this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2024
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As a KDE fan, I don't use any of these "redundant" programs, unless there is a true benefit.
The thing is that, LibreOffice works and looks great in Plasma, and Calligra doesn't do anything special.
It's even more obvious for me with KTorrent. We already have qBitTorrent!
I absolutely like things like Neochat, tho, because in this case the "official" alternative is an annoying Electron app.
Yeah but I don't think competition is bad.
Maybe they'll make it even better than the alternatives.
Of course, I don't think there is anything inherently wrong about Calligra. It's just that, so far... I see no point for using it.
For me the question becomes whether or not it is a waste of resources.
There's only so many donations to go around.
Calligra is blazingly fast by comparison to open office. I'm glad there's not just one alternative, and I don't think it's a waste of money.
There is also OnlyOffice, which has been more palatable for the people I shared it with (mostly students that were graduating and losing access to free MS Word)
I've found OnlyOffice to have bettet interoperability with MS Office, than LibreOffice. Not perfect, but things like layout are better transferred between the programs. If that is a main concern (i.e. you frequently collaborate with people using MS Office), that would be a good solution. There is however some sketchy licensing stuff going on with OnlyOffice I have yet not fully understood.
It seems Calligra can open, but not save in MS Office file formats. I guess MS Office can open OpenDocument-files, but I believe interoperability will not be too good. Again, if that is a main concern. For me now, it is not.
You can make LibreOffice look more like Microsoft Office, it's in the settings. No need for OnlyOffice for that.
How to Make LibreOffice Look Like Microsoft Office
Since you are able to classify it as "redundant", I would assume you have experience using it? Could you comment on some of the main gaps you find between this and LibreOffice, that leads you to prefer LibreOffice? As stated in a comment below, I have no experience with this and would be interested to see if it could be a contender, and it seems you have an opinion that it (at least at present), does not.
If you mean "redundant" as in "LibreOffice already does everything you need", I disagree with that.
I gave it an extended look a few years ago, and I don't remember much of the details, but I found the workflow not terribly intuitive, it had some unusual defaults and was relatively limited in features.
If I remember correctly, it did save in the ODF formats, so for just writing out a letter, it's definitely fine.
There's just not really a reason to use it over LibreOffice, except for it being somewhat more lightweight.
I mean "redundant" as in "Calligra does not offer me anything special compared to LibreOffice"; and so I prefer to keep using LibreOffice as it is essentially the source of all things OpenDocument.
It doesn't handle .docx files.
And it has a useless sidebar you can't remove.
And it doesn't have the libreoffice ecosystem, with lots of extensions and plugins.
@superkret @cyberwolfie world would be a better place if many many more office suites, especially MS Office, wouldn't support OOXML... The only reason for its existance is MS monopoly and lies.
Yes, unfortunately we live in the world we live in.
Thanks for good input! I'll give it a spin later, but I will contain my expectations for now. Seems like Krita was spun out of this some time ago, and my impression is that Krita is generally very well liked. Maybe the remaining parts will recieve similar development focus later and they will become true contenders down the line. I like competition, and as said before, I don't think LibreOffice is quite there.