5 ms·

My experience would be the contrary. I felt Libre Office had better document compatibility and a better user experience, so I stopped using Open Office. Maybe i

My experience would be the contrary. I felt Libre Office had better document compatibility and a better user experience, so I stopped using Open Office. Maybe it improved since then. I would also like to see something to back up the claim you are talking about.

okket 10y ago
Please ask the author on the OO-dev mailing list, I just quoted him http://www.mail-archive.com/dev@openoffice.apache.org/msg28200.html http://www.mail-archive.com/dev@openoffice.apache.org/msg282...
- the_duke 10y ago
  I misread your comment.
bArray 10y ago
In my personal experience, when I first tried Open Office it ended up being a clunky, unreliable clone of older Microsoft Office products. It was still better than a kick in the teeth though. In all honesty, after writing my own simple manual editor for PDF, I really don't envy the task of making something compatible with multiple other formats. It would be nice to see the project archived or completely released to the community to continue work on.
- MichaelMoser123 10y ago
  > ... clunky, unreliable clone of older Microsoft Office products. It was still better than a kick in the teeth though. That's exactly why i am using Open/Libre office; at some point Microsoft Office got such a complicate UI (ever since they pushed the ribbon bar - that's when they kicked me in the teeth) that i am unable to use it - the alternative uses a much less complicated UI so i am with it. Does the MS Office UI conform with the Windows UI guidelines ? I am not quite sure.. As for 'unreliable' - i can't share this perspective; LibreOffice works for me; didn't have any problems with OpenOffice either - before i switched to LibreOffice. I switched because LibreOffice is supposed to have better support. Interesting that MS often gets to a point where the UI is quite adequate, but then they have to come up with something new, so they come out with an update that breaks it all. Happened with Windows, Office, Visual Studio, Visual Basic - you name it; i think it also happened with gmail - so it does not seem to be something exclusive to MS; i wonder if that is a general law of software development.
  - the_duke 10y ago
    Am I alone here in actually liking the ribbon? I almost never use any MS Office product (Latex for serious writing, R for statistics, ...) but when I have to because of a client or whatever, I find the Ribbon to be convenient for a non-power user.
    - antisthenes 10y ago
      I love the ribbon. It brought the most used functionality to the front where you don't have to navigate a text menu to find.
      - bbatha 10y ago
        It also makes shortcuts discoverable! Just hit the alt-key and virtually every thing pops up with it hot key. Hitting alt in a standard windows app only tells me what menus are available, not which actions are available.
        nitrogen 10y ago
        Ok, maybe shortcuts are discoverable, but actual actions no longer are. Not everyone finds the ribbon an improvement; I feel the need to point that out since so many comments appeared praising the awfully opaque ribbon.
        andrepd 10y ago
        How so? Why are actions hidden in nested menus easier to find than in the ribbon?
        bashinator 10y ago
        Because the menus are words, describing the function of their contents at a glance.
        10y ago

okket 10y ago

Please ask the author on the OO-dev mailing list, I just quoted him http://www.mail-archive.com/dev@openoffice.apache.org/msg28200.html http://www.mail-archive.com/dev@openoffice.apache.org/msg282...

the_duke 10y ago
I misread your comment.

bArray 10y ago

In my personal experience, when I first tried Open Office it ended up being a clunky, unreliable clone of older Microsoft Office products. It was still better than a kick in the teeth though. In all honesty, after writing my own simple manual editor for PDF, I really don't envy the task of making something compatible with multiple other formats. It would be nice to see the project archived or completely released to the community to continue work on.

MichaelMoser123 10y ago
> ... clunky, unreliable clone of older Microsoft Office products. It was still better than a kick in the teeth though. That's exactly why i am using Open/Libre office; at some point Microsoft Office got such a complicate UI (ever since they pushed the ribbon bar - that's when they kicked me in the teeth) that i am unable to use it - the alternative uses a much less complicated UI so i am with it. Does the MS Office UI conform with the Windows UI guidelines ? I am not quite sure.. As for 'unreliable' - i can't share this perspective; LibreOffice works for me; didn't have any problems with OpenOffice either - before i switched to LibreOffice. I switched because LibreOffice is supposed to have better support. Interesting that MS often gets to a point where the UI is quite adequate, but then they have to come up with something new, so they come out with an update that breaks it all. Happened with Windows, Office, Visual Studio, Visual Basic - you name it; i think it also happened with gmail - so it does not seem to be something exclusive to MS; i wonder if that is a general law of software development.
- the_duke 10y ago
  Am I alone here in actually liking the ribbon? I almost never use any MS Office product (Latex for serious writing, R for statistics, ...) but when I have to because of a client or whatever, I find the Ribbon to be convenient for a non-power user.
  - antisthenes 10y ago
    I love the ribbon. It brought the most used functionality to the front where you don't have to navigate a text menu to find.
    - bbatha 10y ago
      It also makes shortcuts discoverable! Just hit the alt-key and virtually every thing pops up with it hot key. Hitting alt in a standard windows app only tells me what menus are available, not which actions are available.
      - nitrogen 10y ago
        Ok, maybe shortcuts are discoverable, but actual actions no longer are. Not everyone finds the ribbon an improvement; I feel the need to point that out since so many comments appeared praising the awfully opaque ribbon.
        andrepd 10y ago
        How so? Why are actions hidden in nested menus easier to find than in the ribbon?
        bashinator 10y ago
        Because the menus are words, describing the function of their contents at a glance.
        10y ago