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Think this is a great idea. I’m for sure going to check it out. Working with Microsoft Office is the one thing I still cannot do under Linux. I know people will

Think this is a great idea. I’m for sure going to check it out. Working with Microsoft Office is the one thing I still cannot do under Linux. I know people will suggest all kinds of native Linux apps that supports the Office formats, but they just never work out, there is always some problem with them. Also, Office basically does not work (at least newer versions of Office) over Wine. I am going to try it out!

Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
I use Libre Office in GNU/Linux and I am free from severe vendor lock. Rumors about impossibility for a business to work without MSO are overblown.
- codewithcheese 6y ago
  I wish but many complex excel sheets on LibreOffice Calc do not function correctly.
  - RealStickman_ 6y ago
    I found that wps office seems to work better than LibreOffice in terms of compatibility with complicated MSOffice files. It's free but not open source, if you care about that.
  - zhdc1 6y ago
    Simple excel sheets are also hit or miss.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
    Libreofice calc sheets do not work at all in Excel, so the criticism is unwarranted. Just work in the native format.
- zhdc1 6y ago
  Libre Office != Microsoft Office Word, Excel, & PowerPoint are the only reason I keep a spare Windows 10 laptop.
  - imhoguy 6y ago
    plus MS Paint 3D which my kids love. Does anyone got it successfuly running in Wine?
- jeroenhd 6y ago
  Agreed, but only if the entire business uses Libre Office. There's enough compatibility between MS Office and LibreOffice to exchange the occasional file, but when you get down to complex usage, you really need to pick between the two. For anyone with IT knowledge, such a switch is easy. For most people in most companies it's not, though. Loads of people needed workshops and training when MS introduced the ribbon design, and some people that couldn't adapt still swear by their old Office 2003 installs. Lots of people learn not to use feature X to accomplish Y, but to click button Z to make Y happen. Even people who advertise "experience with computers" on their resumé are often unable to adapt to different software because they only know how to do something in a certain software package and don't know how to figure out (use Google) how to get feature parity. The sad state of modern offices is that it's somehow okay to be "not good at computers" even when your job is centered around using them. Whenever something small changes, people will call IT to "fix" it because they're now confused. In young, small companies and startups this isn't a problem per se, other than needing to Google to see how to do a certain task, but most companies in the world aren't capable of switching to another product without sending everyone to a workshop to learn how to use a new product. There's very little workshops centered on open source software, making is nearly impossible as a company to pick anything other than MS Office or, these days, the Google office suite. There's also the problem of compatibility. Most people on the company i work at run some flavour of Linux so everyone has LibreOffice installed. All of our customers use Excel to basically run their business. Sometimes, sheets need to be exchanged. We run into trouble that certain parts of their Excel sheets just don't work correctly, just because of the sheer volume and complexity of the files exchanged as with companies basically running on Excel sheets. We have a few people with MS Excel licenses for those cases. You simply cannot ignore compatibility in situations like that.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
    My company uses Libre Office for 13 years (a no-brainer, we don't even have windows computers in the office), we had zero problems interacting with the outer world and 'other businesses'. So when I speak that this 'business is impossible without MS Office' narrative is false, I do it from many years of experience that proves otherwise.
- Fmstrat 6y ago
  I wish this was true for me. Before making this I used OnlyOffice, LibreOffice, and even tried building Electron O365 apps. I switched to this method because of compatibility for pixel-perfect PPT presentations, and Word formatting was always "off" for everyone else.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
    Just convert your presentations to PDFs, that's the only reliable way to go with a presentation to a random computer
bartvk 6y ago
Have a look at Crossover Office: https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover#linux https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover#linux It's a commercial Wine version. I've used it successfully for many years when I ran Linux on the desktop.

Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago

I use Libre Office in GNU/Linux and I am free from severe vendor lock. Rumors about impossibility for a business to work without MSO are overblown.

codewithcheese 6y ago
I wish but many complex excel sheets on LibreOffice Calc do not function correctly.
- RealStickman_ 6y ago
  I found that wps office seems to work better than LibreOffice in terms of compatibility with complicated MSOffice files. It's free but not open source, if you care about that.
- zhdc1 6y ago
  Simple excel sheets are also hit or miss.
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  Libreofice calc sheets do not work at all in Excel, so the criticism is unwarranted. Just work in the native format.
zhdc1 6y ago
Libre Office != Microsoft Office Word, Excel, & PowerPoint are the only reason I keep a spare Windows 10 laptop.
- imhoguy 6y ago
  plus MS Paint 3D which my kids love. Does anyone got it successfuly running in Wine?
jeroenhd 6y ago
Agreed, but only if the entire business uses Libre Office. There's enough compatibility between MS Office and LibreOffice to exchange the occasional file, but when you get down to complex usage, you really need to pick between the two. For anyone with IT knowledge, such a switch is easy. For most people in most companies it's not, though. Loads of people needed workshops and training when MS introduced the ribbon design, and some people that couldn't adapt still swear by their old Office 2003 installs. Lots of people learn not to use feature X to accomplish Y, but to click button Z to make Y happen. Even people who advertise "experience with computers" on their resumé are often unable to adapt to different software because they only know how to do something in a certain software package and don't know how to figure out (use Google) how to get feature parity. The sad state of modern offices is that it's somehow okay to be "not good at computers" even when your job is centered around using them. Whenever something small changes, people will call IT to "fix" it because they're now confused. In young, small companies and startups this isn't a problem per se, other than needing to Google to see how to do a certain task, but most companies in the world aren't capable of switching to another product without sending everyone to a workshop to learn how to use a new product. There's very little workshops centered on open source software, making is nearly impossible as a company to pick anything other than MS Office or, these days, the Google office suite. There's also the problem of compatibility. Most people on the company i work at run some flavour of Linux so everyone has LibreOffice installed. All of our customers use Excel to basically run their business. Sometimes, sheets need to be exchanged. We run into trouble that certain parts of their Excel sheets just don't work correctly, just because of the sheer volume and complexity of the files exchanged as with companies basically running on Excel sheets. We have a few people with MS Excel licenses for those cases. You simply cannot ignore compatibility in situations like that.
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  My company uses Libre Office for 13 years (a no-brainer, we don't even have windows computers in the office), we had zero problems interacting with the outer world and 'other businesses'. So when I speak that this 'business is impossible without MS Office' narrative is false, I do it from many years of experience that proves otherwise.
Fmstrat 6y ago
I wish this was true for me. Before making this I used OnlyOffice, LibreOffice, and even tried building Electron O365 apps. I switched to this method because of compatibility for pixel-perfect PPT presentations, and Word formatting was always "off" for everyone else.
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  Just convert your presentations to PDFs, that's the only reliable way to go with a presentation to a random computer

bartvk 6y ago

Have a look at Crossover Office: https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover#linux https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover#linux It's a commercial Wine version. I've used it successfully for many years when I ran Linux on the desktop.