24 ms·

LibreOffice downloads on the rise as users look to avoid subscription costs

347 points by cable2600 2y ago

vunderba 2y ago
If I'm evaluating a potential application whose core functionality does not require external resources/servers (Dropbox for example) and they don't at a minimum offer some kind of perpetual fallback license (aka the Jetbrains annual subscription model), then I straight up bounce. Examples of good alternatives - Pixelmator > Photoshop - Davinci Resolve > Premiere - Reaper > Audition I have no interest in renting my tools.
- Shopper0552 2y ago
  Do you have any good alternatives to Photoshop that are open source? And that are not GIMP. Nothing against GIMP, I just found it too hard to learn coming from photoshop. I'm looking for a simple editor that can do color adjustments, crop/resize images, and add text.
  - _mlbt 2y ago
    There’s Krita… https://krita.org/en/ https://krita.org/en/
    - renegat0x0 2y ago
      Krita is so good, and so easy to use! I rarely use gimp now
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    > I'm looking for a simple editor that can do color adjustments, crop/resize images, and add text. Those are all pretty simple in GIMP though? I'm not doubting that they are different from Photoshop but how long could it take to learn the GIMP way?
    - thaumasiotes 2y ago
      I'd like to know more about color adjustments. I know GIMP can do them in some form, but I have no idea what the options are or what kind of results I should hope to be able to achieve. Documentation doesn't really seem to address these questions, though it is available if your question is "how do I run this menu item I found?" (Answer: open the menu, and click on the menu item.) Cropping and resizing are trivial. It would take less than one minute to learn how.
      - skydhash 2y ago
        There's a Colors menu in Gimp 3. But it's destructive and only for the selected layer, not the special layer type you get in Photoshop.
      - emporas 2y ago
        You can use the gmic plugin alongside with Gimp, and adjust the CMYK values. I use that all the time. Color adjustments like yellow -> orange, or green -> purple, might exceed your expectations. Photoshop is excellent at it as well, i have never used Photoshop to compare though. For more professional work Clut (Color Look Up Table) is supported by gmic as well. I also made my own open source tool to pass gmic filters to whole videos, see an example here [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8of-R-5zcs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8of-R-5zcs
  - Duanemclemore 2y ago
    The biggest issue I had migrating as a Photoshop user since 1996 was the key bindings. But using the config files people shared online sorted that. I'm not going to link to a specific one implying I'm recommending it, but a web search will show multiple. One important gimp note is if you don't have 3.0+ already, get it. It finally has non-destructive editing, which is the main reason I had to keep using ps for for a long time.
    - Lammy 2y ago
      > The biggest issue I had migrating as a Photoshop user since 1996 was the key bindings RIP GIMPshop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMPshop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMPshop
      - stuaxo 2y ago
        PhotoGIMP is the current thing like that I think?
        Lammy 2y ago
        Neat: https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP
    - mamonoleechi 2y ago
      It's easy to change keybindings on Gimp, most of mines are ones i used in photoshop 4-CS2. >It finally has non-destructive editing not for the fonts unfortunately, if you resize a text with the scale tool, it gets rasterized
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - bad_user 2y ago
    GIMP takes some time getting used to, but it's reliable, it will stick around and having used it for the past 20 years, I have issues switching to something else.
  - snielson 2y ago
    I use Paint.net for simple tasks like those you listed. I paid $10 for it in the Microsoft store but I think you can get it for free from the website.
    - dokyun 2y ago
      Paint.net isn't free software, it's proprietary freeware. It used to be free a long time ago, but the author is a tool and made it closed source because people were creating other versions of it.
      - UncleSlacky 2y ago
        Pinta is a free reimplenetation: https://www.pinta-project.com https://www.pinta-project.com
  - wrp 2y ago
    For simple things, I use mtPaint on Linux and PhotoFiltre on Windows. They are easy to figure out and very stable.
  - fodkodrasz 2y ago
    Paint.Net on Windows. Though on Windows there is Paint, that is less capable, but still no equivalent is on MacOS OOTB. (Also the drama around Paint is worth its own bashing). I'd be interested in a similar basic tool as paint for mac and Linux (and possibly also for windows, if MS crappifies Paint, after it has tried to kill it earlier)
    - UncleSlacky 2y ago
      Pinta (essentially a reimplementation of Paint.NET) exists for MacOS as well as Linux and Windows: https://www.pinta-project.com/releases/ https://www.pinta-project.com/releases/
      - theothertimcook 2y ago
        There are some subtle quirks where pinta just doesn’t play ball in a way that is intuitive to a PDN aficionado. Photopea is very close but i keep coming back to PDN either VM or RDP
      - tracker1 2y ago
        I want to like Pinta, but some of the load/save behaviors are just weird... not sure if I last tried the Flatpak version or not, but I've tried it on both Mac and Linux a few times... It's my go to for quick edits, but far from a fav.
        fodkodrasz 2y ago
        I tried Pinta, and honestly it has so many subtle differences from PDN, it was really uncomfortable and unproductive for me. I could not get to like it, but will give it some more time. Also the icons are terrible (at least on the mac), I find it really hard to identify a tool, these monochrome icons set me off and slowed me down since Visual Studio 2012. This fad is a really good example for design trends ruining productivity.
  - hyperlink014 2y ago
    I use Photopea which tries to mimic Photoshop UI and runs entirely on your browser. In fact, you can even install it as a Web App to run it offline. Pretty intuitive UI. https://www.photopea.com/ https://www.photopea.com/
    - Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago
      Yeah, but Photopea has a monthly cost and this post is about avoiding that. I love pwa, but I need image editing maybe once a month, I'm not going to pay a subscription for that
- LeoPanthera 2y ago
  You actually can still buy Office. It's quite expensive though. I suppose it always was. https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=2113574&CLCID=0x1009&culture=en-us&country=US https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=2113574&CLCID=0x10...
  - vunderba 2y ago
    That's honestly less than I would have expected. I still have an old copy of Microsoft Office 95 though I no longer have the hardware with which to run it. Ditto a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS6 which I believe was the final version before they went full on subscription.
    - chii 2y ago
      i reckon these software ought to run fine in a VM, perhaps running something like windows xp. Unfortunately, with photoshop, the hardware drivers for the various drawing tablets will probably not function (or remain available).
      - raffraffraff 2y ago
        Also work on a brand new Linux with wine. Actually come to that, my wife has Windows 10 and runs Photoshop CS2 occasionally.
        goosedragons 2y ago
        I tested PS7 on ARM64 Windows and it ran fine even. A little blurry on the high DPI display though.
  - dreamcompiler 2y ago
    Here's what Microsoft won't tell you: If you buy standalone office and it is not allowed to phone home to Microsoft at least once a month, it stops working. This can happen if you use it on a disconnected computer or you just have a reverse firewall rule blocking microsoft domains.
- publicola1990 2y ago
  Isn't it dogmatic to think so. Sometimes it makes sense to rent tools.
  - vunderba 2y ago
    Naturally. I've rented an mini excavator in the past to dig up stumps for a one time job. It made sense more sense to rent it since it was for a one-time task, and purchasing the kubota would have cost more than 5k. Given we're on HN news, I thought it was implied that I was referring mostly to the exhaustion at being faced with a perpetually increasing amount of rent-seeking in the form of SaaS.
    - thewebguyd 2y ago
      Additionally, for a lot of professional software, we aren't given the option for short term rental. For creative cloud, I pay monthly but agree on a annual basis. There's a more expensive month-to-month sub, but still you have it at minimum for a whole month. With software subscriptions, I don't have the option of saying "I need to rent lightroom for 3 hours to edit this session." and have it be priced accordingly. No matter what, I'm on the hook for at minimum a month. On the flip side of that, since I use it so frequently, it's insulting that my only option is just to rent it. I can buy other tools outright and own them, so I'd also like to own my digital tools as well.
- jwr 2y ago
  > I have no interest in renting my tools. While I appreciate the sentiment, the world where you could use the same software for many years without updates is gone. These days developers have to invest significant time and effort into making sure the software just runs on the constantly updated operating systems and platforms — which costs money on an ongoing basis. Expecting your software to be updated regularly without paying regularly makes no sense. So either you intend to run that exact binary that you downloaded (because that is the tool you bought), or the ongoing costs need to be covered somehow. Some companies do it through subscriptions and some play a game of "no, you don't have to update, but here is this new shiny (more bloated, too) version that we produce every 2 years, you can get it for $50 and OWN IT FOREVER (well, until the next shiny comes along in 2 years time". But it's a game, and the drawback is that there is incentive for bloating software instead of just maintaining it and fixing bugs.
  - vunderba 2y ago
    While I do recognize those concerns I'll note that it is still a viable model and not just for indie devs. Look to the DAW world (Ableton, FL Studio, Bitwig, Logic, etc.) if you're ever curious about building a sustainable business model around a flat pricing structure.
    - eddythompson80 2y ago
      You listed software that range between $500-$15k. Last time a “I want the option to pay for my software” posts here I replied to was about Infuse. And people complained that “$80 is an absurd amount for a software” and “Why isn’t there a free version?” A software that costs $500-15k is only feasible for a B2B type business.
      - dijksterhuis 2y ago
        > You listed software that range between $500-$15k. i’m confused… all versions of the DAWs they mentioned in the parent comment are as near as makes no difference below £500. > Live 12 Suite: £539 > Live 12 Standard: £259 > Live 12 Intro: £69 (nice) https://www.ableton.com/en/shop/live/ https://www.ableton.com/en/shop/live/ > FL Studio Full: £469 (nice) > FL Studio Signature: £279 > FL Studio Producer: £199 > FL Studio Fruity: £89 https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio/compare-editions/ https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio/compare-editions/ > Bitwig Studio: £339 > Bitwig Studio Producer: £169 (nice) > Bitwig Studio Essentials: £79 https://www.bitwig.com/buy/ https://www.bitwig.com/buy/ > Logic Pro: £199 —- in case you were replying to their original top-level comment > Photoshop £22.99 pcm (£276 pa) > Photoshop Photography £19.99 pcm (£240 pa) > Photoshop All Creative Cloud £59.99 pcm (£720 pa) this last one ^ bundles all the proprietary adobe “rented” software they mentioned into one package. https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/plans.html https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/plans.html so even then your figures don’t seem to make sense?
- tombert 2y ago
  I would also like to throw in Lightworks into the “very good Premiere alternatives”. If you are ok with exporting 720p, the free version is pretty capable but if you want higher export resolution it cost money. It has a subscription option, but also a “buy outright” option, and it’s often on sale for half price for the permanent license, ends up costing around ~$200 and it works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. I think it’s very good, though I am not a professional video editor by trade.
  - dijit 2y ago
    I upvote any option that has a “buy outright” baked in.
    - HelloNurse 2y ago
      You are easy to satisfy. Once upon a time, we complained about undependable applications that, although installed on a computer, dared to "phone home". Before that, we complained about undependable applications that, while not fucking around with remote servers, employed invasive and annoying anti-piracy measures.
      - tombert 2y ago
        I don’t love that Lightworks phones home, but FWIW, Lightworks’ support has been very good when I have contacted. They were very helpful when I needed to migrate a license when I had to swap to another computer. This might not seem like much but that has been something I have struggled with other companies over.
  - goosedragons 2y ago
    I haven't personally used it much, except for a very simple cut but I have heard very good things about KDENLive too.
    - dharmab 2y ago
      I've used KDENLive and it's about as comparable to Resolve or Lightworks as Windows Movie Maker is to Premiere.
- nxpnsv 2y ago
  I really enjoy the affinity suite.
  - specproc 2y ago
    Yeah, likewise, just wish they did Linux
    - tracker1 2y ago
      Same.. it'd totally be a take my money moment... same for Topaz Labs' software. Though I accept that I'm a minority user and it probably isn't worth the efforts for them... similar to codec support issues for Davinci Resolve's free version on linux.
- poglet 2y ago
  Wishing there was a capable Lightroom alternative.
  - UtopiaPunk 2y ago
    Darktable? https://www.darktable.org/ https://www.darktable.org/
    - Fethbita 2y ago
      Also Capture One, they have a perpetual license but the changes they made in 2023 to the perpetual license was quite bad. Now if you buy that version, you’re locked to the version you purchased and don’t get new features.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  While those producing tools for living might not have an interest on keeping offering them free of charge. Eventually that guy/girl in Nebraska is going to look elsewhere.
  - majewsky 2y ago
    OP did not assert that they wanted software free of charge.
- atoav 2y ago
  Resolve is cool for pro users for others who basically just want to do small edits with straightforward software chrck out kdenlive
  - dimitarbogdanov 2y ago
    Honestly, Resolve isn't that difficult, especially if you're OK with watching some tutorials to get used to it. It's certainly no more difficult than Premiere (for basic tasks, of course).
    - atoav 2y ago
      I teach those programs (after working with them for years as a freelance editor/colorist). Resolve is worth learning, and not that hard, you're right. But Resolve is not a "pick it up and it pretty much explains itself" software either.
Duanemclemore 2y ago
I usually used InDesign for presentations on PC. Switching to Scribus now that I run a linux only office has been trivial. Specific to LibreOffice - as an academic I've had to create a couple presentations in ppt format recently. It sucks, but it was a requirement of the conference. Anyway - LO Impress still has many of the annoyances of PowerPoint, but head to head it's actually an objectively better, faster program than PowerPoint.
- ghaff 2y ago
  I’d be grumble to go back to Libre Office which I used for years but it was the company standard. Mostly just use Google Workplace these days. )As does my former employer.) I find Google does a good job of including features most people need 95%+ of the time and does a good job of those.
jmclnx 2y ago
That is great, hopefully it continues. I am far from a heavy WP/Spreadsheet user, usually Emacs for me, but at work I need to mess with spreadsheets. I use LibreOffice for that and to me there is no difference.
cable2600 2y ago
It also supports WordPerfect formats, Which MS Office dropped. My wife was in a group email editing documents and someone emailed their edits using WordPerfect format. I loaded it in LibreOffice and exported it in DOCX format and it worked.
nilram 2y ago
I started using OpenOffice a couple decades ago when I got tired of pirating the market leader. Not wanting to start any religious wars, but I still haven't made the leap to Libre.
- Lammy 2y ago
  It's so impressively underhandedly sneaky how Microsoft named their ODF-competitor format “Office Open” just as the OO.o hype peaked with OO.o 2.0 having ODF as its native format, when MSOffice finally had a viable and popular competitor for like the first time ever lol https://www.openoffice.org/press/2.0/press_release.html https://www.openoffice.org/press/2.0/press_release.html (2005-10-20) https://news.microsoft.com/2005/11/21/qa-microsoft-co-sponsors-submission-of-office-open-xml-document-formats-to-ecma-international-for-standardization/ https://news.microsoft.com/2005/11/21/qa-microsoft-co-sponso... (2005-11-21)
- ndiddy 2y ago
  I'd recommend switching, OpenOffice is basically abandonware. There's been security issues that were reported over a year ago that have gone unaddressed. If you look at OpenOffice's git repo (https://github.com/apache/openoffice https://github.com/apache/openoffice), the vast majority of the commits are from two people who solely focus on manually fiddling with the code formatting and fixing typos in the comments.
- chris_wot 2y ago
  LibreOffice is vastly more stable and has more features and compatibility fixes that OpenOffice. I recommend using it.
- mksaunders2 2y ago
  It's extremely risky to keep using OpenOffice. Apache has marked its security status as "Amber" with "three issues in OpenOffice over 365 days old and a number of other open issues not fully triaged." It's also worrying that The Apache Foundation continues to promote and distribute OpenOffice despite unfixed security issues and zero updates to the software. So many people in the FOSS world have called on them to finally retire it, put it in the Attic and keep up a good reputation for FOSS - but they won't do it. It still gets hundreds of thousands of downloads despite being unfixed. It's irresponsible of The ASF IMO.
cft 2y ago
is there a way to plug say Grok or Chatgpt API into LibreOffice writer or sheets? such that it can have write access to the documents?
- chris_wot 2y ago
  There is an extensive Python extensions module that could do it. https://dev.blog.documentfoundation.org/2023/11/25/libreoffice-extensions-with-python-part-1/ https://dev.blog.documentfoundation.org/2023/11/25/libreoffi...
- buovjaga 2y ago
  You could try https://github.com/balisujohn/localwriter https://github.com/balisujohn/localwriter
underseacables 2y ago
I confess that I've been using a pirated version of office for years and years. When I can no longer use that then I will upgrade to libre office.
- cable2600 2y ago
  Microsoft deactivates pirated versions of Office and tells you to buy a copy.
- Hardening9604 2y ago
  massgrave.dev has worked well for me
nitrogen99 2y ago
Google docs doesn’t work?
- pcurve 2y ago
  It works fine for most use cases, but Google Docs and Sheets features pale in comparison full desktop base apps.
  - chii 2y ago
    google docs and sheets have 99% of the features that an average home user would want to use for a word processor and a spreadsheet. The things that docs don't have are things like templated designs, and other typesetting features that a professional document creator would want to use. It also isn't completely compatible with office document formats (some formatting and alignments are wrong). I would imagine similar with spreadsheets.
  - _carbyau_ 2y ago
    Until you get to multiplayer document editing. Having multiple people working literally at the same time is an interesting way to work, though not something I want to repeat/rely on often.
  - imtringued 2y ago
    Uhm. You probably haven't seen the crazy Google sheets that exist out there. They are really stretching what you should be doing with a spreadsheet and they are fully collaborative/multi-user. At some point it got really old to wait fifteen minutes for the sheets to recalculate.
- LeoPanthera 2y ago
  Not if you don't have internet access.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  It has the worst commenting and track history I've seen. My company went to Google docs about 5 years ago and I have steadily walked the work product of engineers go downhill because of it.
mixmastamyk 2y ago
Working on my taxes now with LO Calc. My resume is in Writer, easily exported to PDF. Been using it since it was called StarOffice. Go LibreOffice and FLOSS!
donatj 2y ago
I've commented as much before but what do people even use office for these days? Like I hear individuals complain about the prices and I'm just like I have not needed a real office suite in years. Google Docs has been enough to get by with for free for well over a decade. Are you... creating and printing documents? Why? I haven't had a real need for a word processor since email was invented.
- etskinner 2y ago
  For some government and commercial interactions, printing things out is the only way to get something done
  - donatj 2y ago
    Sure, but printing forms doesn't require a word processor. You have to be creating things...
    - chii 2y ago
      unless the form is a word document.
- n_ary 2y ago
  While I sometimes hangout with non-Engineering folks, I see following activities: - preparing various letters, reports, audits, notices, terms/contracts etc. by modifying or using very specific templates and Office tools are very well entrenched for fixed templates - Financial reports, analysis on excel(yes, most professionals are trained and feel comfortable there, same as how we feel good in terminal/console), building specific forms with constraints and checks, data sharing, special report of field data collection and audits, technical specifications/spec-sheets, quick complex calculations, think MS Excel as best candidate which everyone and there pet dog learned since elementary school - Presentation, brochures, special fliers, quick reports, course reference/speech deck, lecture slides, product marketing/sales docs are mostly being handled by PowerPoint Of course, we have numerous best-alternatives which can all replace these or “why not google docs”, but these people are trained on these specific ms office tools since dawn of civilization when people stopped cave painting and stone tablet based accounting in favor of computers. While we tech folks love to pickup and learn new tools, the other 99.99999% people see diminishing return adapting new tools. And lets be real, who wants to mess with the official template in some new tool that purchasing and procurement will not ever care about and scold the applicant back into the MS Office tools that already comes pre installed and licensed from their IT vendor?
tombert 2y ago
I am one of those annoying LaTeX people now, so my “word processor” ends up being tmux, NeoVim, and Nix, but I understand that that’s not for most people. LibreOffice is honestly fine nowadays. I feel like Excel is probably a bit better than Calc, but Calc is still capable enough for most tasks. The documents look decent enough, it’s easy to use, it’s reasonably fast, and you can’t really beat the price. I have to admit that a reason that I haven’t touched it much is pretty silly: I like the icons for OpenOffice better. LibreOffice’s icons look too…childish? Hard to explain, and obviously subjective, but I wish I could get import OpenOffices icons into LibreOffice.
- buovjaga 2y ago
  LibreOffice comes with six icon themes. Do you mean every single one of them is childish or only a particular one?
  - tombert 2y ago
    I guess the default one. I haven’t tried the other ones.
    - buovjaga 2y ago
      The default one is different per operating system or desktop environment. On KDE it's Breeze, on Windows it's Colibre, on macOS it's Sifr (off the top of my head).
      - tombert 2y ago
        I just checked, the one I was using, the default on NixOS with Sway, was Elementary, which I didn't like. I will admit that I liked the other built-in ones better, but I still like OpenOffice's better than any of them.
- pickledoyster 2y ago
  >I wish I could get import OpenOffices icons into LibreOffice. I haven't tried it, but I think it's quite possible: https://documentation.libreoffice.org/assets/Uploads/Documentation/en/GS5.2/HTML/GS5214-CustomizingLibreOffice.html#a__Choosing_icons_for_toolbar_commands https://documentation.libreoffice.org/assets/Uploads/Documen...
croes 2y ago
Given the number of people who still right align texts with spaces or tab if they are professionals I think for mist people programs like Word and LibreOffice Writer are overkill
- threatripper 2y ago
  These people need an multimodal AI assistant that does geometrically correctly OCR of the page s screenshot and then determines the appropriate number of spaces and sizes for the spaces to accurately right-align the text.
  - ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
    What the fuck?
  - harvey9 2y ago
    I think that is in copilot but it will cost you one AI credit from your o365 subscription
- laserbeam 2y ago
  I dare to say Word is so poorly designed that there are so many ways to screw up formatting... that bad behaviors (like right aligning text with spaces) are inevitable. For 90% of documents, software like Word was a mistake and you should be using google docs level of detail or markdown or so. And for the rest you want publishing software, not Word :(.
  - consteval 2y ago
    Hugely agree with markdown. 99% of the time people want bullet points, headers, maybe a table or two. Using a word processor is very overkill and actually makes the simple stuff more arduous. Markdown is the best too because: 1. Sending as plaintext is so convenient and it looks pretty decent 2. Most software (gitlab, jira, etc) accept markdown input so you can just copy-paste
gbraad 2y ago
LibreOffice, OnlyOffice, both have been a great since I switched away from Office 365—feeling I get overcharged for a function I will not use—for use with Nextcloud. It is even better to get a $39 ('refurbed' license for Office 2024) if you have to use (MS)Office.
- theothertimcook 2y ago
  Onlyoffice is awesome, if you’re buying recycled keys you may as well just MAS it since they’re both technically against TOS.
  - gbraad 2y ago
    ... they are marked as `refurb` at the reseller I use, but they are mostly just bulk licenses; although I do not know how they do this (Note: they are official resellers).
pjmlp 2y ago
Yet are the donations also on the rise? I bet they aren't.
- buovjaga 2y ago
  Fortunately they are, but TDF's budget is still rather small when considering the scale of the project. TDF is looking to expand its dev team. There's a lot of activity going on with volunteers and interns, but we need more senior devs to tackle the trickier renovations.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Glad to be proven wrong then.
russnes 2y ago
I wish everyone would switch to LibreOffice so I can stop having to explain why their documents are formatted weirdly after I edit them
apexalpha 2y ago
I've been trying different office apps that work with MS office!!! I understand this is a shifting requirement but I just don't work in an environment where I can force everyone to switch. Currently I find OnlyOffice to be much better than LibreOffice. Does HN know of any others?
- okanat 2y ago
  Note that OnlyOffice is a Russian clone of MS Office. Its Russian branding P7 is still sold to Russian government and military. They didn't stop business with Russian government and opened offices in Latvia and Singapore to continue West presence. The clients are not fully open source either. You cannot independently build it. It is quite shady. There is WPS from China with similar issues. So your options are limited. LibreOffice sucks ass with any serious document. On Windows GUI bugs are annoying as hell. KDE's Calligra is slowly rotting. I made the exact search as you did and decided to get a perpetual MS Office license. No other way around unfortunately.
  - apexalpha 2y ago
    Yeah I really don't understand the LibreOffice hype. I've never found it to work, and the UX looks like it was designed at IBM in 1985.
PeterStuer 2y ago
I don't mind paying for MS Office. I do mind that every new version seems to be worse than the previous one for doing actual work on a real computer. I realy feel the PM's at Microsoft consider you a dinosaur if your primary "productivity" device is not your phone.
- XorNot 2y ago
  I stopped buying Office after 2003. Past then they added the Ribbon UI which ruined it for any productive workflow where you want to use styles and reviewing tools. Been using LibreOffice Write ever since, which helpfully has pretty much the 2003 UI. The only thing I think it could use is that nifty Jetbrains "search anywhere" feature.
- lauritz 2y ago
  Given that most of our civilization is run using these tools, it boggles the mind how they are still so limited. Why is there a limit of nine levels of headings in Word? Why does it feel less usable on my i9 with 32GB of RAM once you hit 200+ pages? Why is the "collaborative mode" still way, way, way behind Google Docs functionality circa 2012? I feel like the core functionality has stagnated since Office 2003.
lauritz 2y ago
To my surprise, what used to be called iWork has been my main "Office" replacement for years now. It's good enough, and it's free. I have switched over most of the non-technical people in my life to it, and they have no issues using it (except if they email a .pages document to a Windows user). I especially enjoy Numbers and the way you can arrange multiple tables on a page. It's a different paradigm coming from Google Sheets or Excel and takes some getting used to, but to me it now makes more sense. Of course, if I need something "done right", I'll drop down to Affinity, LaTeX, or InDesign. But I rarely have these needs nowadays. A similar argument could be made for going all in on Google Docs/Sheets/Slides, but I feel queasy knowing that all of my data is in a free Google account, after reading some of the stories here about reaching Google support if something goes sideways.
- ohgr 2y ago
  I tried using Numbers across my Mac and iPad. It has some show stopping sync bugs there which result in it completely destroying documents. Then when you try and recover previous versions you get a lesson in Apple's commitment to things other than the facade on the front of their stuff: not a lot. The document versions thing sometimes doesn't even work and if it does it's so slow it's unusable. Probably backed with some low tier S3 stuff. Also the formula editor is painful at best. TeXshop on the Mac is however rather nice.
  - x0x0 2y ago
    Yeah. I was using numbers and it's not serious software. I needed "true" or "false" in certain cells. When typing in a cell, sometimes it would capitalize it to TRUE and you would need to type "'true" to avoid that; and sometimes it randomly would accept typing "true". I simply couldn't figure out which would happen at any time. The whole program is riddled with things like that.
    - lauritz 2y ago
      I have run into similar issues and I agree, it’s not without flaws. The formula editor is another example, as others have pointed out. A good solution I have found to your particular problem is to use checkboxes in the cells. You can select them as a cell type and it converts from Boolean value text to checkbox. I also prefer that, as a user, to typing True/False.
ohgr 2y ago
Subscription is fine on Office for me. I just pay for the O365 family edition (without copilot) and everyone gets it for about £6.70 a month. However I don't want the signed in cloud version so I just use the moral justification of cracking it with Ohook and disabling all the cloud shit. I'm paying for it so I don't give a crap. LibreOffice I want to like but I've tripped over many weird bugs and things which have been floating around in their Bugzilla since the dawn of time. If I have an academic interest, I'll just use TeXlive and LaTeX Workship inside VScode.
baq 2y ago
I need a Calc which doesn't suck. I don't necessarily need Excel, but the spreadsheet shouldn't be unusably slow at 100x100 cells with simple calculations and a literal couple of V/XLOOKUPs.
- yummypaint 2y ago
  Gnumeric may be the answer for you. It was the answer for me. It's amazing how quickly both excel and libre office documents shit the bed and produce outright wrong behavior once they hit a few MB of data and/or a few dozen plots. Not to mention the fiasco of all the genetic information corrupted by excel's boneheaded auto complete (which they STILL haven't fixed afaik). I have gnumeric documents with hundreds of plots containing fits etc that I view in 4k without any lag or delays whatsoever. The plotting options can also be made suitable for publication much more easily. All the important functions are there. My main complaint about spreadsheets in general is the fitting options are still in the stone age compared with software like ROOT using minuit, where you can easily do a proper chi squared minimization with arbitrary functions where error bars of all points are correctly used. However, it seems only the sciences use such features as apparently there is no demand from the business world (or other MS customers) for spreadsheet tools supporting thought or analysis beyond a 5th grade level. Microsoft has had decades and millions of dollars to make excel usable, and should be embarrassed about how their flagship productivity software is rightfully seen as unfit for purpose by people doing rigorous work. Seeing nontrivial information in a scientific talk rendered in the telltale excel style is visual shorthand for "the real analysis hasn't been done yet" or "I don't know what I'm doing and won't be able to answer questions about uncertainties."
  - 2b3a51 2y ago
    Nice to see gnumeric getting a mention. Might be worth pointing out that it can use glpk [1] which provides a subset of ampl [2]. I use it about once a year to demonstrate a simple linear programming model. Gnumeric's file format is plain text as well which is nice. [1] https://www.gnu.org/software/glpk/ https://www.gnu.org/software/glpk/ [2] https://ampl.com/resources/books/ampl-book/ https://ampl.com/resources/books/ampl-book/
  - 2y ago
fumufumufumu 2y ago
I don't think I could ever go back to storing my docs locally and not being able to access them from all my devices at all times anywhere in the world, easily.
- rambambram 2y ago
  I think you can, I believe in you.
- joseda-hg 2y ago
  You can mount your cloud drive, and open those files with LibreOffice or OnlyOffice, I certainly do so with Google Drive
  - fumufumufumu 2y ago
    It's not the same. I keep the document open on multiple machines (home and work for example) and they update. Then I pull out my phone and add a note to the same document all while it's still open on other machines.
    - joseda-hg 2y ago
      IIRC OnlyOffice can do that Google Docs style collaboration, but it does take extra effort to setup
Yoric 2y ago
It's probably also related to the geopolitical context. The US has threatened war at least against Canada, Europe, Panama and China, while clearly eyeing an alliance with Russia, which would in turn threaten many countries bordering Russia. That's a pretty large number of users who don't feel safe using US products anymore.
- milesrout 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - gelert 2y ago
    While I agree the leap to linking geopolitics to LibreOffice's success is a stretch you are misrepresenting the American position. The President of the United states, its commander in chief, explicitly did not rule out military action when discussing his desire to bring Greenland and the Panama canal under direct American control. The rhetoric of making Canada the "51st state" while less explicit a threat is still one. Greenlanders, Panamanians and Canadians all clearly see these as threats.
  - vanviegen 2y ago
    Saying you're planning to take over (part of) another state's territory, and that we'll "go as far as we have to" to do it, doesn't sound all that peaceful to me. And people seem to be learning to take Trump's insane talk seriously. So no, I don't think the connection with LibreOffice downloads is a "load of tosh", but just one example of a larger shift.
  - concerndc1tizen 2y ago
    The US has literally expressed intent to annex Canada, Greenland, and Panama.
  - Wololooo 2y ago
    Just to set the record straight even if this is going to be flagged Repeatedly The current administration has stated * That they would acquire Greenland by any means necessary https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense/3361358/us-security-greenland-acquisition-trump-arctic-dominance-china-russia/ https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense/3361358/us... * That they would Make Canada part of the US as its 51st State https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg198xxy1xo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg198xxy1xo * That they would engage in trade war with Europe over alleged imbalance and loss in trade https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/27/trump-threatens-far-larger-tariffs-on-eu-and-canada-.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/27/trump-threatens-far-larger-t... Given this context, if you are not directly in the US or directly a US company, it makes a lot of sense to start to question your future ability as well as future costs for access to US controlled systems.
throwaway48476 2y ago
MS office has been removing features, ruining the UI and adding bloat. No wonder people are jumping ship.
- yummypaint 2y ago
  This has been the story for 20 years now. It's a case study in what happens when a product has a guaranteed revenue stream and the company has 0 incentive to innovate or improve anything. However, managers still need to have "launches" and leave their grimy fingerprints on the UI so they can pat themselves on the back and advance a rung on the career ladder. From a would-be user's perspective it appears this dynamic is the sole driver of changes to MS office.
  - troyvit 2y ago
    > This has been the story for 20 years now. Even longer. I remember in college in the '90s we would pack two things away over the summer to make sure the next year would go well: 1/4 oz weed because it took so long for the market to pick back up in the fall, and a floppy disc holding Word 5.1 since Word 6.0 for the Mac was such garbage.
prell 2y ago
Can you guys recommend an android app which can do simple edits (mostly data entry) on spreadsheet .ODS files stored locally on the device. Right now I use Collabora but UX is not the best and it feels very slow and unresponsive at times. MS Excel requires conversion to xlsx before you can edit and Google Sheets requires to upload to google drive so neither is an option. Any alternatives?
- msh 2y ago
  Only office works quite well: https://www.onlyoffice.com/office-for-android.aspx https://www.onlyoffice.com/office-for-android.aspx
loughnane 2y ago
I use libreoffice call to open stuff on my Linux box, but the default formula behavior turns me off. If I type “=“ into D2 then left arrow to C2 then type “*” I would expect when I next press up arrow it to bring me to D1. But in Calc it brings me to C1. In other words it doesn’t reset to the starting cell after each operation. I guess I can change it somehow, but that’s been enough of an annoyance that I haven’t switched wholly for on google sheets, though I’d like to.
joseda-hg 2y ago
I've been looking into what it would take to "theme" LibreOffice into something more Gnome-ish, less jarring to new users, for some reason there's been many project with that in mind and they all seem abandoned and / or in limbo
delfugal 2y ago
I wish they'd make LibreQuickbooks.
- cable2600 2y ago
  https://pdf.wondershare.com/accounting/linux-accounting-software.html https://pdf.wondershare.com/accounting/linux-accounting-soft...
Jaxkr 2y ago
Probably too late to this thread for anyone to read this, but the real reason for this bump is Microsoft removing WordPad from the latest versions of Windows 11.
- harvey9 2y ago
  Can you explain why you think so? it's not self-evident.
  - Jaxkr 2y ago
    WordPad was a quick and easy way to view/edit simple Word documents. When you double-clicked a .docx, WordPad would let you read it (albeit with some formatting issues). Now when you click a .docx on a fresh Windows install, you get a generic “what app would you like to open this with?” pop-up.* This leads the user to google free ways to view Word documents, leading to LibreOffice. * Site note: I’m very surprised Microsoft doesn’t use this as an opportunity to sell you Office.
- pessimizer 2y ago
  That would do it. If Windows got rid of their basic document editor, and enough affected muggles got into desperate enough situations to discover Libreoffice, they will tip each other off through social networks quickly. Strategies taking advantage of the ignorance of users (or voters) are faltering in the age of user-generated content. You can't sell an operating system without a document editor without running the risk of people finding the free one that is nearly as good (or in the case of Wordpad, is far better.) MS won't like what happens in offices 10 years from now if they let students use Libreoffice for their schoolwork instead of Wordpad (eventually replaced with Word.) They'd better be working hard to get "student" copies of Office into kids' hands, even if they have to pay them to take it.
  - Jaxkr 2y ago
    > MS won't like what happens in offices 10 years from now if they let students use Libreoffice for their schoolwork instead of Wordpad (eventually replaced with Word.) They'd better be working hard to get "student" copies of Office into kids' hands, even if they have to pay them to take it. They have completely lost this battle. Google Docs was the standard thru nearly my entire K12 and university education.
shmoobadge 2y ago
I ditched MS office last year (for libreoffice) when MS updated their terms to allow them to hoover up all my content, even that stored only on my computer, to train their AI. Subscription costs (which I'd bought a version several years ago) pale by comparison to the wrongness of that.
cynicalsecurity 2y ago
LibreOffice is also not spying on users.
2Gkashmiri 2y ago
I use livreoffice writer for my legal work on a full time basis. Gets the job done. Have to send PDFs so it works. I do not have to do collaborative editing like tracking but I suppose that works too. Calc is.. slowly improving but it works.
mediumsmart 2y ago
Microsoft Office was ok when I last used it 25 years ago. I think it came preinstalled. But LibreOffice is the real thing and that its going to become the standard is good news.
sershe 2y ago
I just use Office 2007 for my personal stuff. It still works, even on Windows 11! Other than slightly better non-contiguous region operations and QoL improvements to pivot tables in Excel, on 365 that I use at work, I don't really miss anything. It also lags a lot less.

347 points by cable2600 2y ago

If I'm evaluating a potential application whose core functionality does not require external resources/servers (Dropbox for example) and they don't at a minimum offer some kind of perpetual fallback license (aka the Jetbrains annual subscription model), then I straight up bounce. Examples of good alternatives - Pixelmator > Photoshop - Davinci Resolve > Premiere - Reaper > Audition I have no interest in renting my tools.

Shopper0552 2y ago
Do you have any good alternatives to Photoshop that are open source? And that are not GIMP. Nothing against GIMP, I just found it too hard to learn coming from photoshop. I'm looking for a simple editor that can do color adjustments, crop/resize images, and add text.
- _mlbt 2y ago
  There’s Krita… https://krita.org/en/ https://krita.org/en/
  - renegat0x0 2y ago
    Krita is so good, and so easy to use! I rarely use gimp now
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  > I'm looking for a simple editor that can do color adjustments, crop/resize images, and add text. Those are all pretty simple in GIMP though? I'm not doubting that they are different from Photoshop but how long could it take to learn the GIMP way?
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    I'd like to know more about color adjustments. I know GIMP can do them in some form, but I have no idea what the options are or what kind of results I should hope to be able to achieve. Documentation doesn't really seem to address these questions, though it is available if your question is "how do I run this menu item I found?" (Answer: open the menu, and click on the menu item.) Cropping and resizing are trivial. It would take less than one minute to learn how.
    - skydhash 2y ago
      There's a Colors menu in Gimp 3. But it's destructive and only for the selected layer, not the special layer type you get in Photoshop.
    - emporas 2y ago
      You can use the gmic plugin alongside with Gimp, and adjust the CMYK values. I use that all the time. Color adjustments like yellow -> orange, or green -> purple, might exceed your expectations. Photoshop is excellent at it as well, i have never used Photoshop to compare though. For more professional work Clut (Color Look Up Table) is supported by gmic as well. I also made my own open source tool to pass gmic filters to whole videos, see an example here [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8of-R-5zcs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8of-R-5zcs
- Duanemclemore 2y ago
  The biggest issue I had migrating as a Photoshop user since 1996 was the key bindings. But using the config files people shared online sorted that. I'm not going to link to a specific one implying I'm recommending it, but a web search will show multiple. One important gimp note is if you don't have 3.0+ already, get it. It finally has non-destructive editing, which is the main reason I had to keep using ps for for a long time.
  - Lammy 2y ago
    > The biggest issue I had migrating as a Photoshop user since 1996 was the key bindings RIP GIMPshop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMPshop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMPshop
    - stuaxo 2y ago
      PhotoGIMP is the current thing like that I think?
      - Lammy 2y ago
        Neat: https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP
  - mamonoleechi 2y ago
    It's easy to change keybindings on Gimp, most of mines are ones i used in photoshop 4-CS2. >It finally has non-destructive editing not for the fonts unfortunately, if you resize a text with the scale tool, it gets rasterized
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- bad_user 2y ago
  GIMP takes some time getting used to, but it's reliable, it will stick around and having used it for the past 20 years, I have issues switching to something else.
- snielson 2y ago
  I use Paint.net for simple tasks like those you listed. I paid $10 for it in the Microsoft store but I think you can get it for free from the website.
  - dokyun 2y ago
    Paint.net isn't free software, it's proprietary freeware. It used to be free a long time ago, but the author is a tool and made it closed source because people were creating other versions of it.
    - UncleSlacky 2y ago
      Pinta is a free reimplenetation: https://www.pinta-project.com https://www.pinta-project.com
- wrp 2y ago
  For simple things, I use mtPaint on Linux and PhotoFiltre on Windows. They are easy to figure out and very stable.
- fodkodrasz 2y ago
  Paint.Net on Windows. Though on Windows there is Paint, that is less capable, but still no equivalent is on MacOS OOTB. (Also the drama around Paint is worth its own bashing). I'd be interested in a similar basic tool as paint for mac and Linux (and possibly also for windows, if MS crappifies Paint, after it has tried to kill it earlier)
  - UncleSlacky 2y ago
    Pinta (essentially a reimplementation of Paint.NET) exists for MacOS as well as Linux and Windows: https://www.pinta-project.com/releases/ https://www.pinta-project.com/releases/
    - theothertimcook 2y ago
      There are some subtle quirks where pinta just doesn’t play ball in a way that is intuitive to a PDN aficionado. Photopea is very close but i keep coming back to PDN either VM or RDP
    - tracker1 2y ago
      I want to like Pinta, but some of the load/save behaviors are just weird... not sure if I last tried the Flatpak version or not, but I've tried it on both Mac and Linux a few times... It's my go to for quick edits, but far from a fav.
      - fodkodrasz 2y ago
        I tried Pinta, and honestly it has so many subtle differences from PDN, it was really uncomfortable and unproductive for me. I could not get to like it, but will give it some more time. Also the icons are terrible (at least on the mac), I find it really hard to identify a tool, these monochrome icons set me off and slowed me down since Visual Studio 2012. This fad is a really good example for design trends ruining productivity.
- hyperlink014 2y ago
  I use Photopea which tries to mimic Photoshop UI and runs entirely on your browser. In fact, you can even install it as a Web App to run it offline. Pretty intuitive UI. https://www.photopea.com/ https://www.photopea.com/
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago
    Yeah, but Photopea has a monthly cost and this post is about avoiding that. I love pwa, but I need image editing maybe once a month, I'm not going to pay a subscription for that
LeoPanthera 2y ago
You actually can still buy Office. It's quite expensive though. I suppose it always was. https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=2113574&CLCID=0x1009&culture=en-us&country=US https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=2113574&CLCID=0x10...
- vunderba 2y ago
  That's honestly less than I would have expected. I still have an old copy of Microsoft Office 95 though I no longer have the hardware with which to run it. Ditto a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS6 which I believe was the final version before they went full on subscription.
  - chii 2y ago
    i reckon these software ought to run fine in a VM, perhaps running something like windows xp. Unfortunately, with photoshop, the hardware drivers for the various drawing tablets will probably not function (or remain available).
    - raffraffraff 2y ago
      Also work on a brand new Linux with wine. Actually come to that, my wife has Windows 10 and runs Photoshop CS2 occasionally.
      - goosedragons 2y ago
        I tested PS7 on ARM64 Windows and it ran fine even. A little blurry on the high DPI display though.
- dreamcompiler 2y ago
  Here's what Microsoft won't tell you: If you buy standalone office and it is not allowed to phone home to Microsoft at least once a month, it stops working. This can happen if you use it on a disconnected computer or you just have a reverse firewall rule blocking microsoft domains.
publicola1990 2y ago
Isn't it dogmatic to think so. Sometimes it makes sense to rent tools.
- vunderba 2y ago
  Naturally. I've rented an mini excavator in the past to dig up stumps for a one time job. It made sense more sense to rent it since it was for a one-time task, and purchasing the kubota would have cost more than 5k. Given we're on HN news, I thought it was implied that I was referring mostly to the exhaustion at being faced with a perpetually increasing amount of rent-seeking in the form of SaaS.
  - thewebguyd 2y ago
    Additionally, for a lot of professional software, we aren't given the option for short term rental. For creative cloud, I pay monthly but agree on a annual basis. There's a more expensive month-to-month sub, but still you have it at minimum for a whole month. With software subscriptions, I don't have the option of saying "I need to rent lightroom for 3 hours to edit this session." and have it be priced accordingly. No matter what, I'm on the hook for at minimum a month. On the flip side of that, since I use it so frequently, it's insulting that my only option is just to rent it. I can buy other tools outright and own them, so I'd also like to own my digital tools as well.
jwr 2y ago
> I have no interest in renting my tools. While I appreciate the sentiment, the world where you could use the same software for many years without updates is gone. These days developers have to invest significant time and effort into making sure the software just runs on the constantly updated operating systems and platforms — which costs money on an ongoing basis. Expecting your software to be updated regularly without paying regularly makes no sense. So either you intend to run that exact binary that you downloaded (because that is the tool you bought), or the ongoing costs need to be covered somehow. Some companies do it through subscriptions and some play a game of "no, you don't have to update, but here is this new shiny (more bloated, too) version that we produce every 2 years, you can get it for $50 and OWN IT FOREVER (well, until the next shiny comes along in 2 years time". But it's a game, and the drawback is that there is incentive for bloating software instead of just maintaining it and fixing bugs.
- vunderba 2y ago
  While I do recognize those concerns I'll note that it is still a viable model and not just for indie devs. Look to the DAW world (Ableton, FL Studio, Bitwig, Logic, etc.) if you're ever curious about building a sustainable business model around a flat pricing structure.
  - eddythompson80 2y ago
    You listed software that range between $500-$15k. Last time a “I want the option to pay for my software” posts here I replied to was about Infuse. And people complained that “$80 is an absurd amount for a software” and “Why isn’t there a free version?” A software that costs $500-15k is only feasible for a B2B type business.
    - dijksterhuis 2y ago
      > You listed software that range between $500-$15k. i’m confused… all versions of the DAWs they mentioned in the parent comment are as near as makes no difference below £500. > Live 12 Suite: £539 > Live 12 Standard: £259 > Live 12 Intro: £69 (nice) https://www.ableton.com/en/shop/live/ https://www.ableton.com/en/shop/live/ > FL Studio Full: £469 (nice) > FL Studio Signature: £279 > FL Studio Producer: £199 > FL Studio Fruity: £89 https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio/compare-editions/ https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio/compare-editions/ > Bitwig Studio: £339 > Bitwig Studio Producer: £169 (nice) > Bitwig Studio Essentials: £79 https://www.bitwig.com/buy/ https://www.bitwig.com/buy/ > Logic Pro: £199 —- in case you were replying to their original top-level comment > Photoshop £22.99 pcm (£276 pa) > Photoshop Photography £19.99 pcm (£240 pa) > Photoshop All Creative Cloud £59.99 pcm (£720 pa) this last one ^ bundles all the proprietary adobe “rented” software they mentioned into one package. https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/plans.html https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/plans.html so even then your figures don’t seem to make sense?
tombert 2y ago
I would also like to throw in Lightworks into the “very good Premiere alternatives”. If you are ok with exporting 720p, the free version is pretty capable but if you want higher export resolution it cost money. It has a subscription option, but also a “buy outright” option, and it’s often on sale for half price for the permanent license, ends up costing around ~$200 and it works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. I think it’s very good, though I am not a professional video editor by trade.
- dijit 2y ago
  I upvote any option that has a “buy outright” baked in.
  - HelloNurse 2y ago
    You are easy to satisfy. Once upon a time, we complained about undependable applications that, although installed on a computer, dared to "phone home". Before that, we complained about undependable applications that, while not fucking around with remote servers, employed invasive and annoying anti-piracy measures.
    - tombert 2y ago
      I don’t love that Lightworks phones home, but FWIW, Lightworks’ support has been very good when I have contacted. They were very helpful when I needed to migrate a license when I had to swap to another computer. This might not seem like much but that has been something I have struggled with other companies over.
- goosedragons 2y ago
  I haven't personally used it much, except for a very simple cut but I have heard very good things about KDENLive too.
  - dharmab 2y ago
    I've used KDENLive and it's about as comparable to Resolve or Lightworks as Windows Movie Maker is to Premiere.
nxpnsv 2y ago
I really enjoy the affinity suite.
- specproc 2y ago
  Yeah, likewise, just wish they did Linux
  - tracker1 2y ago
    Same.. it'd totally be a take my money moment... same for Topaz Labs' software. Though I accept that I'm a minority user and it probably isn't worth the efforts for them... similar to codec support issues for Davinci Resolve's free version on linux.
poglet 2y ago
Wishing there was a capable Lightroom alternative.
- UtopiaPunk 2y ago
  Darktable? https://www.darktable.org/ https://www.darktable.org/
  - Fethbita 2y ago
    Also Capture One, they have a perpetual license but the changes they made in 2023 to the perpetual license was quite bad. Now if you buy that version, you’re locked to the version you purchased and don’t get new features.
pjmlp 2y ago
While those producing tools for living might not have an interest on keeping offering them free of charge. Eventually that guy/girl in Nebraska is going to look elsewhere.
- majewsky 2y ago
  OP did not assert that they wanted software free of charge.
atoav 2y ago
Resolve is cool for pro users for others who basically just want to do small edits with straightforward software chrck out kdenlive
- dimitarbogdanov 2y ago
  Honestly, Resolve isn't that difficult, especially if you're OK with watching some tutorials to get used to it. It's certainly no more difficult than Premiere (for basic tasks, of course).
  - atoav 2y ago
    I teach those programs (after working with them for years as a freelance editor/colorist). Resolve is worth learning, and not that hard, you're right. But Resolve is not a "pick it up and it pretty much explains itself" software either.

Duanemclemore 2y ago

I usually used InDesign for presentations on PC. Switching to Scribus now that I run a linux only office has been trivial. Specific to LibreOffice - as an academic I've had to create a couple presentations in ppt format recently. It sucks, but it was a requirement of the conference. Anyway - LO Impress still has many of the annoyances of PowerPoint, but head to head it's actually an objectively better, faster program than PowerPoint.

ghaff 2y ago
I’d be grumble to go back to Libre Office which I used for years but it was the company standard. Mostly just use Google Workplace these days. )As does my former employer.) I find Google does a good job of including features most people need 95%+ of the time and does a good job of those.

jmclnx 2y ago

That is great, hopefully it continues. I am far from a heavy WP/Spreadsheet user, usually Emacs for me, but at work I need to mess with spreadsheets. I use LibreOffice for that and to me there is no difference.

cable2600 2y ago

It also supports WordPerfect formats, Which MS Office dropped. My wife was in a group email editing documents and someone emailed their edits using WordPerfect format. I loaded it in LibreOffice and exported it in DOCX format and it worked.

nilram 2y ago

I started using OpenOffice a couple decades ago when I got tired of pirating the market leader. Not wanting to start any religious wars, but I still haven't made the leap to Libre.

Lammy 2y ago
It's so impressively underhandedly sneaky how Microsoft named their ODF-competitor format “Office Open” just as the OO.o hype peaked with OO.o 2.0 having ODF as its native format, when MSOffice finally had a viable and popular competitor for like the first time ever lol https://www.openoffice.org/press/2.0/press_release.html https://www.openoffice.org/press/2.0/press_release.html (2005-10-20) https://news.microsoft.com/2005/11/21/qa-microsoft-co-sponsors-submission-of-office-open-xml-document-formats-to-ecma-international-for-standardization/ https://news.microsoft.com/2005/11/21/qa-microsoft-co-sponso... (2005-11-21)
ndiddy 2y ago
I'd recommend switching, OpenOffice is basically abandonware. There's been security issues that were reported over a year ago that have gone unaddressed. If you look at OpenOffice's git repo (https://github.com/apache/openoffice https://github.com/apache/openoffice), the vast majority of the commits are from two people who solely focus on manually fiddling with the code formatting and fixing typos in the comments.
chris_wot 2y ago
LibreOffice is vastly more stable and has more features and compatibility fixes that OpenOffice. I recommend using it.
mksaunders2 2y ago
It's extremely risky to keep using OpenOffice. Apache has marked its security status as "Amber" with "three issues in OpenOffice over 365 days old and a number of other open issues not fully triaged." It's also worrying that The Apache Foundation continues to promote and distribute OpenOffice despite unfixed security issues and zero updates to the software. So many people in the FOSS world have called on them to finally retire it, put it in the Attic and keep up a good reputation for FOSS - but they won't do it. It still gets hundreds of thousands of downloads despite being unfixed. It's irresponsible of The ASF IMO.

cft 2y ago

is there a way to plug say Grok or Chatgpt API into LibreOffice writer or sheets? such that it can have write access to the documents?

chris_wot 2y ago
There is an extensive Python extensions module that could do it. https://dev.blog.documentfoundation.org/2023/11/25/libreoffice-extensions-with-python-part-1/ https://dev.blog.documentfoundation.org/2023/11/25/libreoffi...
buovjaga 2y ago
You could try https://github.com/balisujohn/localwriter https://github.com/balisujohn/localwriter

underseacables 2y ago

I confess that I've been using a pirated version of office for years and years. When I can no longer use that then I will upgrade to libre office.

cable2600 2y ago
Microsoft deactivates pirated versions of Office and tells you to buy a copy.
Hardening9604 2y ago
massgrave.dev has worked well for me

nitrogen99 2y ago

Google docs doesn’t work?

pcurve 2y ago
It works fine for most use cases, but Google Docs and Sheets features pale in comparison full desktop base apps.
- chii 2y ago
  google docs and sheets have 99% of the features that an average home user would want to use for a word processor and a spreadsheet. The things that docs don't have are things like templated designs, and other typesetting features that a professional document creator would want to use. It also isn't completely compatible with office document formats (some formatting and alignments are wrong). I would imagine similar with spreadsheets.
- _carbyau_ 2y ago
  Until you get to multiplayer document editing. Having multiple people working literally at the same time is an interesting way to work, though not something I want to repeat/rely on often.
- imtringued 2y ago
  Uhm. You probably haven't seen the crazy Google sheets that exist out there. They are really stretching what you should be doing with a spreadsheet and they are fully collaborative/multi-user. At some point it got really old to wait fifteen minutes for the sheets to recalculate.
LeoPanthera 2y ago
Not if you don't have internet access.
s1artibartfast 2y ago
It has the worst commenting and track history I've seen. My company went to Google docs about 5 years ago and I have steadily walked the work product of engineers go downhill because of it.

mixmastamyk 2y ago

Working on my taxes now with LO Calc. My resume is in Writer, easily exported to PDF. Been using it since it was called StarOffice. Go LibreOffice and FLOSS!

donatj 2y ago

I've commented as much before but what do people even use office for these days? Like I hear individuals complain about the prices and I'm just like I have not needed a real office suite in years. Google Docs has been enough to get by with for free for well over a decade. Are you... creating and printing documents? Why? I haven't had a real need for a word processor since email was invented.

etskinner 2y ago
For some government and commercial interactions, printing things out is the only way to get something done
- donatj 2y ago
  Sure, but printing forms doesn't require a word processor. You have to be creating things...
  - chii 2y ago
    unless the form is a word document.
n_ary 2y ago
While I sometimes hangout with non-Engineering folks, I see following activities: - preparing various letters, reports, audits, notices, terms/contracts etc. by modifying or using very specific templates and Office tools are very well entrenched for fixed templates - Financial reports, analysis on excel(yes, most professionals are trained and feel comfortable there, same as how we feel good in terminal/console), building specific forms with constraints and checks, data sharing, special report of field data collection and audits, technical specifications/spec-sheets, quick complex calculations, think MS Excel as best candidate which everyone and there pet dog learned since elementary school - Presentation, brochures, special fliers, quick reports, course reference/speech deck, lecture slides, product marketing/sales docs are mostly being handled by PowerPoint Of course, we have numerous best-alternatives which can all replace these or “why not google docs”, but these people are trained on these specific ms office tools since dawn of civilization when people stopped cave painting and stone tablet based accounting in favor of computers. While we tech folks love to pickup and learn new tools, the other 99.99999% people see diminishing return adapting new tools. And lets be real, who wants to mess with the official template in some new tool that purchasing and procurement will not ever care about and scold the applicant back into the MS Office tools that already comes pre installed and licensed from their IT vendor?

tombert 2y ago

I am one of those annoying LaTeX people now, so my “word processor” ends up being tmux, NeoVim, and Nix, but I understand that that’s not for most people. LibreOffice is honestly fine nowadays. I feel like Excel is probably a bit better than Calc, but Calc is still capable enough for most tasks. The documents look decent enough, it’s easy to use, it’s reasonably fast, and you can’t really beat the price. I have to admit that a reason that I haven’t touched it much is pretty silly: I like the icons for OpenOffice better. LibreOffice’s icons look too…childish? Hard to explain, and obviously subjective, but I wish I could get import OpenOffices icons into LibreOffice.

buovjaga 2y ago
LibreOffice comes with six icon themes. Do you mean every single one of them is childish or only a particular one?
- tombert 2y ago
  I guess the default one. I haven’t tried the other ones.
  - buovjaga 2y ago
    The default one is different per operating system or desktop environment. On KDE it's Breeze, on Windows it's Colibre, on macOS it's Sifr (off the top of my head).
    - tombert 2y ago
      I just checked, the one I was using, the default on NixOS with Sway, was Elementary, which I didn't like. I will admit that I liked the other built-in ones better, but I still like OpenOffice's better than any of them.
pickledoyster 2y ago
>I wish I could get import OpenOffices icons into LibreOffice. I haven't tried it, but I think it's quite possible: https://documentation.libreoffice.org/assets/Uploads/Documentation/en/GS5.2/HTML/GS5214-CustomizingLibreOffice.html#a__Choosing_icons_for_toolbar_commands https://documentation.libreoffice.org/assets/Uploads/Documen...

croes 2y ago

Given the number of people who still right align texts with spaces or tab if they are professionals I think for mist people programs like Word and LibreOffice Writer are overkill

threatripper 2y ago
These people need an multimodal AI assistant that does geometrically correctly OCR of the page s screenshot and then determines the appropriate number of spaces and sizes for the spaces to accurately right-align the text.
- ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
  What the fuck?
- harvey9 2y ago
  I think that is in copilot but it will cost you one AI credit from your o365 subscription
laserbeam 2y ago
I dare to say Word is so poorly designed that there are so many ways to screw up formatting... that bad behaviors (like right aligning text with spaces) are inevitable. For 90% of documents, software like Word was a mistake and you should be using google docs level of detail or markdown or so. And for the rest you want publishing software, not Word :(.
- consteval 2y ago
  Hugely agree with markdown. 99% of the time people want bullet points, headers, maybe a table or two. Using a word processor is very overkill and actually makes the simple stuff more arduous. Markdown is the best too because: 1. Sending as plaintext is so convenient and it looks pretty decent 2. Most software (gitlab, jira, etc) accept markdown input so you can just copy-paste

gbraad 2y ago

LibreOffice, OnlyOffice, both have been a great since I switched away from Office 365—feeling I get overcharged for a function I will not use—for use with Nextcloud. It is even better to get a $39 ('refurbed' license for Office 2024) if you have to use (MS)Office.

theothertimcook 2y ago
Onlyoffice is awesome, if you’re buying recycled keys you may as well just MAS it since they’re both technically against TOS.
- gbraad 2y ago
  ... they are marked as `refurb` at the reseller I use, but they are mostly just bulk licenses; although I do not know how they do this (Note: they are official resellers).

pjmlp 2y ago

Yet are the donations also on the rise? I bet they aren't.

buovjaga 2y ago
Fortunately they are, but TDF's budget is still rather small when considering the scale of the project. TDF is looking to expand its dev team. There's a lot of activity going on with volunteers and interns, but we need more senior devs to tackle the trickier renovations.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  Glad to be proven wrong then.

russnes 2y ago

I wish everyone would switch to LibreOffice so I can stop having to explain why their documents are formatted weirdly after I edit them

apexalpha 2y ago

I've been trying different office apps that work with MS office!!! I understand this is a shifting requirement but I just don't work in an environment where I can force everyone to switch. Currently I find OnlyOffice to be much better than LibreOffice. Does HN know of any others?

okanat 2y ago
Note that OnlyOffice is a Russian clone of MS Office. Its Russian branding P7 is still sold to Russian government and military. They didn't stop business with Russian government and opened offices in Latvia and Singapore to continue West presence. The clients are not fully open source either. You cannot independently build it. It is quite shady. There is WPS from China with similar issues. So your options are limited. LibreOffice sucks ass with any serious document. On Windows GUI bugs are annoying as hell. KDE's Calligra is slowly rotting. I made the exact search as you did and decided to get a perpetual MS Office license. No other way around unfortunately.
- apexalpha 2y ago
  Yeah I really don't understand the LibreOffice hype. I've never found it to work, and the UX looks like it was designed at IBM in 1985.

PeterStuer 2y ago

I don't mind paying for MS Office. I do mind that every new version seems to be worse than the previous one for doing actual work on a real computer. I realy feel the PM's at Microsoft consider you a dinosaur if your primary "productivity" device is not your phone.

XorNot 2y ago
I stopped buying Office after 2003. Past then they added the Ribbon UI which ruined it for any productive workflow where you want to use styles and reviewing tools. Been using LibreOffice Write ever since, which helpfully has pretty much the 2003 UI. The only thing I think it could use is that nifty Jetbrains "search anywhere" feature.
lauritz 2y ago
Given that most of our civilization is run using these tools, it boggles the mind how they are still so limited. Why is there a limit of nine levels of headings in Word? Why does it feel less usable on my i9 with 32GB of RAM once you hit 200+ pages? Why is the "collaborative mode" still way, way, way behind Google Docs functionality circa 2012? I feel like the core functionality has stagnated since Office 2003.

lauritz 2y ago

To my surprise, what used to be called iWork has been my main "Office" replacement for years now. It's good enough, and it's free. I have switched over most of the non-technical people in my life to it, and they have no issues using it (except if they email a .pages document to a Windows user). I especially enjoy Numbers and the way you can arrange multiple tables on a page. It's a different paradigm coming from Google Sheets or Excel and takes some getting used to, but to me it now makes more sense. Of course, if I need something "done right", I'll drop down to Affinity, LaTeX, or InDesign. But I rarely have these needs nowadays. A similar argument could be made for going all in on Google Docs/Sheets/Slides, but I feel queasy knowing that all of my data is in a free Google account, after reading some of the stories here about reaching Google support if something goes sideways.

ohgr 2y ago
I tried using Numbers across my Mac and iPad. It has some show stopping sync bugs there which result in it completely destroying documents. Then when you try and recover previous versions you get a lesson in Apple's commitment to things other than the facade on the front of their stuff: not a lot. The document versions thing sometimes doesn't even work and if it does it's so slow it's unusable. Probably backed with some low tier S3 stuff. Also the formula editor is painful at best. TeXshop on the Mac is however rather nice.
- x0x0 2y ago
  Yeah. I was using numbers and it's not serious software. I needed "true" or "false" in certain cells. When typing in a cell, sometimes it would capitalize it to TRUE and you would need to type "'true" to avoid that; and sometimes it randomly would accept typing "true". I simply couldn't figure out which would happen at any time. The whole program is riddled with things like that.
  - lauritz 2y ago
    I have run into similar issues and I agree, it’s not without flaws. The formula editor is another example, as others have pointed out. A good solution I have found to your particular problem is to use checkboxes in the cells. You can select them as a cell type and it converts from Boolean value text to checkbox. I also prefer that, as a user, to typing True/False.

ohgr 2y ago

Subscription is fine on Office for me. I just pay for the O365 family edition (without copilot) and everyone gets it for about £6.70 a month. However I don't want the signed in cloud version so I just use the moral justification of cracking it with Ohook and disabling all the cloud shit. I'm paying for it so I don't give a crap. LibreOffice I want to like but I've tripped over many weird bugs and things which have been floating around in their Bugzilla since the dawn of time. If I have an academic interest, I'll just use TeXlive and LaTeX Workship inside VScode.

baq 2y ago

I need a Calc which doesn't suck. I don't necessarily need Excel, but the spreadsheet shouldn't be unusably slow at 100x100 cells with simple calculations and a literal couple of V/XLOOKUPs.

yummypaint 2y ago
Gnumeric may be the answer for you. It was the answer for me. It's amazing how quickly both excel and libre office documents shit the bed and produce outright wrong behavior once they hit a few MB of data and/or a few dozen plots. Not to mention the fiasco of all the genetic information corrupted by excel's boneheaded auto complete (which they STILL haven't fixed afaik). I have gnumeric documents with hundreds of plots containing fits etc that I view in 4k without any lag or delays whatsoever. The plotting options can also be made suitable for publication much more easily. All the important functions are there. My main complaint about spreadsheets in general is the fitting options are still in the stone age compared with software like ROOT using minuit, where you can easily do a proper chi squared minimization with arbitrary functions where error bars of all points are correctly used. However, it seems only the sciences use such features as apparently there is no demand from the business world (or other MS customers) for spreadsheet tools supporting thought or analysis beyond a 5th grade level. Microsoft has had decades and millions of dollars to make excel usable, and should be embarrassed about how their flagship productivity software is rightfully seen as unfit for purpose by people doing rigorous work. Seeing nontrivial information in a scientific talk rendered in the telltale excel style is visual shorthand for "the real analysis hasn't been done yet" or "I don't know what I'm doing and won't be able to answer questions about uncertainties."
- 2b3a51 2y ago
  Nice to see gnumeric getting a mention. Might be worth pointing out that it can use glpk [1] which provides a subset of ampl [2]. I use it about once a year to demonstrate a simple linear programming model. Gnumeric's file format is plain text as well which is nice. [1] https://www.gnu.org/software/glpk/ https://www.gnu.org/software/glpk/ [2] https://ampl.com/resources/books/ampl-book/ https://ampl.com/resources/books/ampl-book/
- 2y ago

fumufumufumu 2y ago

I don't think I could ever go back to storing my docs locally and not being able to access them from all my devices at all times anywhere in the world, easily.

rambambram 2y ago
I think you can, I believe in you.
joseda-hg 2y ago
You can mount your cloud drive, and open those files with LibreOffice or OnlyOffice, I certainly do so with Google Drive
- fumufumufumu 2y ago
  It's not the same. I keep the document open on multiple machines (home and work for example) and they update. Then I pull out my phone and add a note to the same document all while it's still open on other machines.
  - joseda-hg 2y ago
    IIRC OnlyOffice can do that Google Docs style collaboration, but it does take extra effort to setup

Yoric 2y ago

It's probably also related to the geopolitical context. The US has threatened war at least against Canada, Europe, Panama and China, while clearly eyeing an alliance with Russia, which would in turn threaten many countries bordering Russia. That's a pretty large number of users who don't feel safe using US products anymore.

milesrout 2y ago
[flagged]
- gelert 2y ago
  While I agree the leap to linking geopolitics to LibreOffice's success is a stretch you are misrepresenting the American position. The President of the United states, its commander in chief, explicitly did not rule out military action when discussing his desire to bring Greenland and the Panama canal under direct American control. The rhetoric of making Canada the "51st state" while less explicit a threat is still one. Greenlanders, Panamanians and Canadians all clearly see these as threats.
- vanviegen 2y ago
  Saying you're planning to take over (part of) another state's territory, and that we'll "go as far as we have to" to do it, doesn't sound all that peaceful to me. And people seem to be learning to take Trump's insane talk seriously. So no, I don't think the connection with LibreOffice downloads is a "load of tosh", but just one example of a larger shift.
- concerndc1tizen 2y ago
  The US has literally expressed intent to annex Canada, Greenland, and Panama.
- Wololooo 2y ago
  Just to set the record straight even if this is going to be flagged Repeatedly The current administration has stated * That they would acquire Greenland by any means necessary https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense/3361358/us-security-greenland-acquisition-trump-arctic-dominance-china-russia/ https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense/3361358/us... * That they would Make Canada part of the US as its 51st State https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg198xxy1xo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg198xxy1xo * That they would engage in trade war with Europe over alleged imbalance and loss in trade https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/27/trump-threatens-far-larger-tariffs-on-eu-and-canada-.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/27/trump-threatens-far-larger-t... Given this context, if you are not directly in the US or directly a US company, it makes a lot of sense to start to question your future ability as well as future costs for access to US controlled systems.

throwaway48476 2y ago

MS office has been removing features, ruining the UI and adding bloat. No wonder people are jumping ship.

yummypaint 2y ago
This has been the story for 20 years now. It's a case study in what happens when a product has a guaranteed revenue stream and the company has 0 incentive to innovate or improve anything. However, managers still need to have "launches" and leave their grimy fingerprints on the UI so they can pat themselves on the back and advance a rung on the career ladder. From a would-be user's perspective it appears this dynamic is the sole driver of changes to MS office.
- troyvit 2y ago
  > This has been the story for 20 years now. Even longer. I remember in college in the '90s we would pack two things away over the summer to make sure the next year would go well: 1/4 oz weed because it took so long for the market to pick back up in the fall, and a floppy disc holding Word 5.1 since Word 6.0 for the Mac was such garbage.

prell 2y ago

Can you guys recommend an android app which can do simple edits (mostly data entry) on spreadsheet .ODS files stored locally on the device. Right now I use Collabora but UX is not the best and it feels very slow and unresponsive at times. MS Excel requires conversion to xlsx before you can edit and Google Sheets requires to upload to google drive so neither is an option. Any alternatives?

msh 2y ago
Only office works quite well: https://www.onlyoffice.com/office-for-android.aspx https://www.onlyoffice.com/office-for-android.aspx

loughnane 2y ago

I use libreoffice call to open stuff on my Linux box, but the default formula behavior turns me off. If I type “=“ into D2 then left arrow to C2 then type “*” I would expect when I next press up arrow it to bring me to D1. But in Calc it brings me to C1. In other words it doesn’t reset to the starting cell after each operation. I guess I can change it somehow, but that’s been enough of an annoyance that I haven’t switched wholly for on google sheets, though I’d like to.

joseda-hg 2y ago

I've been looking into what it would take to "theme" LibreOffice into something more Gnome-ish, less jarring to new users, for some reason there's been many project with that in mind and they all seem abandoned and / or in limbo

delfugal 2y ago

I wish they'd make LibreQuickbooks.

cable2600 2y ago
https://pdf.wondershare.com/accounting/linux-accounting-software.html https://pdf.wondershare.com/accounting/linux-accounting-soft...

Jaxkr 2y ago

Probably too late to this thread for anyone to read this, but the real reason for this bump is Microsoft removing WordPad from the latest versions of Windows 11.

harvey9 2y ago
Can you explain why you think so? it's not self-evident.
- Jaxkr 2y ago
  WordPad was a quick and easy way to view/edit simple Word documents. When you double-clicked a .docx, WordPad would let you read it (albeit with some formatting issues). Now when you click a .docx on a fresh Windows install, you get a generic “what app would you like to open this with?” pop-up.* This leads the user to google free ways to view Word documents, leading to LibreOffice. * Site note: I’m very surprised Microsoft doesn’t use this as an opportunity to sell you Office.
pessimizer 2y ago
That would do it. If Windows got rid of their basic document editor, and enough affected muggles got into desperate enough situations to discover Libreoffice, they will tip each other off through social networks quickly. Strategies taking advantage of the ignorance of users (or voters) are faltering in the age of user-generated content. You can't sell an operating system without a document editor without running the risk of people finding the free one that is nearly as good (or in the case of Wordpad, is far better.) MS won't like what happens in offices 10 years from now if they let students use Libreoffice for their schoolwork instead of Wordpad (eventually replaced with Word.) They'd better be working hard to get "student" copies of Office into kids' hands, even if they have to pay them to take it.
- Jaxkr 2y ago
  > MS won't like what happens in offices 10 years from now if they let students use Libreoffice for their schoolwork instead of Wordpad (eventually replaced with Word.) They'd better be working hard to get "student" copies of Office into kids' hands, even if they have to pay them to take it. They have completely lost this battle. Google Docs was the standard thru nearly my entire K12 and university education.

shmoobadge 2y ago

I ditched MS office last year (for libreoffice) when MS updated their terms to allow them to hoover up all my content, even that stored only on my computer, to train their AI. Subscription costs (which I'd bought a version several years ago) pale by comparison to the wrongness of that.

cynicalsecurity 2y ago

LibreOffice is also not spying on users.

2Gkashmiri 2y ago

I use livreoffice writer for my legal work on a full time basis. Gets the job done. Have to send PDFs so it works. I do not have to do collaborative editing like tracking but I suppose that works too. Calc is.. slowly improving but it works.

mediumsmart 2y ago

Microsoft Office was ok when I last used it 25 years ago. I think it came preinstalled. But LibreOffice is the real thing and that its going to become the standard is good news.

sershe 2y ago

I just use Office 2007 for my personal stuff. It still works, even on Windows 11! Other than slightly better non-contiguous region operations and QoL improvements to pivot tables in Excel, on 365 that I use at work, I don't really miss anything. It also lags a lot less.