No, you cannot run Microsoft Excel natively on Linux. But yes, you *can* get Excel working — just not the way most people assume, and definitely not by double-clicking an .xlsx file and expecting magic.
The Setup
Last week, Sarah Chen from procurement at Acme Corp sent me a spreadsheet titled
Q2_Supplier_Invoices_2024.xlsx. It had 127 rows of vendor data across 9 columns: Vendor ID (A), Company Name (B), Invoice Date (C), Due Date (D), Amount (E), Currency (F), PO Number (G), Status (H), Notes (I). She needed it reconciled against SAP before Friday — and she’s on Ubuntu 22.04.
Here’s a realistic slice from A1:I10:
| Vendor ID |
Company Name |
Invoice Date |
Due Date |
Amount |
Currency |
PO Number |
Status |
Notes |
| V-7821 |
Nexus Logistics Ltd |
2024-03-15 |
2024-04-15 |
$14,892.50 |
USD |
PO-99211 |
Paid |
Wire transfer confirmed |
| V-7822 |
TerraFab Engineering |
2024-03-18 |
2024-04-18 |
€9,240.00 |
EUR |
PO-99212 |
Pending |
Awaiting quality sign-off |
| V-7823 |
BrightLeaf Supplies |
2024-03-20 |
2024-04-20 |
¥1,280,650 |
JPY |
PO-99213 |
Overdue |
Follow up scheduled |
| V-7824 |
Orion Data Systems |
2024-03-22 |
2024-04-22 |
$3,650.75 |
USD |
PO-99214 |
Paid |
Partial payment applied |
| V-7825 |
Stellar Components Inc |
2024-03-25 |
2024-04-25 |
$22,100.00 |
USD |
PO-99215 |
Draft |
Needs legal review |
| V-7826 |
Helix Labs GmbH |
2024-03-27 |
2024-04-27 |
€15,430.20 |
EUR |
PO-99216 |
Pending |
Shipping delay reported |
| V-7827 |
Summit Office Group |
2024-03-29 |
2024-04-29 |
$7,825.00 |
USD |
PO-99217 |
Paid |
Reconciled to bank statement |
| V-7828 |
Veridian Tech Solutions |
2024-04-01 |
2024-05-01 |
$11,300.40 |
USD |
PO-99218 |
Pending |
Contract terms under revision |
The Challenge
Sarah needs to sort by Due Date (column D), filter for Status = "Overdue", then apply conditional formatting to highlight overdue amounts > $10,000. She also needs to insert a calculated column showing days past due — but her laptop runs Ubuntu 22.04 with GNOME, no Windows partition, and no corporate VM license.
That’s when she asked:
Can you run Excel on Linux? And more urgently:
Can I run Excel on Linux without breaking my workflow or losing formulas?
The short answer is yes — but only if you accept one of four compromises. None give you the full desktop app experience. And two of them break macros or Power Query entirely.
Walking Through It
Let’s walk through each option using Sarah’s file as the test case. We’ll check support for sorting, filtering, formulas (like
=TODAY()-D2 in column J), and saving back to .xlsx.
Option 1: Excel for the Web (free, requires Microsoft account)
Open
office.com → Sign in → Upload
Q2_Supplier_Invoices_2024.xlsx. Works instantly in Firefox or Chrome. Sorting? Yes. Filtering? Yes. Conditional formatting? Yes — click Home > Conditional Formatting > Highlight Cells Rules > Greater Than. Enter
10000, choose red fill.
But here’s what most people miss: Paste special doesn’t work the same. Try copying B2:B10 and pasting into LibreOffice Calc later? You’ll lose merged cells and some number formatting. Also,
=TODAY()-D2 recalculates live — great — but if you close the tab, the sheet auto-saves *only* if you’re signed in and online. No offline mode.
Option 2: LibreOffice Calc + Excel compatibility mode
Install LibreOffice (v7.6+). Open the file. It renders fine — but check cell J2:
=TODAY()-D2 returns
#VALUE!. Why? LibreOffice uses
TODAY(), but its date arithmetic expects serial numbers aligned with Excel’s epoch (1900 vs. 1970). Fix: use
=TODAY()-D2+25569 (25569 = days between 1900-01-01 and 1970-01-01). Not intuitive — and you won’t find that in any tooltip.
Option 3: Wine + Excel 2010 (yes, really)
Wine 9.0 lets you install Excel 2010 on Ubuntu. Download the installer, run
wine setup.exe, go through prompts. Launch Excel. Open the file. Everything works — including pivot tables and basic VBA. Keyboard shortcut:
Alt+H then
L opens Conditional Formatting (same as native Excel).
But — and this is critical — Excel 2010 doesn’t support modern .xlsx features like dynamic arrays or XLOOKUP. And if Sarah’s file used
=FILTER(A2:I127,(H2:H127="Overdue")*(E2:E127>10000)), it would crash. So version matters more than platform.
Option 4: Virtual machine (VM) with Windows
Use VirtualBox + Windows 10 ISO (free dev environment from Microsoft). Allocate 4GB RAM, 2 CPU cores. Install Excel 365. Full fidelity — all formulas, macros, add-ins, even Power Pivot. But: startup time ~90 seconds. Alt+Tab switching feels sluggish. And if Sarah’s on a 16GB RAM laptop? That leaves just 8GB for Ubuntu — enough for Slack and Chrome, but tight.
The Result
After testing all four, Sarah chose Option 1 (Excel for the Web) — but with a twist. She enabled OneDrive sync, saved the file there, and added a note in cell K1: "Updated via web app — verify formulas before final export." Here’s the cleaned output she delivered Friday:
| Vendor ID |
Company Name |
Due Date |
Amount |
Status |
Days Past Due |
Notes |
| V-7823 |
BrightLeaf Supplies |
2024-04-20 |
¥1,280,650 |
Overdue |
12 |
Follow up scheduled |
| V-7825 |
Stellar Components Inc |
2024-04-25 |
$22,100.00 |
Draft |
7 |
Needs legal review |
| V-7828 |
Veridian Tech Solutions |
2024-05-01 |
$11,300.40 |
Pending |
0 |
Contract terms under revision |
What Could Go Wrong
Three mistakes I saw colleagues make — all within 48 hours of asking "Can you run Excel on Linux?":
- Mistake #1: Assuming Excel for the Web saves locally. It doesn’t. If you close your browser without clicking Save As → Download a Copy, your edits vanish. No recovery. Ever.
- Mistake #2: Installing Excel 2016 via Wine and expecting Power Query. Wine doesn’t handle COM objects well. The Get & Transform ribbon tab appears — but clicking it crashes Excel. Stick to 2010 or skip Power Query entirely.
- Mistake #3: Using LibreOffice to edit a file with Excel-defined names (e.g.,
NamedRange1 pointing to $A$2:$I$127). LibreOffice ignores those names. Formulas referencing them return #REF! — silently, with no warning.
Your Next Step
Pick your path based on what you need *right now*:
| If you need… |
Try This |
Skip This |
Pro Tip |
| Quick edits, collaboration, no macros |
Excel for the Web |
Wine + Excel 2016 |
Use Ctrl+Shift+S to force save-as-download — don’t trust auto-save. |
| Full formula fidelity, offline access |
LibreOffice Calc + manual date fixes |
Excel for the Web |
Add +25569 to all Excel-style date diffs — paste into J2 as =TODAY()-D2+25569. |
| VBA, Power Pivot, legacy reports |
VM with Windows + Excel 365 |
LibreOffice |
Disable 3D acceleration in VirtualBox settings — cuts lag by ~40%. |
