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LibreOffice: The Next Five Years

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431–433 of 433 posts

Re: LibreOffice: The Next Five Years

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people I know use LO for essentially political reasons. I've never really tried to use anything other than MS Office, because for my whole career I've been interacting with people on Windows using standard Windows/MSFT tools, and so any inconsistency / glitch in document exchange would automatically be my fault if I insisted on using LO or Apple's tools or whatever. Plus, honest go God, Word and Excel are really,…

>for my whole career I've been interacting with people on Windows using standard Windows/MSFT tools, and so any inconsistency / glitch in document exchange would automatically be my fault if I insisted on using LO or Apple's tools or whatever. // How long is that career? Over my working life StarOffice/OpenOffice/OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice have been far more compatible (for relatively basic documents) with other vers…

30 years.

And no, what you say absolutely has not been my experience. Any rich formatting tends to get lost or munged, and support for stylesheets / templates between Office and non-Office platforms was woefully lacking.

If you're alone, sure, the free or Free option might be a good choice. But your time has value, so if you're collaborating with other people using true Office, just use Office. You'll be happier.

Re: LibreOffice: The Next Five Years

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MSFT had reason to believe that the Ribbon was more accessible and discoverable to users than the old menu structure. I was dubious at the time, but since the shift I have come to believe that they are correct. I think the Ribbon is better for the vast majority of users. Interfaces shouldn't be changed for no good reason -- and MSFT is certainly guilty of chasing fads or tweaks without a clear benefit, too, in other…

> MSFT had reason to believe that the Ribbon was more accessible and discoverable to users than the old menu structure. I was dubious at the time, but since the shift I have come to believe that they are correct. I think the Ribbon is better for the vast majority of users. Microsoft also removed the start menu on Windows once and everybody hated it. Sometimes, MSFT is wrong.

I would absolutely never dispute this, but I also don't think it has anything to do with my statement.

Re: LibreOffice: The Next Five Years

#433

They do a great job. But I use [commercial] Softmaker Office. They offer a free version too: https://www.freeoffice.com/en/

Thanks for posting this. I'm looking for a MS Office replacement, not heard of Softmaker Office before. I'm still using an old version of Office, but it doesn't work well on a high DPI screen. What's your experience with Softmaker Office - anything you're missing from MS Office (if you've used it before Softmaker Office)?

I miss nothing. Buts thats me. If you need visual basic scripts, maybe it is not for you. AFAIK it has its own scripting language. There is no risk to test the free version. You can actually use the free version, the limitations are not tremendous. I always buy it.
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