# LibreOffice Writer

28 Hacker News commenters recommended LibreOffice Writer and 7 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free word processor people use for everyday documents; opens and saves Word files well. Critics say formatting is fiddly and Markdown support limited.

## Why people recommend it

- Markdown export keeps headings and bold (4 comments): "being able to open typical .doc files and re-save as .md w/ a reasonable approximation of formatting is huge" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47299303)) "save as Markdown to nicely preserve things like headings, bold, etc." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47312500)) "open the file in LibreOffice Writer 26.2, and save as Markdown" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47312542))
- Works fine for basic word processing (3 comments): "My parents use mail, firefox and libreoffice writer. That's about all they need and it works fine" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46779101)) "running something like lubuntu and libreoffice writer as a basic word processor" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48712221)) "I use it all the time. I don't try to make it do more than it does." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47304325))
- Opens typical Word files well (3 comments): "being able to open typical .doc files and re-save as .md w/ a reasonable approximation of formatting is huge" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47299303)) "Most docx open and let themselves edit quite well in LibreOffice Writer, and they look right." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46353926)) "Writer is decent compatibility with MS" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46912040))
- Preferred over Microsoft Word (2 comments): "I actually prefer LibreOffice Write to MS Word" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46657484)) "I like Writer even more than MS Word" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48345564))

## What people warn about

- Markdown support is limited (2 comments): "Markdown import and export features." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47300251)) "It seem they only support Commonmark" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47307047))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Google Docs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/google-docs.md): 144 recommend
- [Microsoft Word](https://hackerapproved.com/p/microsoft-word.md): 129 recommend
- [Apple Pages](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pages.md): 39 recommend
- [WordPerfect](https://hackerapproved.com/p/wordperfect.md): 36 recommend
- [WordStar](https://hackerapproved.com/p/wordstar.md): 28 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "LibreOffice Writer", https://hackerapproved.com/p/libreoffice-writer/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).