The complexity and demand of most of the programs that we use today extends to almost all sectors of software. On certain occasions we can even apply this to the office automation solutions that we find, among which we can highlight LibreOffice.
In this specific case we are referring to one of the most loved and used office solutions at the moment. It is an open source project that also in certain types of use requires hardware requirements greater than what we could imagine at first. This suite is made up of several programs, among which we find a text editor, an application to design mathematical formulas, databases, and even to draw.
What we want to tell you with all this is that the current productivity suites are not only focused on working with numerical data or texts. They generally go one step further and require work with more demanding elements such as objects, tables , images or even videos. For this, and as it is not difficult to imagine, a certain consumption of computer resources is required for everything to work smoothly. Especially if we have an old or somewhat limited computer, even working with LibreOffice we will sometimes see performance problems.
Precisely to solve all this we are going to talk about an interesting functionality that is deactivated by default. If we see that we find these errors related to the performance of office programs, we may be interested in activating this feature that takes more advantage of the CPU and GPU of our PC . Specifically, we are going to talk about the possibility of using the function called OpenCL.
What is OpenCL and how it helps LibreOffice
The first thing we need to understand exactly is what this function we are referring to is about. It, OpenCL , can be extremely useful not only in LibreOffice, but also in many other programs that implement it by default. It must be said that here we are referring to an API that allows applications such as the aforementioned suite to access several processors simultaneously to improve their performance . It is true that a priori this can negatively affect the rest of the software running at that moment.
However, if what we need is to get the most out of certain tasks corresponding to LibreOffice, we may be interested in activating it. And it is necessary to take into account that when we talk about processors, here we refer to the use of both CPU cores and the team’s own GPU . Therefore, in certain circumstances or without we recommend activating this element and thus improve the performance of the productivity suite.
First of all, to do this, what we do is access the control panel from which we can start any program included here, such as Writer or Calc . However, instead of running any of these applications, we access the Tools / Options menu option. In the different drop-down lists that we see in the left panel, there is one precisely called LibreOffice. we open it to find the OpenCL option.
From here, if we take a look at the right panel, we find the functionality as such, but by default it is disabled . We will have to click on the corresponding selector so that from that moment on the programs use the CPU and GPU of the PC. All this in order to improve its overall performance.