Too buggy to use
I really want to support the app, but so many basic functions either don’t work at all, or bug out like crazy. I can’t undo with command, even though it says I can. I can’t crop pictures, I can’t add backgrounds, and the list is really growing. Do you need testers or something?
Until I Dump Apple For Linux Soon It Will Do.
My 34 year association with Apple will end soon when able to purchase a new laptop and migrate completely to Linux. I can’t nor will continue to allow myself to be increasingly locked into Apple’s high security electric fenced in prison yard for the sake of being a living bank account for the enrichment of their investors anymore. Nor buy the ongoing marketing lyes that it’s for my own security or that today’s version of Apple is ethically the same as it was twenty years ago. It hasn’t been for roughly fifteen years. Besides Linux is a more secure system than OSX.
That said over the past year Apple has quietly made it increasingly difficult to use third party apps. Apple wants to control the choices users make driving them to their weak and seldomly meaningfully updated native applications serving as nothing more than front doors to their subscription services , iCloud services, and online stores. Apple even changes their devices in ways to force their users into this. Consider the artificial changes Apple made to iBooks with their release of Catalina forcing iMac users to increase iCloud subscriptions or make the choice of no longer maintaining their own private libraries on their tiny but expensive internal drives. All the while subtly “re-educating” their loyal customers that it was a far better solution to buy from their online store.
So with the limitations this app must function as and most likely those to come as Apple reverts backwards to the era pre-Steve Jobs return when they ran Apple into the ground in the early nineties, i will deal with this.
Next year I trade this new iPhone in for an android or anything other than an other iPhone. I should have listened to my brother and friends when they made their exodus from Apples prison facility but noooooo. My stupidity.
Three decades and countless Apple products is enough.
That said over the past year Apple has quietly made it increasingly difficult to use third party apps. Apple wants to control the choices users make driving them to their weak and seldomly meaningfully updated native applications serving as nothing more than front doors to their subscription services , iCloud services, and online stores. Apple even changes their devices in ways to force their users into this. Consider the artificial changes Apple made to iBooks with their release of Catalina forcing iMac users to increase iCloud subscriptions or make the choice of no longer maintaining their own private libraries on their tiny but expensive internal drives. All the while subtly “re-educating” their loyal customers that it was a far better solution to buy from their online store.
So with the limitations this app must function as and most likely those to come as Apple reverts backwards to the era pre-Steve Jobs return when they ran Apple into the ground in the early nineties, i will deal with this.
Next year I trade this new iPhone in for an android or anything other than an other iPhone. I should have listened to my brother and friends when they made their exodus from Apples prison facility but noooooo. My stupidity.
Three decades and countless Apple products is enough.
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Does what I needed - open encrypted .ODS spreadsheet from LibreOffice
No other app on my iPhone wanted to open my encrypted LibreOffice Calc file. Getting silly error messages like ’try again later’. Installed Collabora Office and it found all files it could open on my phone immediately. Entered file’s password and able to view it. Solved my issue. Whether I’d use it on my iOS device for any advanced editing… not so sure.
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Loses your work and other unpredictable behaviour.
Continuously loses your work with no obvious way to save other than export whole document to another copy. Frequently pans thousands of rows or columns away for apparently no reason. Impossible to reliably drag cell selection past the cells in the current view.
Limited support for files with macros and buttons
This app allowed me to open and view most of my open office and libre office files. The spreadsheet it choked on contained macros and buttons.
Obviously I don’t know for certain why this file caused an error and aborted the load, but those are the differences between the files that worked, and those that did not. So, please try to find the bug and correct it. I cannot be the only one who uses these features of Libre Office.
Obviously I don’t know for certain why this file caused an error and aborted the load, but those are the differences between the files that worked, and those that did not. So, please try to find the bug and correct it. I cannot be the only one who uses these features of Libre Office.
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Adequate but no more
July 2026 - Still no fix to the Proton save issue.
If you can’t save a file, what really is the point of an office app? Now actively looking for an alternative.
March 2026 - Still no fix to the Proton save failure. Every other app manages it just fine. Until the save is reliable, the app is useless.
March 2026 - Not able to save files onto a Proton Drive. It suggests a save and changes the file information to the latest date but no actual data changes.
30 March 25 - For some reason, seems unable to load Open Document Format files saved from LIbre Office on Mac. Files simply greyed out.
Updates are few and far between. I’d almost call this abandonware. Libre Office (Linux, Mac) updates regularly and is always improving but Collabora seems to be static and set.
That said, it’s the best office app for iPad and doesn’t spy on you using it.
It is fiddly and can be difficult using a touch interface but once you get used to it, the app is basically OK. It should be much more and I’m looking forward to Libre finally porting the actual Office from Linux to iPadOS. Not holding my breath, though. In the meantime, this fills the gap.
If you can’t save a file, what really is the point of an office app? Now actively looking for an alternative.
March 2026 - Still no fix to the Proton save failure. Every other app manages it just fine. Until the save is reliable, the app is useless.
March 2026 - Not able to save files onto a Proton Drive. It suggests a save and changes the file information to the latest date but no actual data changes.
30 March 25 - For some reason, seems unable to load Open Document Format files saved from LIbre Office on Mac. Files simply greyed out.
Updates are few and far between. I’d almost call this abandonware. Libre Office (Linux, Mac) updates regularly and is always improving but Collabora seems to be static and set.
That said, it’s the best office app for iPad and doesn’t spy on you using it.
It is fiddly and can be difficult using a touch interface but once you get used to it, the app is basically OK. It should be much more and I’m looking forward to Libre finally porting the actual Office from Linux to iPadOS. Not holding my breath, though. In the meantime, this fills the gap.
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Problems!!
Collabora Office is a great processor program, but I’m finding out if doesn’t work well with the newest Apple updates, such as 25.3. I will not allow you to highlight, select what want to change in the document’s that have been copied from the docx format, and changed to odt format. I am not a novice with this program. The instructions that AI gives to fix the issue do not help.
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Excellent
Using this on an iPad Air I was able to view edit and save existing xlsx files that I have saved on Dropbox.
These files were originally made with Libre Office on Linux and the compatibility was 100%
Nice!
These files were originally made with Libre Office on Linux and the compatibility was 100%
Nice!
Can’t copy formulas
Nothing I can do will allow me to copy formulas on my IPad. I asked ChatGPT for help and after a half hour and several screen shoots I gave up after ChatGBT said it looks like a bug in the IPad verison
Great Potential but has problems
The biggest issue I have is the “disconnected from server” message and resultant unresponsive state. This happens even editing a local odt file.
Removing the app from memory and restarting seems to fix the problem.
It would be nice if the developers could fix this issue.
There are a few quirks which are annoying but once you figure out how to deal with them the app works well.
Removing the app from memory and restarting seems to fix the problem.
It would be nice if the developers could fix this issue.
There are a few quirks which are annoying but once you figure out how to deal with them the app works well.
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Not sure about this one
looking for replacement for SmartOffice, not on App Store any longer. Drawn to this app through the open source MS office alternative Libre office website as a way of reading their documents on an iPad. Also a fan of the privacy policy - apparently not gathering any information. However, as soon as I opened the app, it went directly to my Files folder, trying to access everything I had in there. Documents I wanted to open in SmartOffice were stored in SmartOffice or were accessed such as dropbox. It did not go searching my iPad for anything it could open. Ultimately not sure about this privacy claim. deleted the app.
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Initial review
I’m also surprised why this has such a low rating. So I tried Opendocument Reader and OOreader. Both were terrible with the latter worse (viewer only, no editor) than the former (viewer and editor). Collabora Office displays the spreadsheet correctly with tab names or correct order, highlighted tabs display correctly, split screens also. I downloaded this to mainly view my ODS files while traveling but I might venture to do some editing and see how this app works. So far it’s great.
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Looking forward to using it, but…
If LibreOffice were ever to go defunct, Collabora will be my goto. It’s open source and integrates with my Nextcloud. A few problems though with the mobile version:
• copy and paste functions have an intrusive menu that eats up the screen, not the standard “right-click” pop-up.
• no “mobile view” option; stuck in page view.
• copy and paste functions have an intrusive menu that eats up the screen, not the standard “right-click” pop-up.
• no “mobile view” option; stuck in page view.
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A powerful tool as good as any other
Our company just transitioned away from 365, and this seems to be a very worthy successor. It does everything I need, and is well designed. Overall things look great so far!
Handwerklich ganz gut gemacht...
...aber für's iPhone ist und bleibt Microsoft Office leider unerreicht! Allein die kompakte Ansicht, die das Bearbeiten von DOCX-Dateien auf kleineren Geräten ungemein erleichtert, ist beim "Original" einfach unerreicht!
Manche Office-Apps (z. B. MobiOffice) übernehmen ja nicht einmal das aktuelle dynamische Datum in einem Schreiben. Das kann Collabora-Office exzellent! Diese Datums-Übernahme setzt Polaris-Office auch sauber um und zeigt zudem sogar Schriften mit einem Schatten korrekt an!
Leider fehlt auch hier eine kompakte mobile Ansicht!
Ich würde diese Collabora-Office-App daher eher für das iPad empfehlen...
Manche Office-Apps (z. B. MobiOffice) übernehmen ja nicht einmal das aktuelle dynamische Datum in einem Schreiben. Das kann Collabora-Office exzellent! Diese Datums-Übernahme setzt Polaris-Office auch sauber um und zeigt zudem sogar Schriften mit einem Schatten korrekt an!
Leider fehlt auch hier eine kompakte mobile Ansicht!
Ich würde diese Collabora-Office-App daher eher für das iPad empfehlen...
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Looking forward to using it, but…
If LibreOffice were ever to go defunct, Collabora will be my goto. A few problems though with the mobile version:
• copy and paste functions have an intrusive menu that eats up the screen, not the standard “right-click” pop-up.
• no “mobile view” option; stuck in page view.
• copy and paste functions have an intrusive menu that eats up the screen, not the standard “right-click” pop-up.
• no “mobile view” option; stuck in page view.
Free and the Best alternative to Office
Why do people complain if it's free in the first place? This is the best alternative to Microsoft Office that people can get. Thank you to the developer/s and kudos!
I don’t understand why so much hate.
It’s been a smooth app that just does what it is supposed to do. If I see any bugs I will update the developer, max i deduct 1 star. What people are expecting from freeware open source apps? Can’t people be appreciating what they have. Okay those who give 1 star go back to your MS Excel and have fun.
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Great app, but…
I love the simplicity of working and writing directly to Dropbox, but it would be great if the app could make use of some of the iPad features, like predictive text, capitalisation of the first words in sentences, cursor movement with scrolling around the keyboard, etc. Only then would I consider more stars!
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Va por buen camino
Hasta ahora, es la aplicación que ofrece la experiencia más cercana a la interfaz de escritorio, me encanta. No obstante, presenta muchos errores de visualización en la vista con pestañas como que el bloque de estilos aparece en blanco, toca cambiar a la vista compacta y regresar a la vista de pestañas para verlo; también, en idioma español se superpone el texto en algunas listas desplegables. Espero lo puedan solucionar porque es una app muy prometedora.
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