4 ms·

What do you need from an office suite that LibreOffice doesn't give you? Not being snarky, genuine question.

by JonoBB 10y ago

creshal 10y ago
LibreOffice is still poor at interoperability with MS Office – if everyone you're working with is using MS Office and you have to edit their documents without breaking formatting, or want to use their templates, your only safe bet is using MS Office. Ideally in the same version and on the same OS, there's also breakage when moving files between the OSX and Windows builds of the same MS Office version. Then there's macros. Yeah, yeah, people shouldn't use them, but they do, and when LibreOffice crashes on particularly weird ones while MSO Just Works™… well. (Yesterday I came across a particularly fun example: 100kb data wrapped into 30 megabytes worth of macros that all did exactly nothing, but were part of the client's default template, and so in every file they send out. LibreOffice hangs when trying to parse them, even when disabled, Excel works.) Edit: Why the downvotes? I answered the question. Disagreeing with facts doesn't make them disappear.
- Ciantic 10y ago
  Excel spreadheet file format (as well as other Office file formats) is horrible, especially slightly older ones. I wouldn't expect the LibreOffice ever to really master those. One blog post to about the file formats: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/02/19.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/02/19.html
  - creshal 10y ago
    I don't care whether it's Microsoft's or LibreOffice's fault. It doesn't change the fact that I'm forced to use Microsoft Office.
- mastazi 10y ago
  I agree with the parent, interoperability is not perfect, and I don't understand why the comment deserved to be downvoted.
pritambarhate 10y ago
As creshal pointed out, it has mainly been the formatting issues for me. Nested bullets and lists, which are a lot of times part of specifications, didn't use to work well in OO / LibreOffice till 3-4 years (That's when I just resigned and started using MS Office, also it helped that I was able to afford it by then.) ago. Even in their own formats. When imported from MS office, there were even further problems. Placements of images and use of complicated formatting options in tables was also a problem. Quite a few Business Analysts are quite good with these advanced options in MS Office, as it's the main tool they use. It reflects in their documents. :-)

What do you need from an office suite that LibreOffice doesn't give you? Not being snarky, genuine question.

by JonoBB 10y ago

What do you need from an office suite that LibreOffice doesn't give you? Not being snarky, genuine question.

LibreOffice is still poor at interoperability with MS Office – if everyone you're working with is using MS Office and you have to edit their documents without breaking formatting, or want to use their templates, your only safe bet is using MS Office. Ideally in the same version and on the same OS, there's also breakage when moving files between the OSX and Windows builds of the same MS Office version. Then there's macros. Yeah, yeah, people shouldn't use them, but they do, and when LibreOffice crashes on particularly weird ones while MSO Just Works™… well. (Yesterday I came across a particularly fun example: 100kb data wrapped into 30 megabytes worth of macros that all did exactly nothing, but were part of the client's default template, and so in every file they send out. LibreOffice hangs when trying to parse them, even when disabled, Excel works.) Edit: Why the downvotes? I answered the question. Disagreeing with facts doesn't make them disappear.

Ciantic 10y ago
Excel spreadheet file format (as well as other Office file formats) is horrible, especially slightly older ones. I wouldn't expect the LibreOffice ever to really master those. One blog post to about the file formats: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/02/19.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/02/19.html
- creshal 10y ago
  I don't care whether it's Microsoft's or LibreOffice's fault. It doesn't change the fact that I'm forced to use Microsoft Office.
mastazi 10y ago
I agree with the parent, interoperability is not perfect, and I don't understand why the comment deserved to be downvoted.

pritambarhate 10y ago

As creshal pointed out, it has mainly been the formatting issues for me. Nested bullets and lists, which are a lot of times part of specifications, didn't use to work well in OO / LibreOffice till 3-4 years (That's when I just resigned and started using MS Office, also it helped that I was able to afford it by then.) ago. Even in their own formats. When imported from MS office, there were even further problems. Placements of images and use of complicated formatting options in tables was also a problem. Quite a few Business Analysts are quite good with these advanced options in MS Office, as it's the main tool they use. It reflects in their documents. :-)