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I use Calc on my personal machine. > What can Excel do that Calc can’t? For one, a working copy paste. Seriously, I’ve lived with a copy paste bug in LibreOff
by AnonC 2y ago
I use Calc on my personal machine.
> What can Excel do that Calc can’t?
For one, a working copy paste. Seriously, I’ve lived with a copy paste bug in LibreOffice Calc (Windows) for years (it wasn’t yet fixed as of a few months ago). It will either paste an older copy or not paste anything even though I just hit Ctrl+C (sometimes multiple times) within Calc. This is one of the most irritating things about Calc.
Fonts and formatting is another thing that Calc miserably fails at in relation to copy paste. Multiple cells will look very different even though the font, size, etc., will appear the same in the dropdowns below the menus (when these cells are in focus). LibreOffice Calc, in many ways, portrays the worst of what one would expect from an open source project (I say this as a supporter/donor of Document Foundation).
The other part about what Excel can do that Calc can’t is that Microsoft (at least with the MS365 subscription version) has been adding more functions to improve older functions and features. I don’t remember everything, but SEQUENCE and XLOOKUP are two functions that come to mind on this aspect. LibreOffice Calc lags behind Excel on functions by several years.
LibreOffice Calc, though it’s a lot newer/younger than Excel, also has ~weird~ different keyboard shortcuts compared to Excel (e.g. adding a new line within a cell is Ctrl+Enter whereas it’s Alt+Enter in Excel; there are many more like this).
Nevertheless, I use Calc because I can’t bother to pay Microsoft and since Excel might be the only application that could be of value to me in its Office offerings (MS Word is total crap, PowerPoint isn’t as keyboard friendly as I’d like it to be, and Outlook is another total piece of crap).
- timbit42 2y agoI use LibreOffice on Linux and don't have any copy/paste or fonts and formatting issues like you are describing. I wouldn't be surprised if such bugs get fixed more quickly on Linux because Linux users don't have an easy way to use Excel, while the vast majority of Windows users do use Excel so there are fewer LibreOffice for Windows users complaining. Excel does have more functions but 90% of people don't need those. If you do, you do.
- copperx 2y agoExcel also has that program synthesis algorithm to fill cells following a pattern. I haven't seen it anywhere else.
- alwillis 2y agoI believe Numbers has what's you're talking about [1]: [1]: https://support.apple.com/guide/numbers/autofill-cells-tan0e1129cf6/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/numbers/autofill-cells-tan0e...
- copperx 2y agoNo, that sounds like conventional autofill. In Excel the function is called Flash Fill. If you haven't before, try Flash Fill. It seemed like black magic back when LLMs were not a thing.
- biorach 2y ago> It will either paste an older copy or not paste anything even though I just hit Ctrl+C (sometimes multiple times) within Calc. Weird. I've used Calc extensively on Windows and Linux and have never come across this