4 ms·

LibreOffice FTW. https://libreoffice.org/ https://libreoffice.org/ It may be glitchy in some areas, but I've been using it since graduating high school, and I

LibreOffice FTW. https://libreoffice.org/ https://libreoffice.org/ It may be glitchy in some areas, but I've been using it since graduating high school, and I can do whatever I want with it.

acomjean 4y ago
If you deal with csv (or their tab separated cousins..) libre office sheets (spreadsheet) is really great. I'm on linux desktop now and this lets me read and write MS office files and works quite well.
- danuker 4y ago
  TSV is my favorite also. Quote all you want, no need to unescape in whatever program you interop with.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
squarefoot 4y ago
This. I've installed Linux+LO for years to a lot of people (also a couple times when it was in the earlier StarOffice incarnation, can't recall if under Windows or OS/2, certainly not Linux), being extremely clear on one thing: "this is not Microsoft Office, it's not as powerful as Microsoft Office and you may find some incompatibilities here and there (that was true especially during the old times), but the features 99% of users need are all here. Keep it for a while, and if it doesn't work for you, I'll install your Microsoft Office back for free and you lose nothing". It was a success almost everywhere, but it's extremely important for "normal" users to be comfortable with the different tool; remember that we value privacy, Open Source, etc. they don't. If something that they don't perceive as important requires a change in their workflow, they'll refuse that, so I don't even talk them about different file formats and just set it up to read/write in MS Office formats from scratch.
- q-big 4y ago
  > but the features 99% of users need are all here. I cannot believe this, in particular for the comparison Excel vs. LibreOfice Calc: the latter is used insanely actively in the finance and insurance industries, thus any proper user sampling should bias towards these industries. On the other hand: users in these industries know Excel really well and use very advanced features of it.
  - squarefoot 4y ago
    That is true, but let's not forget that the userbase that needs only basic spreadsheet functions or simply a tool for writing text documents is vastly superior. One of my accountants used StarOffice like 20 years ago, and I recently serviced a business consultant office in which all machines had OpenOffice (installed before the LibreOffice split). Excel is for sure a monster feature-wise, but outside of certain niches the need of all those features is really low, then again many Office users didn't even know about its existence since all they need is to read and write text documents.
  - danuker 4y ago
    I have performed logistic regression in Calc, by using the Solver feature to find coefficients, after multiplying the input with them, passing the output to a sigmoid, and computing the mean squared error. I suspect anything more advanced than this would be better worth implementing as a script, rather than using Excel. The main arguments for Excel, that I suspect, would be better collaboration features (like comments and sharing and such), and better integration with other MS tools (Outlook etc.). But even then, perhaps a script or Jupyter Notebook would be easier to work with (for diffs and version control that are not vendor-locked).
    - q-big 4y ago
      > The main arguments for Excel, that I suspect, would be better collaboration features (like comments and sharing and such), and better integration with other MS tools (Outlook etc.). No, the main argument why Excel is used in the finance and insurance industries is that many users know Excel really well.
barbariangrunge 4y ago
I used libre office for years, but I switched for 2 reasons. 1: the export to docx had problems, and most publications require your submissions to be in docx format; 2: it gets laggy with large documents. This lag becomes distracting when writing novels. Seems to start around page 20-50 and gets worse and worse as you go. I wish I had better alternatives to suggest. I wish that publishers would stop demanding we submit our files in docx format.
- danuker 4y ago
  To be fair I haven't used Writer much. I've used Calc a lot. LO Writer can export to PDF when you need to preserve formatting. But if it needs to also be editable, I guess ODT is the only way. Maybe in light of the recent events you can convince your publishers. About performance, you might want to give AbiWord a try also.
- drpixie 4y ago
  I hadn't noticed LibreOffice lags any worse than MS-office. But, if you haven't tried, for anything bigger than a chapter or so, do yourself a favour and try a "proper" typesetting system - LaTeX, SILE, or the like. There will be a learning curve but I find my attention stays on the content, as I'm not continually distracted by the format issues that are better delayed until the text is complete. You'll want a reasonable text editor with spell checker, preferably one that knows to ignore formatting commands. Note you will end up with PDF output - if you really have to submit docx, my condolences!

LibreOffice FTW. https://libreoffice.org/ https://libreoffice.org/ It may be glitchy in some areas, but I've been using it since graduating high school, and I can do whatever I want with it.

acomjean 4y ago

If you deal with csv (or their tab separated cousins..) libre office sheets (spreadsheet) is really great. I'm on linux desktop now and this lets me read and write MS office files and works quite well.

danuker 4y ago
TSV is my favorite also. Quote all you want, no need to unescape in whatever program you interop with.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

squarefoot 4y ago

This. I've installed Linux+LO for years to a lot of people (also a couple times when it was in the earlier StarOffice incarnation, can't recall if under Windows or OS/2, certainly not Linux), being extremely clear on one thing: "this is not Microsoft Office, it's not as powerful as Microsoft Office and you may find some incompatibilities here and there (that was true especially during the old times), but the features 99% of users need are all here. Keep it for a while, and if it doesn't work for you, I'll install your Microsoft Office back for free and you lose nothing". It was a success almost everywhere, but it's extremely important for "normal" users to be comfortable with the different tool; remember that we value privacy, Open Source, etc. they don't. If something that they don't perceive as important requires a change in their workflow, they'll refuse that, so I don't even talk them about different file formats and just set it up to read/write in MS Office formats from scratch.

q-big 4y ago
> but the features 99% of users need are all here. I cannot believe this, in particular for the comparison Excel vs. LibreOfice Calc: the latter is used insanely actively in the finance and insurance industries, thus any proper user sampling should bias towards these industries. On the other hand: users in these industries know Excel really well and use very advanced features of it.
- squarefoot 4y ago
  That is true, but let's not forget that the userbase that needs only basic spreadsheet functions or simply a tool for writing text documents is vastly superior. One of my accountants used StarOffice like 20 years ago, and I recently serviced a business consultant office in which all machines had OpenOffice (installed before the LibreOffice split). Excel is for sure a monster feature-wise, but outside of certain niches the need of all those features is really low, then again many Office users didn't even know about its existence since all they need is to read and write text documents.
- danuker 4y ago
  I have performed logistic regression in Calc, by using the Solver feature to find coefficients, after multiplying the input with them, passing the output to a sigmoid, and computing the mean squared error. I suspect anything more advanced than this would be better worth implementing as a script, rather than using Excel. The main arguments for Excel, that I suspect, would be better collaboration features (like comments and sharing and such), and better integration with other MS tools (Outlook etc.). But even then, perhaps a script or Jupyter Notebook would be easier to work with (for diffs and version control that are not vendor-locked).
  - q-big 4y ago
    > The main arguments for Excel, that I suspect, would be better collaboration features (like comments and sharing and such), and better integration with other MS tools (Outlook etc.). No, the main argument why Excel is used in the finance and insurance industries is that many users know Excel really well.

barbariangrunge 4y ago

I used libre office for years, but I switched for 2 reasons. 1: the export to docx had problems, and most publications require your submissions to be in docx format; 2: it gets laggy with large documents. This lag becomes distracting when writing novels. Seems to start around page 20-50 and gets worse and worse as you go. I wish I had better alternatives to suggest. I wish that publishers would stop demanding we submit our files in docx format.

danuker 4y ago
To be fair I haven't used Writer much. I've used Calc a lot. LO Writer can export to PDF when you need to preserve formatting. But if it needs to also be editable, I guess ODT is the only way. Maybe in light of the recent events you can convince your publishers. About performance, you might want to give AbiWord a try also.
drpixie 4y ago
I hadn't noticed LibreOffice lags any worse than MS-office. But, if you haven't tried, for anything bigger than a chapter or so, do yourself a favour and try a "proper" typesetting system - LaTeX, SILE, or the like. There will be a learning curve but I find my attention stays on the content, as I'm not continually distracted by the format issues that are better delayed until the text is complete. You'll want a reasonable text editor with spell checker, preferably one that knows to ignore formatting commands. Note you will end up with PDF output - if you really have to submit docx, my condolences!