4 ms·
I feel like the entire world needs to take a plunge towards LibreOffice for the good of all.
by farseer 15d ago
I feel like the entire world needs to take a plunge towards LibreOffice for the good of all.
- cyanydeez 15d agoI've been trying to slowly do this. But muscle memory and visual cues, embedded for 15 years just keep winning. None of my excel sheets are just numbers, they're tied to database pulls and those dont work either. Just trying to do the same things like merge cells I'm searching through a bunch of menus wondering what the hell it's called. Theres a gui that looks similar but not enough. If they really want adoption, they need to completely add a office-clone mode and accept the consequences.
- tombert 15d agoI agree with you in principle, and I honestly genuinely kind of hate Microsoft Office and I haven't used it or LibreOffice since I learned how to do LaTeX and Pandoc and Typst. That said, whether or not it should be the case, a lot of people want specifically proper noun Microsoft Office (TM), not something "as good or better" than Microsoft Office. I think getting people people towards a less horrible computing setup, for most people, requires it being done incrementally.
- passthejoe 15d agoToday's generation of kids is using Google Apps in school and has no ties to MS Office. SAAS in general will make MS Office much less relevant. Things like Canva and Photopea are doing the same to Adobe.
- tombert 15d agoSure; honestly this is just for people like my parents. I am slowly trying to build the case that they should switch to Linux, especially if they expect me to play IT for them.
- Daviey 15d agoThe biggest blocker for me is having confidence my output renders the same with people using MS Office, pdf output isn't always sufficient.
- MrDrMcCoy 15d agoThat has been a lot less of a problem lately. Why not try again and open a bug report if there's an issue?
- afavour 15d agoBecause there’s no one and done testing for it. You need to check every document you make with Office (so you’re paying for Office anyway…) to ensure it’s correct. All very well for an open source software project but for software you’re using day to day to achieve other, business central, goals, it’s a lot of lost time with little benefit.
- hagbard_c 15d ago> for software you’re using day to day to achieve other, business central, goals... ...you should use something which is reliable, no more complicated than needed for the purpose, which assures documents made now can be read in the distant future, keeps your confidential information out of the wrong hands and which is sure to be available to anyone who needs to have access to it. Doesn't really sound like Microsoft Office is a good fit if you ask me.
- afavour 15d agoYou want to use the same stuff your clients use, that’s guaranteed to look the same on their computer. So Office it is.
- hagbard_c 15d agoWell, you want to be using what your clients can read, it doesn't have to the the same software. This is true for most file formats - audio, video, image/graphics (the latter more restricted due to other entrenched proprietary formats) - but the 'office' space (no pun intended) is still suffering from decades of abuse of its position os operating system vendor by Microsoft. Windows is only getting worse with every release so it is just smart business sense to steer away from it and things depending on it. Microsoft Office is one of the few remaining reasons often quoted for staying with this deteriorating platform so there are other incentives to move away from it. The best moment for moving away from Windows was years - or decades - ago. The second best moment is now.
- revolvingthrow 15d agoThe network effect of social media has nothing on the network effect of ms office
- varispeed 15d agoYou can try to use LibreOffice all you want, until you receive a form to fill where LibreOffice doesn't display checkboxes and recipient won't accept "x", because their automated software only uses MS Office and won't properly attribute it to questions.
- ray_kay777 13d agoYep, I've seen this come up time and time again in the legal world and Microsoft 365 is so entrenched in the legal world that there is 0 chance of change in at least the next decade, and probably in the next 20 years.
- brightball 15d agoMakes me wonder about aiming all those subscriptions at LibreOffice. How fast could it be improved to gain parity or surpass MS Office? Maybe the new Omarchy foundation thing will take it on. DHH has pretty publicly been asking for a version of office for Linux.
- varispeed 15d agoWith such an advancement of AI, can't parity be vibe coded?
- TiredOfLife 15d agoThat would require LibreOffice not being shit.
- fluidcruft 15d agoI can't tell what's going on with all the LibreOffice drama and whether it's a zombie on life support after the professional community management class kicked all the actual developers out (my take away).
- DaSHacka 15d agoCan you elaborate more on this? This is the first time I'm hearing about it.
- fluidcruft 15d agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47599305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47599305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47652324 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47652324
- fsflover 13d agoMost commenters in your links are confused by the linked articles. Have you got a well-written article on the issue?
- fluidcruft 13d agoNope
- deleted 15d ago[deleted]
- mahboi 15d agoIt's not even the only "Open" vs "Libre" drama. There's SSL too.
- bastardoperator 15d agoI avoid both like the plague. These apps make me feel less productive and the docs they produce always look ugly to me. I would rather md, html or latex.
- chris_money202 15d agoThe word editor isn't really Microsoft's product, it's just one of the many entry points to the Microsoft Office cloud sphere where all the data can be interconnected and shareable.
- ducktective 15d agoFor starters, universities and government offices should not expect a proprietary format. Everyone should accept OpenDocument Format (ODF) or a similar FOSS format. MS Office, LibreOffice, OpenOffice and whatnot can compete in editing and rendering open formats. Come to think of it, this is a good proposal for EU, thanks for the USB-C, by the way :)
- tombert 15d agoCan't speak for every graduate program or every school, but when I was in grad school at University of York, we actually used Overleaf with LaTeX a lot, since it allowed shared collaborative editing. I liked that because it's still an open format.
- kasabali 15d agoThe problem with this is Microsoft foresaw it and pushed (bribed?) OOXML through ISO and now there's no standing on "forcing" an open standard without OOXML being one.
- vrighter 15d agohow about requiring the format to actually be specified? Isn't ooxml filled with tons of chunks saying "and then this will behave like word 95 did" and not specify what tat is
- glimshe 15d agoI think LibreOffice is an outdated and overall awful piece of software. It's not like Open Source champions like Linux, Blender and Godot at all. Its only advantage is being Free. This product couldn't survive in the market if it was paid, arguably at any price. I really tried it to use and love it, but LibreOffice is just terrible.
- winrid 15d agoOpenOffice is older and outdated compared to Libre, which did you try?
- glimshe 15d agoBoth. Neither is a viable mass-market alternative in my opinion. Cross-platform office software is just a difficult problem. I think they could be appropriate for some nonprofit/government work, which I think is where they do well today.
- winrid 15d agoI agree with that. They are only usable if you're fairly technical.
- anon48293 15d agoTry onlyoffice
- ducktective 15d ago>outdated What modern features are you looking for in a say, document editor? My experience with LibreOffice Writer and Calc has been excellent. I'm happy there is no modern AI or cloud integration noise or ribbon bars with excessive whitespaces.
- staindk 15d agoI mostly just want UI icons that make sense. The LibreOffice icons all look samey to me, can never find what I'm looking for.
- GuB-42 15d agoExcept that Microsoft Office is just better. But with the awesome job Microsoft does at breaking it, maybe in a few years, LibreOffice will be a good alternative, if the LibreOffice guys don't screw up too much on their side.
- mahboi 15d agoRealistically, the world is just gonna AI-plow their way through old moats like this. Don't know about new ones.
- mahboi 15d agoAlso, it's not even a joke anymore how Wine is the most stable Linux ABI
- hikashop-nicola 12d ago[dead]