How do I install OpenOffice instead of LibreOffice?

NOTE - To remove LibreOffice ( to avoid any conflict) please read Rick Green's below answer and then follow this.

Now it is known as Apache OpenOffice which is available through third Party repository as

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:upubuntu-com/office 
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install openoffice

• Are PPA's safe to add to my system and what are some "red flags" to watch out for?

If you are on a 64 bit system you are not done yet. Starting openoffice3 will fail with the message "no suitable windowing system found, exiting". You need to install some 32 bit libraries:

sudo apt-get install libxrandr2:i386 libxinerama1:i386

Next, it fails with "exception in syncronize" because permissions are wrong. Fix them. Then it worked for me.

sudo chmod a+rx /opt/openoffice.org3/share/uno_packages/cache/uno_packages

Alternate method

Download .tar.gz from here , selecting your Arch type through Linux Intel DEB for 32-bit and Linux x86-64 DEB for 64-bit, it basically contains .deb installation packages. Follow these instructions:

• Unpack the downloaded Apache_OpenOffice_incubating_3.4.0_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz to prepare for installation by

  tar -xvzf Apache_OpenOffice_incubating_3.4.0_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz
  

  The Extracted directory will be named after the Language you selected to download like

  en-US

  Navigate into DEBS folder

  Install the .deb files by typing

  sudo dpkg -i *.deb
  

By default, this will install Apache OpenOffice in your /opt directory.

For installing the desktop integration features for your setup navigate to desktop-integration in the DEBS installation directory and do

  sudo dpkg -i *.deb

NOTE Be careful ppa:upubuntu-com/office refers to older version of open office.

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Linked answer

1) For installing OpenOffice you have to first uninstall the LibreOffice which is by default installed in your Ubuntu.

So open the Terminal Window and type the following command and give password.This will remove the LibreOffice completely.

sudo apt-get remove --purge libreoffice-core

(OR)

Open the Ubuntu Software Center and search for “LibreOffice core” and click on remove (uninstall).This will uninstall the LibreOffice completely.

2) Download OpenOffice from its official website.The download file will be in *.tar.gz format.

3) After the file is downloaded, go to the downloaded directory and click on “Extract here”.

4) Now open the Terminal and change the directory to the location where your Extracted Open Office file is present.Just type “cd” followed by drag and dropping the “DEBS” folder or manually do it.

5) Type the following command which will install OpenOffice by installing all the *.deb package files.

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

6) Enjoy using OpenOffice. The default installation location is /opt/openoffice4 and Apache OpenOffice executable is called soffice and is located in /opt/OpenOffice4/program/

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