Today I did my first advanced spreadsheet on LibreOffice after switching to Linux, and it handled itself pretty well. I had to search for some features on the web at first, but after I got it down, I felt comfortable using it. Also, LibreOffice’s default menu layout is not pretty, but I can find all of the functions with just a click, unlike MS Office’s ribbon menu where I had to click around to find what I was looking for. Sorry for bad English.
I bring this up often because its so amusing to me.
Last year I did a lot of interviews with developers of popular Steam Deck and Linux programs. All went really well, and were quite fun to do.
One ‘dev’ (I use that term so loosely because I found out GPT is heavily used for their work) freaked out though when they saw my document I sent initially was an .odt file.
Knowing I am a pen-tester, they freaked out and told the public at large I was trying to hack them with a weird file type.
.odt
It still makes me laugh. Anyway, I swear by LibreOffice, I use it daily and love it so much!
if a specific format isn’t requested or required, and the formatted text document is not expected to be edited by the recipient–only read, possibly by computer, or printed, i would default to using a pdf.
Most of these were not on-the-spot interviews. They were very informal questions and answers.
So Writer felt appropriate to me - the questions were there, they can copy to paste elsewhere, or enter their own answers in the document.
Indeed, LibreOffice Calc is a near-daily fixture in my operational workflow. The insistence on proprietary, data-harvesting alternatives like Google Docs is… unnecessary. For Debian-based systems, the installation process is straightforward:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa&sudo apt install libreoffice, referencing the official documentation at https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Install/LinuxYeah, but it’d be better if calc gridlines didn’t have that unchangeable fade effect
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Define lack of design. You mean theming? because Linux has way more customizable theming options than the proprietary alternatives, to fit all kinds of subjective tastes.
You mean usability? it’s the one system that you can rice up to do absolutely whatever you want to do to fit your workflow, you can configure any key to automate literally anything a desktop can do.
The catch is that you actually do have to get your hands dirty if you want to mold the system to your liking… as opposed to being your own tastes the ones molding to adapt to whichever the designer of the OS decided should be the new tacky fashion or workflow.
I think he mispelled Windows.
Windows 11 is literally a part copy of KDE. Even the webpage got copied till they removed the evidence. It is KDE from Linux that got copied because the Windows User Interface was shit af.
But they still lack a lot for my taste. KDE seems to be the winner for me
I do wish it had a self hosted docker though. I could see Proton mail and thunder mail adopting it that way, which would be neat.
Is a self hosted docker different from this?
Yeah; it’s pretty great. It lacks the excel functions, but if you know some python that is a total non-issue.
Ribbon bar shit, personally I hate the MS ribbon bar. So for me the LO interface is way better. Just depends on what you like and what you learned and know well.
and libreoffice still has a ribbon interface if you like that.
Almost anytime i want to do something a bit more interesting in Excel i have to look for a solution on the web too. And i am considered one of the better Excel users in my working environment.
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I recommend giving OnlyOffice a try too. Way better UX/UI than Libre. Compatible with MS Office. No cost.
Look better doesn’t mean it’s functionally better.
Honest question: who would use a non-collaborative standalone spreadsheet in 2025? I don’t get it.
Me. The work I’m using them for doesn’t need collaboration or sharing. But it’s important to also have collaborative ones up my sleeve.
I’m using formula calculations and visual graphs, so a CLI-managed CSV just won’t work for me.
Honest answer: People who would create spreadsheets for themselves.
Not you obviously
Not sure why you got downvoted, it is a fair question. Real time multiuser editing is a powerful feature. That said it is really only needed a small fraction of the time for specific types of collaboration. Also, it can cause problems as well. Libreoffice Calc meets most of my home spreadsheet needs: calculating mortgage rates and future value of investments and such.
However, in direct comparison with SoftMaker Office (which, admittedly, is not free software), LibreOffice is inconsistent, sluggish, unstable and less compatible with Microsoft formats.
Wrong info, the Microsoft format is less compatible with everything else.
Formats aren’t compatible. Parsers are.
?
There is Office software that can handle Microsoft formats better than other Office software. Still, Microsoft’s file formats are open.
That’s a sham. Only basic stuff is open standard, the rest is proprietary extensions. Such a format can’t usually be standardized; there’s an entire Wikipedia article about MS’ shenanigans to make it happen. But MS doesn’t even keep to that ambiguous 600-pages standard anymore. Here’s fsfe’ stance to it, calling it a pseudo-standard.
Which results in basic formatting having to be reverse-engineered. Better use Open Document Format.
But MS doesn’t even keep to that standard anymore.
To be fair, LibreOffice had (don’t know if it still has!) problems rendering OpenOffice .odt files in the past.
For me MS Office aren’t compatible with LibreOffice is because MS fault not LibreOffice
I’m all for LibreOffice and Open Source, but I do not agree on this point. Microsoft created the format and application and LibreOffice is a third party that tries to be conform.
I usually work with MS formats on LO (only because they need smaller space for small files, in larger files, MS formats are objectively bulkier). My observation is that MS messes with formatting of files made on LO, no matter which format you pick… even with whitespace of otherwise plain unfomatted text at times.
It is definitely a MS issue, and it is not about formats they have made public.
How is it Microsoft’s fault that the LibreOffice team fails to properly support its formats? Others can do it.
It’s MS make their format to not compatible with other office software (because monopoly)
Then why can SoftMaker support it well and LibreOffice can’t?
I don’t use SM but probably because MS document format is their priority while LO’s priority is open document format
The formats are “quasi-open”. There’s still a lot of proprietary stuff in them. Or undocumented or poorly documented things. MS didn’t really want it to be an open standard.
Being compatible with them requires a lot of work to reverse engineer the formats. Some companies make licensing deals with ms to get access to better docs but must keep their code closed. Something libreoffice can’t do.
MS supplied LO translator in MS Office is not very good. That is their issue. MS is not even that compatible betwen versions of their own software.
Except for MS format compatiblity, not my experience, Not sure where MS format compatibility stands now, but that has histically been the biggest issue.
Keep on mind that MS supplied LibreOffice translator is not great either so they have issues too. MS really does not plan on being compatible even between versions of their own software.
There are still a few issues left to fix in my experience.