Install LibreOffice on Kali Linux

What LibreOffice is

LibreOffice is a free, open-source office suite. It has a word processor (Writer), spreadsheets (Calc), presentations (Impress), drawings (Draw), a database (Base) and formulas (Math). It opens and saves Microsoft Office files too.

Method 1: APT

Update the package list

sudo apt update

Install LibreOffice

sudo apt install libreoffice libreoffice-gtk3

(The GTK package makes the look fit a GTK desktop. For a newer Kali that offers it, libreoffice-gtk4 also works.)

Check it

Open the applications menu and search for LibreOffice. You see the icons for Writer, Calc and others. You can also run libreoffice --version.

Method 2: The official .deb package

1. Open the LibreOffice download page and download the .deb package for Linux (x64).

   

2. Save the file in a folder you can find, such as Downloads.

   

3. Open a terminal and go to that folder:

cd Downloads

1. Extract the archive. The download is a .tar.gz that holds a folder DEBS with many .deb files:

tar -xzvf LibreOffice_*_Linux_x86-64_deb.tar.gz
cd LibreOffice_*_Linux_x86-64_deb/DEBS

1. Install all the packages:

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

1. If dpkg reports dependency problems, fix them:

sudo apt install -f

1. When the install ends, search for LibreOffice in the applications menu to check.

Notes

• Keep it updated with sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade.
• The APT version is easy to update. The .deb version is newer but you must update it by hand.
• Add language packs and help files with sudo apt install libreoffice-help-en-us or the pack for your language.

Quick recap

• sudo apt install libreoffice is the easy way.
• Or install the .deb packages with dpkg -i.
• Fix problems with sudo apt install -f.