8 ms·

I know I tried to switch to LibreOffice for a few weeks and then ran back screaming. I know some others who have done the same. I haven't yet met a single pers

I know I tried to switch to LibreOffice for a few weeks and then ran back screaming. I know some others who have done the same. I haven't yet met a single person who is happier with OOo/LO than with Word; if that's true for you you're the first such person I've heard of.

primelens 13y ago
I switched to NeoOffice several years ago and currently use LibreOffice. Wrote my dissertation on it. And this despite having access to MS-Office for free through a university license.
- wfunction 13y ago
  Cool! What do you like more about it than MS Office?
  - primelens 13y ago
    I tried it because I wanted to try free (as in freedom) software and never felt the need to switch back as it did everything I required of a WYSIWYG word processor. I guess I have just gotten so used to it now that when I use Word/Excel etc (mostly briefly on someone else's computer) I get all confused about their new panel based menu system. The point is not that they are better but that they are a suitable replacement for all but a very small niche of power users. But people tend to compare the limit cases even if all they'll ever use are the day-to-day functions.
    - aaronbrethorst 13y ago
      The Ribbon is almost seven years old now.
      - primelens 13y ago
        And that's how long I've been MS-free :-).
        filestar 13y ago
        >And that's how long I've been MS-free :-). Not if you use StackOverflow or any other site that uses IIS as the webserver, in which case you're using Windows :) From http://www.zdnet.com/intel-the-year-of-the-linux-desktop-is-here-7000020849/ http://www.zdnet.com/intel-the-year-of-the-linux-desktop-is-... >When you go to any large Web site--Google, Facebook, Twitter--you're using Linux." /joke
    - wfunction 13y ago
      >> haven't yet met a single person who is happier with OOo/LO than with Word... > The point is not that they are better but that they are a suitable replacement... Well then you're just confirming what I already said...
  - pseingatl 13y ago
    Export to LaTex, for one.
petit_robert 13y ago
I switched several years ago and never looked backed. No problem whatsoever, I produce all my corporate documents with it. Could you explain what it is that scared you so much? I am the one to scream whenever I'm forced into using anything from the post 2003 MS office suites, which is thankfully extremely rare.
- wfunction 13y ago
  Yeah, sure: - LibreOffice can't even show the simplest documents correctly on the same computer: http://i.imgur.com/0glr43F.png http://i.imgur.com/0glr43F.png vs. http://i.imgur.com/g3a1332.png http://i.imgur.com/g3a1332.png - Word takes < 200 ms to start up on my (blazing fast) laptop. LibreOffice takes > 2 seconds. It's outright irritating to say the least. - Everything else has lags too. File->Save takes > 2 seconds to show me the dialog. In Word it's instantaneous. - No smooth scroll?? My eyes!!! >___< - No "Styles"?? - The UI just screams "LINUX", feels freaking hacky, and doesn't feel the way it should. For example: 1. Word highlights text word-by-word; LO does it letter-by-letter. Selections never work the way you intend them the first time. 2. Highlight a piece of text from left to right and then press Left. The cursor is now still on the left-hand side of the previously-highlighted text in Word, but still on the right-hand side in LibreOffice. What the hell??? 3. A million other things about the UI doesn't feel normal, e.g. http://i.imgur.com/HM52E9A.png http://i.imgur.com/HM52E9A.png vs. http://i.imgur.com/zTK1zoi.png http://i.imgur.com/zTK1zoi.png I could go on and on, these are just what I found/remembered in a couple minutes of using it again.
  - tomrod 13y ago
    The great thing about LibreOffice is that if there is something you don't like about it, you can contribute to the codebase.
    - umanwizard 13y ago
      That's very disingenuous. The libreoffice code base is big and complex and hard enough to ramp up on that fixing your personal problems with it would quickly become a full time job, even if you already know all there is to know about programming enterprise software in c++
e12e 13y ago
For "just" replacing word (ie: as a word processor with reasonable output considering it's not a DTP package or LaTeX), I think abiword is superior for most use cases (except: "being word" aka compatibility with complex word documents (for simple/ancient documents it reportedly is better than word...)). If you need/want to insert various objects in various documents (eg: graphs from spreadsheets in documents that dynamically update when the data source update) -- not so much. I could argue that you'd be better off using literate R/LyX -- but unfortunately there's a bit of an UX gap). I much prefer LibreOffice to MS Office -- but mostly because I don't feel quite as a afraid that my documents are going to go randomly get corrupted at the worst possible moment without any reasonable hope of recovery (documented formats ftw!).
zhte415 13y ago
Not as a Word replacement (never used Word), but Excel and Powerpoint: I switched. It took a couple of months to feel as productive. The first 2 weeks were especially hair pulling. Much was due to the ribbon interface, which I liked, which LO doesn't have. My mind reverted to menus via Office 2000 which I cut my teeth on as a new graduate years back. There are some things I still find odd / bewildering: Right clicking on a block of text I have the options of both 'Text' and 'Character' which have different options. Neither of the contained options contain vertical alignment choices. Tables just feel a pain, zooming in and out as different cells / borders are clicked. Blah blah blah other small things. For my sins, I like VBA (familiar with, rather than romance). Familiar is the key. It took a small learning curve, and I'm as productive in it as a modern version of MS Office. Much of the learning curve is having been so familiar with MS Office, sometimes things are just done differently, mainly at the UX Level. Integration for a personal and work based workflow is where Linux leaves Windows in the standing-gates was the game changer for me, and why I put myself through the learning curve. I do feel LO's UI simply doesn't look beautiful, indeed, I feel it looks ugly. Everything is gray, some icons have shadow, some not. I have the feeling a few hundreds of hours on grouping icons, highlighting contrast in dialogue boxes, would make it a lot less 'tired' looking. Mozilla did it, I am sure LO will, and that may be a small but important tipping point.
Al-Khwarizmi 13y ago
> I haven't yet met a single person who is happier with OOo/ > LO than with Word; if that's true for you you're the first > such person I've heard of. Hi, I'm one such person. Reason: the ribbon. In the rest, yes, Word is better. But I like standard menubar interfaces and hate the programs that don't let me use them.

primelens 13y ago

I switched to NeoOffice several years ago and currently use LibreOffice. Wrote my dissertation on it. And this despite having access to MS-Office for free through a university license.

wfunction 13y ago
Cool! What do you like more about it than MS Office?
- primelens 13y ago
  I tried it because I wanted to try free (as in freedom) software and never felt the need to switch back as it did everything I required of a WYSIWYG word processor. I guess I have just gotten so used to it now that when I use Word/Excel etc (mostly briefly on someone else's computer) I get all confused about their new panel based menu system. The point is not that they are better but that they are a suitable replacement for all but a very small niche of power users. But people tend to compare the limit cases even if all they'll ever use are the day-to-day functions.
  - aaronbrethorst 13y ago
    The Ribbon is almost seven years old now.
    - primelens 13y ago
      And that's how long I've been MS-free :-).
      - filestar 13y ago
        >And that's how long I've been MS-free :-). Not if you use StackOverflow or any other site that uses IIS as the webserver, in which case you're using Windows :) From http://www.zdnet.com/intel-the-year-of-the-linux-desktop-is-here-7000020849/ http://www.zdnet.com/intel-the-year-of-the-linux-desktop-is-... >When you go to any large Web site--Google, Facebook, Twitter--you're using Linux." /joke
  - wfunction 13y ago
    >> haven't yet met a single person who is happier with OOo/LO than with Word... > The point is not that they are better but that they are a suitable replacement... Well then you're just confirming what I already said...
- pseingatl 13y ago
  Export to LaTex, for one.

petit_robert 13y ago

I switched several years ago and never looked backed. No problem whatsoever, I produce all my corporate documents with it. Could you explain what it is that scared you so much? I am the one to scream whenever I'm forced into using anything from the post 2003 MS office suites, which is thankfully extremely rare.

wfunction 13y ago
Yeah, sure: - LibreOffice can't even show the simplest documents correctly on the same computer: http://i.imgur.com/0glr43F.png http://i.imgur.com/0glr43F.png vs. http://i.imgur.com/g3a1332.png http://i.imgur.com/g3a1332.png - Word takes < 200 ms to start up on my (blazing fast) laptop. LibreOffice takes > 2 seconds. It's outright irritating to say the least. - Everything else has lags too. File->Save takes > 2 seconds to show me the dialog. In Word it's instantaneous. - No smooth scroll?? My eyes!!! >___< - No "Styles"?? - The UI just screams "LINUX", feels freaking hacky, and doesn't feel the way it should. For example: 1. Word highlights text word-by-word; LO does it letter-by-letter. Selections never work the way you intend them the first time. 2. Highlight a piece of text from left to right and then press Left. The cursor is now still on the left-hand side of the previously-highlighted text in Word, but still on the right-hand side in LibreOffice. What the hell??? 3. A million other things about the UI doesn't feel normal, e.g. http://i.imgur.com/HM52E9A.png http://i.imgur.com/HM52E9A.png vs. http://i.imgur.com/zTK1zoi.png http://i.imgur.com/zTK1zoi.png I could go on and on, these are just what I found/remembered in a couple minutes of using it again.
- tomrod 13y ago
  The great thing about LibreOffice is that if there is something you don't like about it, you can contribute to the codebase.
  - umanwizard 13y ago
    That's very disingenuous. The libreoffice code base is big and complex and hard enough to ramp up on that fixing your personal problems with it would quickly become a full time job, even if you already know all there is to know about programming enterprise software in c++

e12e 13y ago

For "just" replacing word (ie: as a word processor with reasonable output considering it's not a DTP package or LaTeX), I think abiword is superior for most use cases (except: "being word" aka compatibility with complex word documents (for simple/ancient documents it reportedly is better than word...)). If you need/want to insert various objects in various documents (eg: graphs from spreadsheets in documents that dynamically update when the data source update) -- not so much. I could argue that you'd be better off using literate R/LyX -- but unfortunately there's a bit of an UX gap). I much prefer LibreOffice to MS Office -- but mostly because I don't feel quite as a afraid that my documents are going to go randomly get corrupted at the worst possible moment without any reasonable hope of recovery (documented formats ftw!).

zhte415 13y ago

Not as a Word replacement (never used Word), but Excel and Powerpoint: I switched. It took a couple of months to feel as productive. The first 2 weeks were especially hair pulling. Much was due to the ribbon interface, which I liked, which LO doesn't have. My mind reverted to menus via Office 2000 which I cut my teeth on as a new graduate years back. There are some things I still find odd / bewildering: Right clicking on a block of text I have the options of both 'Text' and 'Character' which have different options. Neither of the contained options contain vertical alignment choices. Tables just feel a pain, zooming in and out as different cells / borders are clicked. Blah blah blah other small things. For my sins, I like VBA (familiar with, rather than romance). Familiar is the key. It took a small learning curve, and I'm as productive in it as a modern version of MS Office. Much of the learning curve is having been so familiar with MS Office, sometimes things are just done differently, mainly at the UX Level. Integration for a personal and work based workflow is where Linux leaves Windows in the standing-gates was the game changer for me, and why I put myself through the learning curve. I do feel LO's UI simply doesn't look beautiful, indeed, I feel it looks ugly. Everything is gray, some icons have shadow, some not. I have the feeling a few hundreds of hours on grouping icons, highlighting contrast in dialogue boxes, would make it a lot less 'tired' looking. Mozilla did it, I am sure LO will, and that may be a small but important tipping point.

Al-Khwarizmi 13y ago

> I haven't yet met a single person who is happier with OOo/ > LO than with Word; if that's true for you you're the first > such person I've heard of. Hi, I'm one such person. Reason: the ribbon. In the rest, yes, Word is better. But I like standard menubar interfaces and hate the programs that don't let me use them.