Libre vs MS Office

[allenskd]

Unfortunately I have to go back to Windows when I'm at work.
I've thought about using Linux as work, but there are a few proprietary IT programs I need to use.
Outlook too

Believe me I would use Outlook over Thunderbird honestly... it's just more polished, plus Exchange Server support. After spending time with LibreOffice I still don't get why people think LibreOffice is better, or maybe it's just the fanaticism speaking.

That's just me though. Well that's my 2cents I don't want to end up derailing the thread haha

 

[booman]

We are way past derailing Daerandin's wireless rant!

I love Libre cause its free and backwards/forwards compatible with all Office formats. I kinda wish they had an email client like Outlook available. I rarely use it, but if I need to make a spreadsheet or quick document, I either go to Google Docs or Libre.

 

[allenskd]

You can just split out posts and make another thread you know

Libre has very poor Office docs support... I remember opening a document with plenty of shapes and smartart... that was a HUGE mess. I ended up just launching the Word I had installed with WINE, problem solved. Beyond that? People bang on Microsoft's ribbon way too much, when user interface is two or three times better than LibreOffice and far more intuitive to use, better tools, the tables functionality in Word is way better than LibreOffice. But you know the drill, if I want something done I should "submit patches", quite funny.

Heck, even today I finished writing a document in LibreOffice and it couldn't even spell check the thing in Spanish. (It worked before, now it just doesn't want to do it and I'm way too lazy right now to figure out what's wrong with it.)

Mind you, if Microsoft Office came to linux I'll throw money at it in a heartbeat.

 

[booman]

Hey it worked! Now we have our own thread debating Libre and MS Office

You are right about compatibility. If its simple spreadsheet and paragraphs, Libre works fine with MS Office, but if you have a lot of formulas, graphics, tables, formatting, there will be some problems.

I found that if you use Libre's Open Document formats, then its perfectly compatible with its-self.
I was working on a PowerPoint presentation in OpenOffice one year, had all of my background, images, and text all ready-to-go.
I would save it as PowerPoint and everything was scrambled.
So I tried saving it as open presentation and everything was fine.

This is something you have to plan ahead, of course...
If you have been using Office for years and have thousands of xlsx, docx, pptx files, then migrating would be a pain.
But if you start with Libre and create your documents from scratch, it works GREAT!

Saves you hundreds a year as well! Can't beat that!

Since all the big companies are going subscription, open-source is looking very nice.

 

[Gizmo]

I've found numerous situations where MS Office wasn't compatible with previous versions of itself, and Office for Mac and Office for Windows have all SORTS of compatibility issues with sharing spreadsheets between them, as I've found out.

That said, yes, MS Office is generally the superior tool if you want to do anything sophisticated, IMO. I hate that it's true, but I can't deny reality. MS successfully bludgeoned or bullied any serious competitors out of the market long ago, and their market position means that no-one else can really build a viable alternative.

That, coupled with the fact that the Libre/OpenOffice crowd seem intent on self-destructing, or at least not being constructive, means that MS will continue to own the office productivity software market for some time to come.

 

[booman]

Agreed!
Its impossible for a company to switch from MS Office to Libre when they have a lot of complicated stuff.
Sometimes I wonder if I used Libre Calc and created some complicated spreadsheets and saved them in its own Libre format, would it work then? Would those spreadsheets keep all the formatting and formulas?

 

[Aryvandaar]

One is FOSS, the other is not, so the choice is simple for me. I've used Open Office since around 2006, before that I used MS Office, and I never found that either Open Office or Libre Office has lacking features.

I've written papers in uni in Libre Office and Open Office, as well as spreadsheets and presentations. I call bullshit on MS Office being best for "sophisticated" tasks.

 

[Gizmo]

Ok, it looks like I may have to revise my statement here. In my defense, the last time I tried this was about two years ago. AT THAT TIME, the following scenario would cause Libre Calc to pack up and go home:

Create a workbook. Add a sheet with about 400,000 rows of data, each with 12 columns.
Create another sheet. In this new sheet, add a pivot table, using the first sheet as the data source, and summarizing columns A, C, and F.
Create a pie chart, using the summarized data in the pivot table (at this point, Libre just stopped working, as I recall).
Create another sheet. In this new sheet, add a pivot table, using the first sheet as the data source, and summarizing columns B,D, and H.
Create a pie chart, using the summarized data in the pivot table.

Now, as I say, the above USED to cause Libre to just pack up and go home. Forget about even trying to do interesting effects on the presentation (3D pie charts and such).

I just opened one of my old spreadsheets and Libre handled it just fine, so it appears things have improved significantly. That makes me quite happy, since the less I have to use MS stuff the better I like it. Unfortunately, Excel compatibility sucks even between Excel for Windows and Excel for Mac, so interoperability remains an issue, but again, it seems there has been significant improvement.

 

[booman]

Awesome!
That is some pretty hard-core usage of Excel
I never did anything like that in Excel. At work we have some production spreadsheets that have been programmed with multiple sheets and lots of code. I haven't tried them in Libre, but I have a feeling they won't work. At the same time, I'm curious if they will.