ONLYOFFICE, an open source alternative to Big Tech’s office suites, has released version 7, which includes major updates. The most notable feature in the new version is fillable forms.
ONLYOFFICE is developed by a Latvia-based tech company called Ascensio System SIA. It has both a desktop and web version and is open source. When releasing version 7, the developers said a cloud version will “be available later.”
Perhaps the best upgrade in the new version is fillable forms. You can create the forms from DOCX documents and build them from scratch. The developer says that the forms are compatible with Adobe Forms and Microsoft Office.
You can also easily add the forms, or OFORM, to an electronic workflow as ONLYOFFICE has Jira and Confluence integrations.
One of the major selling points of ONLYOFFICE over its greatest rival, LibreOffice, is collaboration.
In the new version, comments can be sorted and you can also now protect spreadsheets with passwords.
Additionally, hyperlinks in documents are autofromated and there is support for files stored on your computer and URL addresses for mail merge.
A version history in the spreadsheet editor has been added, and the text editor has a dark mode.
The older version supported connecting to cloud services, including Sealfile, Nextcloud, and ownCloud. Version 7 also supports Liferay and kDrive.
The ONLYOFFICE community version is free, but it has a paid Enterprise version for larger businesses.
