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Ask HN: Has anyone successfully used LibreOffice for their business?

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Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully used LibreOffice for their business?

#121

Post by gtf21 »

alx__ wrote: post #57

I feel it's best to let folks use what they prefer. While having a standard way of sharing information. Fighting with tools you're unfamiliar while trying to get work done with is a hidden cost on productivity. Example, at our office we have a standard way of sharing info (Slack), and store shared information in Notion. But some folks use Google Docs/Sheet, some prefer Excel, or Markdown files for their on work uses

The problem is "having a standard way of sharing information". Google Drive/Suite is ... terrible for this.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully used LibreOffice for their business?

#122

Post by gtf21 »

ISL wrote: post #6

I feel like the biggest blocker to modern adoption of LibreOffice is the inability to collaborate in ways that Google Docs enables. Are there open-source implementation of Docs, even poor ones?

This is one of the major blockers for us, and why I chose GSuite in the first place. We really need good collaborative tools.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully used LibreOffice for their business?

#123

Post by gtf21 »

gerdesj wrote: post #55

"My big concerns are support and training" If you find an awkward corner case in any piece of software then you will find support rather lacking from the vendor. I use LO myself: I'm a business owner and can use what I damn well like! I don't force anyone else to use LO but we are a MS tin partner or something so get our tricks err drugs err software a bit cheaper. Training: I was a trainer back in the day and it's a…

I'm less worried about their flexibility in adopting new tools (everyone has started using Notion just fine), but more that I would get people to move off Google, setup a whole new infrastructure, only to run into some usability issues that cause a huge amount of frustration. I'm a little scarred from the experience of doing something similar with moving my family's business to Thunderbird from Outlook because I thought it was better (I was 17, they probably should not have let a 17-year-old dictate IT policy, but that's a different question); fourteen years later and they're still using Outlook.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully used LibreOffice for their business?

#124

Post by gtf21 »

pengo wrote: post #110

My company hasn't used anything but Open/Libre Office since its inception. No problems. The only slightly related issue has been the one client who continues to send email attachments from Outlook as winmail.dat.

How big is the company?

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully used LibreOffice for their business?

#125

Post by iostream24 »

Libre Office corresponds with M$ Office nearly 1-to-1 feature-wise.

I’ve never seen a single person react to it’s apps as being unfamiliar or different, especially considering the variety of UI shifts M$ Office has displayed since Office 2k. If you were referring to some specific API and integration with Sharepojnt or something I might understand your trepidation, but as your question stands, I have to say that I can’t think of a specific downside to it.

I suppose that deciding upon an output format that you will send out to clients or suppliers will be your main concern, as you will essentially choosing which version of M$ Office you are pretending to be. I find that the older pre-xml format is more universally supported but YMMV

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully used LibreOffice for their business?

#126

Post by iostream24 »

zinekeller wrote: post #80
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #46

I have. Been using OpenOffice.org / LibreOffice since 2005, started business in 2007, never ever had a copy of MS office. I LAUGH at silly FUD like "you can't run a business without MSOffice", "You can't read documents ", "format compatibility problems!!", because that all is just FUD. If I ever (rarely, maybe 4 times total) receive a price file or spec that is unreadable by LibreOffice, I just ask to resend it to me…

> I LAUGH at silly FUD like "you can't run a business without MSOffice", "You can't read documents ", "format compatibility problems!!", because that all is just FUD. Not really a FUD if you're dealing with Excel spreadsheets from other companies, especially those that uses integrations with Excel. However PowerPoint/Present compat is a hit-or-miss bother but not world-shuttering like with Excel though, and Word comp…

If there are excel integrations with third party SW you arguably have additional issues, even with M$ Excel

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully used LibreOffice for their business?

#127

Post by gtf21 »

zinekeller wrote: post #80
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #46

I have. Been using OpenOffice.org / LibreOffice since 2005, started business in 2007, never ever had a copy of MS office. I LAUGH at silly FUD like "you can't run a business without MSOffice", "You can't read documents ", "format compatibility problems!!", because that all is just FUD. If I ever (rarely, maybe 4 times total) receive a price file or spec that is unreadable by LibreOffice, I just ask to resend it to me…

> I LAUGH at silly FUD like "you can't run a business without MSOffice", "You can't read documents ", "format compatibility problems!!", because that all is just FUD. Not really a FUD if you're dealing with Excel spreadsheets from other companies, especially those that uses integrations with Excel. However PowerPoint/Present compat is a hit-or-miss bother but not world-shuttering like with Excel though, and Word comp…

I find that some of the models I get sent by the team won't open properly in LibreOffice Calc, so definitely agree with this. I very rarely get Writer / Impress compatibility issues, however.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully used LibreOffice for their business?

#128

Post by iostream24 »

kjellsbells wrote: post #54

I very much suspect that LO will be fine until one day it isn't, and you wont realize until you are knee deep in pain that you are paying the price there and then. How much runway you have depends on the nature of the office work that you do. if you are trading complex documents with investors and their counsel for example then you may run into this immediately: docusign is gnarly, document review comments are gnarly…

I think you are vastly underestimating the mess Microsoft changes to UI has made on their product lines. I was MCSE certified at one point in time, now I can’t even find the control panel nor does it have the options I knew about, not to mention the registry…

Microsoft consistently shoots themselves and their customers in the legs in desperate efforts to ape the young cool kid hipster companies.

I think the real question is: how long can a company trust a sinking ship, that, while it still has plenty of money, is bent on destroying everything they built so far?

Abandon ship! The captains have gone mad.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully used LibreOffice for their business?

#129

Post by gtf21 »

cortesoft wrote: post #23
oezi wrote: post #14

Since you are a start-up and thus likely seeking an exit at some point, I wouldn't recommend it. Spending 10 USD per user/month on Microsoft 365 is a small investment but it gives most users instant familiarity with the tools and provides you with tools for collaboration (drafting contracts for instance). I don't think you can save money if you look at training effort alone. In the worst case you will be seen as hard…

Yeah, I am curious why the OP is wanting to avoid Microsoft here. It is one thing if you just want to use open source and maintain that ethos, but if the reason is to save money it makes no sense. Spending $400 a month for a 40 person startup is going to be a negligible cost. If it adds even a few hours a month of extra effort across your entire team, the cost savings are already gone. Use the thing everyone knows.

To be clear (as many people seem to think this is about money): this isn't about money. If we switched to LibreOffice we'd donate to the contributors and pay for support. This is about migrating tools before I have double the number of people to migrate.

Why do I want to look at LO?

- GSuite: it's just terrible, the entire suite misses basic functionality (custom styles, anyone?) and it only works online for me, and there are no files I can access. When Google went down for a day no-one could access a single document or presentation, which is just untenable.

- MS Office: better than GSuite, but the latter has better collaboration tools IMO. I like Office just fine, but it's not OpenSource, and I'm on Linux which means there are no offline apps I can use.

- LibreOffice: it's open-source, with an open document format. If we don't start using (and paying for) open-source projects as business they'll never become sufficiently competitive, and I prefer an open ecosystem to a closed one.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully used LibreOffice for their business?

#130

Post by gtf21 »

oezi wrote: post #14

Since you are a start-up and thus likely seeking an exit at some point, I wouldn't recommend it. Spending 10 USD per user/month on Microsoft 365 is a small investment but it gives most users instant familiarity with the tools and provides you with tools for collaboration (drafting contracts for instance). I don't think you can save money if you look at training effort alone. In the worst case you will be seen as hard…

> Since you are a start-up and thus likely seeking an exit at some point

I don't believe your conclusion follows the premise -- I'm not planning my business around an exit strategy, and we're gunning for being a large, private company not just a quick money spinner.

As I've said elsewhere, it's also not about cost, but about open tools and an open ecosystem. I use LibreOffice myself (I run Linux, as do about a quarter of my engineering team) and find it fine (except for complex models and spreadsheets).

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