El DuvelleMar 10

I've been trying to use #LibreOffice as a replacement for #MSOffice but it's really not the same, lots of small things that do not work in the same way or that do not exist at all, whether in word/ writer or PowerPoint/ pages.

Is there another MSOffice-equivalent out there that is more similar to Office but non-profit?
Like... the Zorin OS of MSOffice?

#ITQuestion

Show threadDebora Weber-WulffMar 10

@elduvelle

I had a hard time at first when switching to #LibreOffice, but now I don't miss anything. It took me a while to figure out where everything is, and then to discover that there are tiny bits that I really, really like!
So don't give up, and indeed, this is the closest you can get to MS Office without giving Microsoft money, in my opinion.

Show threadEl Duvelle
@WiseWoman I don't know.. I've been trying quite a lot but it just doesn't look as professional and I'm much less efficient with it.
How long would you say it took you to be happy with LibreOffice?
Mar 10 at 12:12pmWeb
Show threadDebora Weber-WulffMar 10
@elduvelle
I started with Open Office a few times and quickly quit again over small stuff. Then I found Libre Office and made a bet with myself: you use this thing for EVERYTHING for one month, and then you can see if you want to stay.
First thing I did was install some fonts I like (Myriad and Minion) and suddenly I felt at home. I write in German and English, so getting the right dictionaries installed took a bit of wrangling. I had to figure out how the formatting works (different from MS Office).
With Calc I was very quickly happy, as it wasn't constantly asking me if I knew what I was doing ;)
Been using it for at least 2 years for everything now, and sent off a donation just the other week.
For me it is a keeper!
Show threadEl DuvelleMar 10
@WiseWoman nice, yes the fonts are definitely one difference, they somehow do not look as professional as in Word, so maybe I should try to install other ones! And I like the 1-month personal bet.
Show threadJonobieMar 10

@elduvelle @WiseWoman I feel like it took me about six months to feel at home, and I still sometimes bump up against something that feels harder than I remember in Office. But there are also things that work better — like a lot of FOSS, it tilts towards “yes, this is more configurable even if it’s less usable”. Which is a mixed bag but nice when I want to configure That One Thing.

Honestly the thing that really helped was starting to use LLMs to give me more focused instructions than the help. The main problem there is the interface has changed often so it takes some re-asking to get the right answer, but it’s a better translation from “it was called this in office, how’s it done here” than the official docs.

I just spent the past weeks working on 140 slides in Impress for a 3 hour class. The only thing I got really annoyed at is at one point my notes pane got detached from the window and I still haven’t gotten it back. 😂

#LibreOffice

Show threadJonobieMar 10
@elduvelle @WiseWoman I guess I should add that I wrote professionally as a technical writer for about ten years and have used a lot of different tools along the way (hullo FrameMaker and LaTex), which might make me more or less tolerant— I’m really not sure!