5 ms·

I think this is the year that LibreOffice actually takes off as a widespread replacement. No offense to any devs that might be reading, but the last few times

I think this is the year that LibreOffice actually takes off as a widespread replacement. No offense to any devs that might be reading, but the last few times I used it (or Open Office), it was awful in a vague, this is just sucky, slow, ugly way. 3.4.6, however, is great; I know my office could move over with barely a hiccup (we are technical bureaucrats -- lots of SAS and Excel and GIS). I think it is only if you have some complex workflow dependent on VBA and links and all that crap that you would have a problem, and I think most people tried that garbage in the late nineties and never did it again. Mail merge is the only stupid automated thing that sort of works, and Libre has that.

jmspring 15y ago
I'm not sure how a clone that is nearly as complex (minus VBA) will take off as a "widespread replacement". The clutter in Word permeates many Windows apps (not just those from MSFT -- take a look at WinZip, for example). Most everyday windows users have become used to this and are unlikely to change. This doesn't even count businesses that base their enterprise around MSFT products... With Microsoft's push towards Windows 8, maybe clean and simple UI will return to the Office suite. Until then, people will continue to use what they know.
- read_wharf 15y ago
  "maybe clean and simple UI will return to the Office suite" Laws never disappear from the books, swords are never beaten into plowshares, and Word never, ever loses a feature, although some of them do get hidden.
  - jmspring 15y ago
    Ok, maybe I am dreaming...but...if and when Office shows up for tablets (iOS/etc), maybe that will transition over to Win8/Metro. It is a dream, maybe an impossible dream. I remember Excel 5 being fast and not sucking. Word 2.x wasn't bad either. However, you have a point, Word has been additive over the years.
- forkandwait 15y ago
  The clone costs nothing, uses open file formats, and is more friendly for certain things like editing CSV files in a spreadsheet.

jmspring 15y ago

I'm not sure how a clone that is nearly as complex (minus VBA) will take off as a "widespread replacement". The clutter in Word permeates many Windows apps (not just those from MSFT -- take a look at WinZip, for example). Most everyday windows users have become used to this and are unlikely to change. This doesn't even count businesses that base their enterprise around MSFT products... With Microsoft's push towards Windows 8, maybe clean and simple UI will return to the Office suite. Until then, people will continue to use what they know.

read_wharf 15y ago
"maybe clean and simple UI will return to the Office suite" Laws never disappear from the books, swords are never beaten into plowshares, and Word never, ever loses a feature, although some of them do get hidden.
- jmspring 15y ago
  Ok, maybe I am dreaming...but...if and when Office shows up for tablets (iOS/etc), maybe that will transition over to Win8/Metro. It is a dream, maybe an impossible dream. I remember Excel 5 being fast and not sucking. Word 2.x wasn't bad either. However, you have a point, Word has been additive over the years.
forkandwait 15y ago
The clone costs nothing, uses open file formats, and is more friendly for certain things like editing CSV files in a spreadsheet.