Yes if you’re just writing your own simple documents libreoffice/OpenOffice will work, but if you have to do anything more complex than a single page spreadsheet, text-on-white presentations, or 3 page MLA book reports… or, even worse, have to interact with documents and spreadsheets created by basically any other person on the planet, I’ve just never had a good consistent experience with any of the free options.
unfortunately “pretty good” is not “guaranteed”, which is often what I need for both work and school. I tried to make myself use only libre options for like a week and just about every assignment I opened was broken in some way or another so I always ended up back in Word.
I’ll still use the libreoffice options if i’m, say, already logged into my Linux install and don’t want to bother going back to Windows. But since I get Office for free thru work and school, and so does everyone else, well… I just use it.
Git diff will look pretty terrible for docx or similar files. The thing with the builtin change tracking is that it’ll actually show you what changed in the document view
If you’re using git to track document changes then you’re almost certainly in the tech industry and are quite familiar with the inner workings of your computer.
For 90% of people using computers right now, asking them to use git to do version management on their day to day work flow would be like asking me to fly a rocket ship to work.
I agree with the OP here, for what it does office is leaps and bounds ahead of any of the other software I’ve used to try to replace it and I always end up landing back on it.
Honestly, its gotta be the MS Office suite.
Yes if you’re just writing your own simple documents libreoffice/OpenOffice will work, but if you have to do anything more complex than a single page spreadsheet, text-on-white presentations, or 3 page MLA book reports… or, even worse, have to interact with documents and spreadsheets created by basically any other person on the planet, I’ve just never had a good consistent experience with any of the free options.
Disagree. Libreoffice is pretty capable for most use cases nowadays.
Compatibility is also pretty good with Microsoft formats despite Microsoft‘s best efforts.
OpenOffice is dead.
unfortunately “pretty good” is not “guaranteed”, which is often what I need for both work and school. I tried to make myself use only libre options for like a week and just about every assignment I opened was broken in some way or another so I always ended up back in Word.
I’ll still use the libreoffice options if i’m, say, already logged into my Linux install and don’t want to bother going back to Windows. But since I get Office for free thru work and school, and so does everyone else, well… I just use it.
Eh, beamer is more than enough for most presentations. If your slideshow needs to be that flashy, you probably need more substance.
git puts track changes to shame.
You’re absolutely right about compatibility though.
Git diff will look pretty terrible for docx or similar files. The thing with the builtin change tracking is that it’ll actually show you what changed in the document view
If you’re using git to track document changes then you’re almost certainly in the tech industry and are quite familiar with the inner workings of your computer.
For 90% of people using computers right now, asking them to use git to do version management on their day to day work flow would be like asking me to fly a rocket ship to work.
I agree with the OP here, for what it does office is leaps and bounds ahead of any of the other software I’ve used to try to replace it and I always end up landing back on it.
I hate Office365 with passion. It’s extremely unproductive and alternatives like Quip are much better.