this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2025
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[–] xia@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 11 hours ago

It's missing that built-in game where you explore a maze of stateful quasi-menus looking for a tool/option that you know you've used before.

[–] JazzlikeDiamond558@lemm.ee 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

To answer the question, despite the few bugs and few formatting issues, YES, it is a decent replacement for MS Office.

[–] BrutallyHonestPOS@lemm.ee 1 points 10 hours ago

Man I hope that is just a me-issue, but I work with excel a lot for work and try to use libre office at home. And the excel alternative is not great. I can see the similarities to excel, but when I want to use it, I have a lot of trouble finding things and using them as I am used to.

You WILL be able to do basic things and I am sure it will almost always be possible to get to similar results, but the way there does not feel the same.

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 2 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

It was decent replacement 10 years ago. Openoffice. If somehow you need to pay by subscription, I'm not sure it was missing features back then.

[–] xnx@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 day ago

Onlyoffice has a better ui in my opinion but libreoffice is good enough

[–] SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The issue is that it doesn't come with a keyboard shortcut scheme that matches Microsoft, so any company that does a trial with LibreOffice will see a massibe productivity drop right away as everyone's muscle memories become obsolete, and you don't want to tell Nancy the Dispatcher that she has to forget and relearn all the Excel shortcuts she's been using for the last 20 years. She would give you a piece of her mind, once she's back from her smoke.

[–] Novocirab@feddit.org 3 points 12 hours ago

It would be really awesome if there were a compatibility script or so that adjusts all LibreOffice shortcuts to match those of MS Office as far as possible.

[–] adbenitez@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Hey, how do you know she is named Nancy!? And that she smokes a bit too much! 😱

[–] AfricanExpansionist@lemmy.ml 28 points 2 days ago

It's fine for most things

[–] Octagon9561@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago

LibreOffice is amazing on Linux, ngl though it is a bit unpolished on both Windows and especially Mac.

[–] FatLegTed@piefed.social 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Not bad, I use it regularly but I'm not a power user. It doesn't have the ten million and one things the other one does, the ones you never use. It's quite light on resources. Not as intrusive either.

Give it a spin.

[–] brotundspiele@feddit.org 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I was recently forced to use MS Office 355 and I was shocked by the amount of features it lacks, one might actually want to use.

[–] FatLegTed@piefed.social 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Was that the web version? The last time I used Word it was the full all singing all dancing version. That was a while ago. And it was downloaded to my machine. Does it not even do that anymore?

[–] brotundspiele@feddit.org 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yes, the web version. All I wanted to do was to highlight dates more than a month ago in a different colour in Excel. But it only provided me with useless options like "current month" or "tomorrow" and no way to enter any custom conditions.

[–] FatLegTed@piefed.social 1 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Ah, it'll be the same Wythenshawe Excel then. I format and print my wife's work rota each week. It's prepared in Excel quite terribly.

The Web version didn't have half the formatting commands the 'real' version had.

Libre Office had them 😉

[–] SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 hours ago

Libre Office has a web version?

[–] klangcola@reddthat.com 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You should there is also OnlyOffice, which has better compatibility with Microsoft file formats (and uses Microsoft formats by default). Its also generally good, and open source.

I use both OnlyOffice and LibreOffice on different computers. Both are good.

[–] NightOwl@lemmy.one 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] klangcola@reddthat.com 1 points 16 hours ago

Today I Learned, thanks for sharing.

From your linked thread it seems potentially still acceptable, being fully local , open source, and with an international contributor team. But yeah no such ties with LibreOffice.

[–] Kcg@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago

Yep made me drop it.

[–] plumbercraic@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 1 day ago

The pivot charts and tables drive me kinda nuts. Typically I have a dataset I've prepared in python and find pivot tables faster and easier than matplotlib. In excel I make a Data tab and connect it to an external CSV, then in another tab pick my filters, columns and rows, and then chart type. Then I iterate - run the Python again to make a new CSV and just press refresh in excel and I get updated visualisations. This workflow just doesnt work for me in Libre Office. Can't figure out how to live link CSVs. Pivot tables are OK but oubot charts are not a thing - have to manually point them at a dataset and there's no nice panel to choose columns and rows.

I dunno, maybe it's just I gotta learn a different way but honestly just easier to use a windows VM for this stuff.

Its pretty good for most office users. You can select the office theme and ribbon toolbar layout and it's pretty familiar feeling.

[–] Libb@jlai.lu 6 points 1 day ago

Depends what you need. Even more so in a spreadsheet have I been told by my spouse (she is using advanced XL features a lot in her job). It also depends on what OS it's installed. I find it worse on macOS (much less well integrated) and real excellent on Linux.

I quite like using LO Writer as it's easy to set it up once and for all and have it behave exactly like I want it to be, including the very few extensions I use. Once configured, it's then very easy to backup all settings for quick re-installation or even to copy them onto another machine. It's also great to use different profiles for different pen names (ie having different dictionaries, rules, shortcuts,... depending the type of content one is working on) :)

I much prefer Writer's management of styles compared to MS Word too. I just think it's better... but it still is not perfect.

Depending your specific needs Writer may lack a few advanced stuff (stuff I'm confident 99% users will never use). I also don't like how keyboard shortcuts are managed as you can't really modify them freely but at least once can change them.

I will always make sure to install whatever the latest version is (the one installed with my distro always lags behind) as each update brings its fair share of improvements and bug corrections.

For writing, I use two different 'workspace': VSCodium (+Markdown and Hugo) for blogging, and LO Writer for anything longer. I consider both apps very reliable tools. I also like how I can easily tweak them to fit my needs and preferences.

I would not want to go back to using Word even though I never was a hater of Word. I started using Word in the 90s and I've been using it without any serious issue or drama up until I switched to Linux and LO a few years ago. Heck, I even managed to keep working with files I created back in the 90s without any difficulty, despite MSWord few format changes.

[–] jcr@jlai.lu 5 points 1 day ago

Compatibilty, stability, pdf export and import is all very good. Calc has no real differences with Excel for my use cases (less automated formatting options) Impress is a little lagging behind powerpoint in terms of compatibility and formatting option (this may nag you if you have to use templates from other people). Otherwise I have no issues working with LO on Linux in full Windows Office 365 coworkers

[–] deadcatbounce@reddthat.com 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

It's the right side of the java nightmare that it was. Much much better but until that java runtime disappears ..

It's my daily driver and is the central application with which I work.

[–] sudoku@programming.dev 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Libreoffice is like the 2003 MS office but better, which makes it superior to anything in the market right now. Onlyoffice is number 2, as it has greater compatibility to MS office but it also imitates MS office, which makes it worse to me but easier to switch for someone addicted to Microsoft products.

[–] solarvector@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago

You can change the style in libre office if you prefer something close to one of the other MA versions.

[–] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago

It's fine but even though I'm a foss enthusiast I gotta say MS Word is more convenient.

[–] SrMono@feddit.org 3 points 2 days ago

I used it several years ago for scientific writing. It was good back then and it is good now.

The problem is the adoption in companies/institutions that fear to miss out on something if they don’t use Office. Sadly Office files are still the business/office standard (until businesses step up and encourage people to use open document formats).