To install OpenOffice on a Chromebook, you need to enable Linux apps and then install the software via the terminal.
Open Office for Chromebook: Activate Linux apps first
Although Chromebooks are primarily designed for web applications, you can install OpenOffice on them. However, the program cannot be installed directly from the Chrome Web Store; instead, it runs via the Linux environment on the Chromebook.
- Open the “Settings” on the Chromebook. To do this, click on the clock icon in the lower right corner of your screen. Select the gear icon.
- Go to the Advanced section and then to Developer.
- Check the “Linux Development Environment” (Beta) option. A dialog box will appear. Click “Next” and select a user name and the amount of hard disk space for Linux. By default, 10 GB is sufficient.
- Click “Install”. This process may take a few minutes as the required files are downloaded first.
Download OpenOffice and install it on your Chromebook
Once the Linux environment is activated, you can download OpenOffice. Open the terminal, which is now available in your app menu. Enter the following commands to install OpenOffice:
- Click the app menu (the square icon in the bottom left corner). Find “Terminal” and open it.
- To download the latest OpenOffice package, type the following command (make sure to check the latest version from the official OpenOffice website): wget https://downloads.apache.org/openoffice/4.1.14/binaries/de/openoffice-4.1.14-linux-x86-64-deb.tar.gz
- Enter the following command to unpack the downloaded file: tar -xvzf openoffice-4.1.14-linux-x86-64-deb.tar.gz
- Change to the unpacked directory: cd en-US/DEBS/.
- To install the DEB packages, run the following command: sudo dpkg -i *.deb. Deb packages are the standard format for software packages on Debian-based Linux distributions such as Ubuntu. These packages contain all the necessary files to install software on a system, including executables, libraries, documentation, and configuration files.
- Install the additional packages. Change to the desktop integration directory: cd desktop-integration/ and run the installation command again: sudo dpkg -i *.deb
- After successful installation you can use OpenOffice.
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