How to use Nextcloud Office

Nextcloud Office presents a for­mid­able online office suite, perfectly aligned with the diverse needs of users seeking com­pre­hens­ive col­lab­or­a­tion and office software solutions. Here we’ll provide an in­tro­duc­tion to the cap­ab­il­it­ies and benefits of Nextcloud Office.

What is Nextcloud Office?

The cloud and col­lab­or­a­tion software Nextcloud provides companies and private in­di­vidu­als with flexible and secure self-hosting and cloud computing without having to resort to com­mer­cial solutions. Nextcloud provides high data pro­tec­tion standards and a range of different Nextcloud apps such as Nextcloud Talk and the online office suite Nextcloud Office.

Nextcloud Office was developed in col­lab­or­a­tion with the company Collabora Pro­ductiv­ity and in­teg­rated into Nextcloud. The goal was to cater to the demands of a modern, digitised work en­vir­on­ment. It pri­or­it­ises powerful online functions for editing, attaching and sharing documents, for spread­sheet cal­cu­la­tion and creating present­a­tions. The seamless in­teg­ra­tion within the Nextcloud ecosystem ensures that this Office suite har­mo­ni­ously supports all Nextcloud tools, popular web browsers, a variety of file formats, and diverse editors. Nextcloud Office is also part of the in­teg­rated Nextcloud Hub col­lab­or­a­tion platform with all key Nextcloud tools such as Groupware, Files, Talk and Office.

When to use Nextcloud Office?

Nextcloud Office is available free of charge inclusive of all important standard functions for private use. For business use, Nextcloud offers a paid version – the Nextcloud En­ter­prise Plan, which provides more stable and flexibly scalable per­form­ance. Nextcloud Office en­com­passes identical functions and known office ap­plic­a­tions Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace or cor­res­pond­ing Microsoft Office al­tern­at­ives.

Its most important pos­sib­il­it­ies and functions include:

• Real-time document creation and editing (including video calls or chats).
• Com­ment­ing functions in documents
• Image insertion from your own Nextcloud storage
• Sharing and col­lab­or­at­ing on documents via browser or mobile apps
• Document editing with internal or external links for people without Nextcloud (with access re­stric­tion)
• Spread­sheets
• Creating and editing of present­a­tions, drawings, and notes
• Tracking version history and changes
• Nav­ig­at­ing functions for browsing documents
• In­teg­ra­tion with Microsoft Word

Overview of Nextcloud Office com­pon­ents

Nextcloud Office is designed to handle the full range of office tasks in digital working en­vir­on­ments via the cloud. The office suite lets you create, edit and share documents with your team, re­gard­less of location or device. You can even use document editing in team meetings and syn­chron­ise changes auto­mat­ic­ally. Ad­min­is­trat­or rights allow you to limit the number of people with access rights.

Below are all the com­pon­ents of Nextcloud Office in detail.

Nextcloud Write

Similar to Word in Microsoft 365, Nextcloud Write is the heart of the Nextcloud Office suite. Here, documents can be created and edited, shared and saved in col­lab­or­a­tion with others. The ap­plic­a­tion is designed to be col­lab­or­at­ive and supports Microsoft Word. Real-time cursor tracking lets you track changes made by your team. Nextcloud Write is in­creas­ingly in­teg­rat­ing AI assistant features that help users write and edit texts, for example through automatic spell checking, style im­prove­ments, or trans­la­tions.

Nextcloud Spread­sheet

Nextcloud Spread­sheet can be thought of as the equi­val­ent of Microsoft’s Excel spread­sheet program. Spread­sheet provides you with a com­pre­hens­ive set of functions, formulas and tools for creating and col­lab­or­at­ing on spread­sheets. The highest level of data pro­tec­tion is ensured. Robust access controls make sure that spread­sheets con­tain­ing sensitive business data are only edited by au­thor­ised in­di­vidu­als and teams. Microsoft Excel in­teg­ra­tion is possible.

Nextcloud Present

Nextcloud Present is your go-to present­a­tion program, offering a unique twist on Power­Point. Design simple or elaborate slides in your preferred style and layout, with a choice of practical templates or custom con­fig­ur­a­tions. Its intuitive interface ensures you can captivate any audience with in­sight­ful and polished present­a­tions. Thanks to com­pat­ib­il­ity with Microsoft Power­Point and support for popular file formats, Nextcloud Present meets all your powerful present­a­tion software needs.

Nextcloud Draw

Nextcloud Draw is a com­pre­hens­ive note-taking and drawing tool that lets you craft graphs, charts, plans, sketches, and intricate diagrams, much like you can with Microsoft Visio. Use the col­lab­or­at­ive ap­plic­a­tions to il­lus­trate and develop ideas col­lab­or­at­ively or present plans to your audience graph­ic­ally or as a diagram. You can seam­lessly integrate it into online con­fer­ences and team meetings.

Nextcloud Text

Nextcloud Text is the default text editor from Nextcloud. Built on Markdown, it offers a self-hosted trans­la­tion feature and supports numerous rich text formats including headings, links, tables and bold or italic text display. Different colours for in­di­vidu­al authors improve clarity for large projects with many par­ti­cipants.

Ad­vant­ages of Nextcloud Office in the Nextcloud en­vir­on­ment

The Office version of Nextcloud seam­lessly in­teg­rates with the scalable and versatile ecosystem of Nextcloud apps. In this regard, Nextcloud is similar to Google and Microsoft’s col­lab­or­a­tion platforms, which also offer seamless in­teg­ra­tion of in-house apps and services.

Through its in­teg­ra­tion with other robust Nextcloud com­pon­ents, Nextcloud Office offers the following benefits:

• Flexible col­lab­or­at­ive working through the in­teg­ra­tion of Office functions in Nextcloud apps such as Talk or Groupware.
• Office features for col­lab­or­at­ive document editing, teamwork in online meetings and video con­fer­ences via screen sharing, com­ment­ing, version history, real-time cursor tracking and mentions
• Safety from un­au­thor­ised access with secure access man­age­ment that includes group folders and file access rights for groups, in­di­vidu­als, and selected files
• Nextcloud’s desktop and mobile clients can be used on desktops and any number of mobile devices
• Easy, cross-ap­plic­a­tion, cent­ral­ised man­age­ment, syn­chron­isa­tion, and tracking of changes to documents

What file formats can Nextcloud Office read and write?

An office suite’s value extends beyond its array of col­lab­or­a­tion, com­mu­nic­a­tion, and document editing tools. Equally crucial is its support for all common file formats that play a role when using a cloud-based pro­ductiv­ity solution. This is the only way to ensure flexible and com­pat­ible col­lab­or­a­tion across different systems and ap­plic­a­tions.

Nextcloud Office rivals the com­pet­i­tion when it comes to com­pat­ib­il­ity, sup­port­ing the opening, reading and saving of over a dozen file formats. These include:

• Text pro­cessing: DOCX, DOC, RTF, ODT
• Spread­sheets: XLS, XLSX, ODS
• Present­a­tion: ODP, PPT, PPTX
• Drawing: ODG
• Ad­di­tion­al supported formats: Publisher, Import/View Visio

Ad­vant­ages of Nextcloud Office compared to the com­pet­i­tion

Nextcloud sets an ambitious goal, which is to establish itself as a for­mid­able and at least equal al­tern­at­ive to Microsoft 365. To this end, Nextcloud offers powerful self-hosting and cloud computing features with data pro­tec­tion standards that even surpass Microsoft. Many busi­nesses favour Nextcloud over com­mer­cial services due to its con­tinu­ally expanding func­tion­al­ity, seamless in­teg­ra­tion of Nextcloud services, flexible en­ter­prise packages, and the com­pre­hens­ive Nextcloud Hub package.

The Office suite forms a central building block in Nextcloud for an in­de­pend­ent, cloud-based office en­vir­on­ment. The ad­vant­ages the Office suite gives you over Nextcloud al­tern­at­ives like Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 include:

Another advantage is that documents are viewable in print preview thanks to rendering according to the WYSIWYG principle. When using different office ap­plic­a­tions, one may encounter un­ex­pec­ted issues based on the browser being used and specific settings in place.

How to install Nextcloud Office?

You can get Nextcloud Office from the Nextcloud Office website. Choose between a free trial version for 60 minutes, a free version for private use and paid versions as part of Nextcloud En­ter­prise.

The options for in­stall­a­tion are:

Option 1: Collabora Online Server

Since Nextcloud Office is built on Collabora Online, a dedicated Collabora Online server is required. Setting up the server and linking it to the Office app requires some know-how of package in­stall­a­tion in Linux and Ubuntu or Docker. For small teams or personal use, another option is the in­teg­rated CODE Server. This server can be con­veni­ently installed directly from the Nextcloud app and then chosen as a backend within the Office program.

Once you’ve set up the Collabora Online Server, you need to activate the Nextcloud Office App in App Man­age­ment and connect to the Collabora Online Server via the settings.

Option 2: Managed Nextcloud

Managed Nextcloud delivers the complete Nextcloud ex­per­i­ence, including Nextcloud Office. You can delegate the setup, main­ten­ance, and updates to your chosen provider, while enjoying 24/7 support. This enables you to ef­fort­lessly scale your online storage and sub­scrip­tion package as your needs evolve. Lever­aging Nextcloud apps such as Groupware, Talk, or Office, you gain access to essential col­lab­or­a­tion features. These include sharing and editing documents, online con­fer­en­cing, and schedul­ing projects, groups, and meetings - including in­di­vidu­al access per­mis­sions.

Benefits of Nextcloud Office with Managed Nextcloud

Managed Nextcloud with Nextcloud Office is the ideal solution for companies looking for GDPR-compliant pro­tec­tion for corporate data combined with full Office func­tion­al­ity. Your data is stored on secure servers that meet all GDPR re­quire­ments and prevent un­au­thor­ised access by third parties. The provider takes care of the ad­min­is­tra­tion, main­ten­ance, and updating of systems, saving you time and money. In addition, you choose who has access to files through ad­min­is­trat­ive rights. Data sov­er­eignty is thus guar­an­teed.

Another sig­ni­fic­ant advantage is that you can entrust not only the server system main­ten­ance but also tailor your Nextcloud package to your specific needs, adjusting both cloud storage and the number of users. This ensures not only enhanced pro­ductiv­ity through stream­lined file man­age­ment within your Managed Nextcloud but also the ability to fine-tune per­form­ance to align with your current business ob­ject­ives.

Brief explainer on the creation of Nextcloud Office

In 2018, Nextcloud offered regular office functions for the first time through the in­teg­ra­tion of Only­Of­fice, an open-source office solution by Ascensio System SIA. With the release of the col­lab­or­a­tion platform Nextcloud Hub in January 2020, Nextcloud in­tro­duced an in­teg­rated Only­Of­fice package as part of its own powerful office suite. In 2021, Nextcloud launched Nextcloud Office, a new office solution based on a close technical in­teg­ra­tion with Collabora Online — an open-source office suite by Collabora Pro­ductiv­ity.

The advantage: While document pro­cessing takes place on a Collabora server, the files them­selves remain on the Nextcloud server. This provides a sig­ni­fic­ant advantage in terms of data pro­tec­tion and control over sensitive corporate and user data.