Numbers A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...

, Pages, and other file formats can be imported.

Applications

* Collabora Online Writer text editor. * Collabora Online Calc spreadsheet editor. * Collabora Online Impress presentation editor. * Collabora Online Draw vector graphics editor for flyers, newsletters, brochures, diagrams, etc. (Version 6.4.7+)

Server

Collabora Online allows

of word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and vector graphics. The server or servers can be hosted locally or with a provider, privately hosted cloud services allow data to remain under the control of the respective users. Collabora Productivity support Collabora Online server instances for

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of Deb ...

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All the ...

CentOS CentOS (, from Community Enterprise Operating System; also known as CentOS Linux) is a Linux distribution that provides a free and open-source community-supported computing platform, functionally compatible with its upstream source, Red Hat En ...

openSUSE openSUSE () is a free and open source RPM-based Linux distribution developed by the openSUSE project. The initial release of the community project was a beta version of SUSE Linux 10.0. Additionally the project creates a variety of tools, su ...

, Univention Virtual Machines and Docker images. It is often integrated with file share and collaboration cloud platforms, such as Nextcloud, ownCloud, Seafile and EGroupware, which are functionally similar to

Dropbox Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by the American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, U.S. that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software. Dropbox was founded in 200 ...

Google Drive Google Drive is a file storage and synchronization service developed by Google. Launched on April 24, 2012, Google Drive allows users to store files in the cloud (on Google's servers), synchronize files across devices, and share files. In ad ...

and

Microsoft 365 Microsoft 365 is a product family of productivity software, collaboration and cloud-based services owned by Microsoft. It encompasses online services such as Outlook.com, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, programs formerly marketed under the name Mic ...

, these typically include email, contacts, calendar, file sync and share, calls, chat and video, with apps stores. Close integrations are possible, enabling things like the possibility to edit documents within a chatroom or a video call, as with Nextcloud's built-in video-conferencing tool Nextcloud Talk. Collabora Online server can integrate simultaneously with several cloud solutions such as aforementioned and also

Moodle Moodle is a free and open-source learning management system written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. Moodle is used for blended learning, distance education, flipped classroom and other online learning projects in s ...

, Alfresco,

Kolab Kolab is a free and open source groupware suite. It consists of the Kolab server and a wide variety of Kolab clients, including KDE PIM-Suite Kontact, Roundcube web frontend, Mozilla Thunderbird and Mozilla Lightning with SyncKolab extension ...

, Mattermost,

Sharepoint SharePoint is a web-based collaborative platform that integrates natively with Microsoft Office. Launched in 2001, SharePoint is primarily sold as a document management and storage system, but the product is highly configurable and its usage v ...

and others. The server can be installed from packages, or during development, for simplicity, from a docker image. The Docker website indicates that the Collabora Online Development Edition (CODE) Docker image has been downloaded 50 million times. A

software development kit A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of software development tools in one installable package. They facilitate the creation of applications by having a compiler, debugger and sometimes a software framework. They are normally specific t ...

(SDK) including

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

specifications and integration instructions is available, along with sample integration code snippets in several software languages. Collaborative functions include comments which other users can respond to, document version history enabling the comparison of documents and their restoration, and other things. A

remote work Remote work, also called work from home (WFH), work from anywhere, telework, remote job, mobile work, and distance work is an employment arrangement in which employees do not commute to a central place of work, such as an office building, war ...

solution is made available by Canonical, Collabora, and Nextcloud that includes the Collabora Online office suite, it is called a Nextcloud Ubuntu Appliance and will install to Intel NUCs or ARM based Raspberry Pi 4s, it is pre-configured and automatically updates itself.

Digital Sovereignty

One ability of Collabora Online is that it is fully audit-able and self-hosted solutions can be implemented where it is not necessary to depend on an account from a 3rd party provider to edit files. In July 2020, the European parliament published a briefing titled Digital sovereignty for Europe, detailing concerns that citizens, businesses and Member States of the European Union (EU) are losing control over their data, it explains the economic model used by Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft is largely based on the collection and exploitation of online users' data. Judgements such as “Schrems II” show that it is delicate to rely on solutions from the large cloud providers when it comes to processing and storing sensitive personal data. Digital sovereignty has been an increasing concern in the EU for several reasons since the

Patriot Act The USA PATRIOT Act (commonly known as the Patriot Act) was a landmark Act of the United States Congress, signed into law by President George W. Bush. The formal name of the statute is the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Approp ...

enacted in October 2001, the continuing legal privacy conflicts between the US CLOUD Act enacted March 2018 and the EU's

General Data Protection Regulation The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union regulation on data protection and privacy in the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA). The GDPR is an important component of EU privacy law and of human rights law, in parti ...

(GDPR) implemented May 2018. The French Ministry's IT infrastructure director stated safety of the data of their citizens and employees as a reason for deploying Nextcloud-based private cloud for the French Ministry of Interior. The Dutch Ministry of Education, the German federal government, and the Swedish federal government agencies are deploying Nextcloud-based private cloud for similar reasons and to increase competition.

Technology

The core of Collabora Online is written in C++ just like the core of LibreOffice. It uses the LibreOfficeKit, a programming interface that allows the reuse of most of the existing LibreOffice code and the saving, loading and rendering of documents. The basic principle of Collabora Online is that documents never leave the server. The parties working on the documents see tile-rendered images of the document and send their changes back to the server. The visible user interface of Collabora Online is written in JavaScript. For file access and authentication with a file hosting services, Collabora Online uses the WOPI protocol developed by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washingt ...

. This means that Collabora Online can - in theory - be used with any instance allowing a Microsoft 365 integration.

Reviews

Collabora Online was discussed in various online and print publications. In December 2016 the tech website Softpedia mentioned the availability of collaborative editing in version 2.0 and the integration with Owncloud, Nextcloud and other FSS solutions. The technology website ZDNet reported in June 2020 that Collabora Online from version 19 of Nextcloud will be delivered as a standard office package and that within the native video conferencing software Talk direct editing of documents is now possible. The technology blog OMG! Ubuntu! Covered the release of the Android & iOS apps pointing out the possibility to use them in offline mode. In September 2020

Linux Magazine ''Linux Magazine'' is an international magazine for Linux software enthusiasts and professionals. It is published by the former Linux New Media division of the German media company Medialinx AG. The magazine was first published in German in 19 ...

compared Collabora Online with

OnlyOffice OnlyOffice (formerly TeamLab), stylized as ONLYOFFICE, is a free software office suite developed by Ascensio System SIA, a subsidiary of "New Communication Technologies", a company from Russia, but headquartered in Riga, Latvia. In Russian mark ...

, mentioning the flexibility and platform independence of both tools and pointing out the large set of features Collabora Online draws from

History

The former LibreOffice development team from

SUSE SUSE ( , ) is a German-based multinational open-source software company that develops and sells Linux products to business customers. Founded in 1992, it was the first company to market Linux for enterprise. It is the developer of SUSE Linux En ...

joined Collabora in September 2013 forming the subsidiary Collabora Productivity. In 2015 Collabora and IceWarp announced the development of an enterprise-ready version of LibreOffice Online to compete with

Google Docs Google Docs is an online word processor included as part of the free, web-based Google Docs Editors suite offered by Google, which also includes: Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Drawings, Google Forms, Google Sites and Google Keep. Goo ...

and

Office 365 Microsoft 365 is a product family of productivity software, collaboration and cloud-based services owned by Microsoft. It encompasses online services such as Outlook.com, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, programs formerly marketed under the name M ...

(now called Microsoft 365). In December 2015, the company's partnership with ownCloud and release of ''CODE'' (Collabora Online Development Edition) was announced on Joinup. In November 2016, Nextcloud announced their work and integration with v2.0 of CODE and their future work plans for improving performance, scalability, security and capabilities with Collabora Online. In October 2020 Collabora announced the move of its work on Collabora Online from The Document Foundation infrastructure to

GitHub GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous ...

. A development version of Collabora Online is available called Collabora Online Development Edition (CODE).

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Collabora Online Office suites Open-source office suites Online office suites Collaborative real-time editors Office suites for Windows Office suites for macOS Office suites for Linux Online word processors Word processors Free spreadsheet software Online spreadsheets Spreadsheet software for macOS Spreadsheet software for Windows Free presentation software Presentation software Presentation software for macOS Presentation software for Windows Desktop publishing software Desktop publishing software for Linux Desktop publishing software for macOS Desktop publishing software for Windows Free desktop publishing software Free vector graphics editors Document management systems LibreOffice Free PDF software Free software programmed in C++ Free software programmed in JavaScript Office software that uses GTK Software using the Mozilla license 2016 software Collabora Cloud computing Free software for cloud computing Collaborative software Open-source cloud applications Free_groupware Web_applications Rich web applications Cross-platform software Cross-platform free software Software forks Formerly proprietary software Linux word processors macOS word processors Windows word processors Unix software IOS software Android (operating system) software iPadOS software macOS software Spreadsheet software