12 Ways LibreOffice Writer Tops MS Word 642
Open source office software is has gotten pretty good over the past decade or so; I got through grad school with OpenOffice (now known as LibreOfifice), and in my estimation was no worse off when it came to exchanging files with classmates than were friends with different versions of Word. Now, reader dgharmon writes "Writer has at least twelve major advantages over Word. Together, these advantages not only suggest a very different design philosophy from Word, but also demonstrate that, from the perspective of an expert user, Writer is the superior tool."
LaTeX (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:LaTeX (Score:5, Funny)
From the perspective of an expert user, Emacs is the superior tool.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
punch cards rule them all!
Re:LaTeX (Score:5, Funny)
You kids with your fancy punch cards. Hand-wiring is the only way to program!
Re: (Score:3)
Dang youngsters who think they know something...
The One True, Right, and Only Way to do good programming is hand printing, not writing. On Cobol coding sheets. With every glyph properly in its own little box.
Do it right or the wrath of Grace will fall on you. Like maybe a whole millisecond of 10 gauge copper wire; that will weigh you down for sure.
Re: (Score:3)
Real men use Fortran, which needs Fortran coding sheets.
01001110 01101111 00100001 (Score:5, Funny)
01010010 01100101 01100001 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 01101110 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01100111 01110010 01100001 01101101 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00101110
Re:LaTeX (Score:5, Insightful)
When professional photographers come together, they talk about light. Composition. Art. The tool is uninteresting - a mere means to an end. And any one of a large number of them will do.
Re:LaTeX (Score:5, Insightful)
Professional photographers talk about equipment all the damn time. They have preferences for one brand or another. After all if their equipment is inadequate for the job or fails, then that's money they lost.
The only real difference is that a professional is less focused on how new their equipment is. If that body had good weather seals when it was new and an exterior made of a tough alloy, then it's probably going to stand up to tomorrows job even if it isn't the latest model. If the lens is sharp and has big aperture, then it's still good.
Re:LaTeX (Score:5, Insightful)
Not exactly :
Amateur photographers talk about gear.
Pro photographers talk about money.
Masters talk about light.
Re:LaTeX (Score:4, Funny)
You don't make your own wires and tape?
Re:LaTeX (Score:5, Funny)
Bah. Talk about a Mickey Mouse way of doing it. Rather, you should be able to command the elements to rise from the earth and form into the necessary parts. Then, with a single word spoken from your omnipotent mouth, the beasts should gather and use the parts to construct a PC and program an editor of infinite perfection, using the blessed intelligence you've bestowed on their worthless feeble minds. Finally, with your wonderful gaze, the PC will gain sentience and operate the editor by itself, performing the work you've predestined upon it.
As it uses the editor to expound the details of your immaculate glory, the beasts will simultaneously bow, exclaiming your great and powerful name. Forever and ever, amen.
Re: (Score:3)
Real men use sheer force of will to solder.
Re:LaTeX (Score:5, Funny)
I suppose there's an xkcd comic for the obligatory posting of xkcd comics...
Re:LaTeX (Score:5, Funny)
Re:LaTeX (Score:5, Insightful)
From the perspective of an expert user, {thing the user is expert with} is the superior tool.
Re:LaTeX (Score:5, Funny)
From the perspective of an expert user, {thing the user is expert with} is the superior tool.
No no no.
From the perspective of a normal user, the expert is the superior tool.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:LaTeX (Score:5, Informative)
No, a real expert uses VI.
Nice try though.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, REAL experts use $FAVORITE_TOOL_OF_POSTER, clearly. Someday when you're all grown up you'll see the clear advantages of $FAVORITE_TOOL_OF_POSTER.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
My pinky hurts.
Re:LaTeX (Score:5, Funny)
Org-mode! (Score:5, Interesting)
I was recently introduced to Emacs' org-mode [orgmode.org]. It is really GREAT. I never looked into it before, as I thought it was basically a to-do list manager â" But no. I am currently using it mostly as a word processor (well, for semi-complex documents, as it makes little sense if your documents have no structure at all) and for presentations. And I'm still only beginning to love it (and am sure I'm truly underutilizing it). /italics/, *boldface*, =code=, nested/itemized lists with hyphens, etc.), and with three keystrokes, you export to your favorite format. C-c C-e b shows the document as a (inter-linked) HTML page, C-c C-e d compiles it with LaTeX into a PDF, etc.
True to the WYSIWYM mode, you work with a regular plain text file. There is a good deal of markup, but quite easy to learn (i.e.
Re:LaTeX (Score:5, Funny)
And there are an infinite number of reasons why LaTeX is better than both.
While I personally prefer LaTeX, it can be a lot more awkward to get into for most people than either of the offices.
Re: (Score:3)
No, it will not. Lyx is a great tool to replace an "office" wysiwyg editor, but it won't get you "into" LaTeX, it'll just help a bit to break the wysiwyg paradigm.
Re:LaTeX (Score:4, Interesting)
Until you find yourself writing your own document classes or other custom macro sets. Then, there are an infinite number of reasons why just about anything is better than LaTeX.
Re:LaTeX (Score:4, Informative)
Until you find yourself writing your own document classes or other custom macro sets. Then, there are an infinite number of reasons why just about anything is better than LaTeX.
Fortunately, you rarely need to do this. Either the generic classes are fine for what you need to do, or someone else has already written a class or macro for you. For example, many journal publishers provide LaTeX style/class files, and there are many custom ones available for PhD dissertations, etc. Just google for it and you'll probably find it.
At the end of the day, I find that LaTeX documents simply look better than those created with word processors of any ilk. LaTeX's ability to control logical design (as opposed to visual design) is a great asset.
Re:LaTeX (Score:4, Interesting)
We tried that and have a few people who still think like that, but now that journals outside of physics have moved away from LaTeX it's pretty much dead for us. None of our students know it when they come in, they're capable enough MS office users that they can do any of the formatting needed in office, so what does LaTeX get you? Marginally better equation editing, and a lot more work fighting with the document preparation than the actual writing. And then you're asked to submit documents in office format anyway for most internal or government documents because you don't seriously think the secretarial staff have any clue what to do with a latex document.
10 years ago when I was an undergrad it was still a critical part of the experience to know how to use LaTeX. Now it's like forcing people to use IE6, there are some people still clinging to it for various reasons that are hard to change, but for everyone else office tools get the job done. Of course if your office training at the highschool level is bad you probably aren't any better off either way.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
so what does LaTeX get you? Marginally better equation editing
Much more than "marginally" better, IMHO. It is a major PITA to input equations with a menu system. Furthermore, I have yet to see a word processor that allows a user to create equations that are anywhere near the visual quality of those typeset with LaTeX. There's just no comparison.
Re:LaTeX (Score:5, Insightful)
but now that journals outside of physics have moved away from LaTeX it's pretty much dead for us.
As the parent said, most computer science related journals and conferences still use LaTeX, especially IEEE conferences.
The biggest benefit of LaTeX I've found is that if your paper gets rejected, you can turn around and download the style from another conference or journal and with very few modifications have a new submission ready. Otherwise, the development time in my experience is very similar, and I'd consider myself highly proficient in both LaTeX and Word. That said, I usually write in LaTeX because version control is more straightforward.
Re:LaTeX (Score:5, Insightful)
"More work fighting with the document preparation than the actual writing"
My experience is exactly the opposite: With LaTeX you write your document and let LaTeX handle the formatting. Word is much more oriented towards ad hoc formatting. It's true that beginning LaTeX users usually don't understand this, but it's because they're trying to use LaTeX the same way they used Word.
In defense of Word headers/footers (Score:5, Informative)
For at least the last three versions of Word, you can do pretty much anything you want in Word headers/footers. You can put in text boxes, graphics anywhere on the page, etc. I used to use Word headers to put in background graphics for the whole page.
I think a lot of people mistakenly think that Word headers are limited to the little box at the top of the page and don't realize that you can use them to put pretty much put anything, anywhere on the page. It will automatically take anything you do while in header/footer edit mode and put it in the background and replicate it on every page. Not sure if LibreOffice does that too or not, but I think the article makes it sound like Word's header and footer are a lot more restricted than they actually are.
Re:In defense of Word headers/footers (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a very quick and easy way to lock down a complex background layout that replicates on every page and isn't easily changed or screwed-up by a clueless user.
Re:In defense of Word headers/footers (Score:4, Insightful)
But boy you hit the nail on the head on this technique, by all means it's hackish at best, and goes to show some of the quirkiness that one has to learn to use the Microsoft Office suite like a pro. I'd dare say that combine the quirks one must learn and the constant tossing of every feature in every single spot drowning you out, MS Office is the PHP of productivity software.
Re:In defense of Word headers/footers (Score:4, Funny)
why on earth would you want to put a header anywhere other than the page header? Are there not other functions that do the job better?
No way, man! When I need a bunch of copies of the same thing, I just type out everything in the header and then just hold down the "Enter" key until I've got all the pages I need. Before I found that out, I had to retype my document over and over. I save hours of work!
Number One! (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't have that stupid Ribbon UI interface!
Re:Number One! (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't have that stupid Ribbon UI interface!
Is Ribbon really that stupid? I kind of like that part of Office.
What I hate is text formatting and the way that Outlook will randomly change my font color between words. That is a UI that's broken as hell but most people don't even seem to care...
Re:Number One! (Score:5, Insightful)
There are a few reasons to dislike the ribbon. If you're on a small screen, it uses a lot more real estate than the menus. They don't have the shortcut keys next to all of the options, which means that you don't learn the shortcuts for commonly used things as easily as you do with the menu. Finally, unlike the old toolbars, the ribbon does not allow you to put commonly used but unrelated things on the screen at the same time.
There are several reasons to like the ribbon. It does better on Fitts' Law metrics than a traditional menu, due to significantly larger targets. This is especially true on large screens. The larger display for each menu also means that you don't need as many submenus or even pop-up panels.
The real problem with it is that it has a different set of advantages and disadvantages to the old menu plus toolbar. For any given workflow and screen size, it may be better or worse, but you can't toggle back to the old UI if it's worse.
Re:Number One! (Score:5, Interesting)
Where to start, where to start...
I've been using Office since Office 95 (and Slashdot since 1998) and the ribbon is the greatest improvement to the suite. The ribbon can be hidden by pressing control-F1 if you're worried about screen space. It completely exposes the functionality of Office, where as menus hid it. In other words, the ribbon makes the Office interface more inviting and makes it easier to explore new functionality. This also means co-workers no longer ask you how to do things with Office because it's easy to figure it out themselves. Shortcut keys only have material value when commands are hidden in a menu system. You can right-click any button in Office and add it to a quick access toolbar. You can also customize the ribbon if you like.
There is one computer in our office using Office 2003, the last version before the ribbon. It's now considered a pain to use because it's stuck with the menu instead of the ribbon.
Re:Number One! (Score:5, Informative)
here are a few reasons to dislike the ribbon. If you're on a small screen, it uses a lot more real estate than the menus. They don't have the shortcut keys next to all of the options, which means that you don't learn the shortcuts for commonly used things as easily as you do with the menu. Finally, unlike the old toolbars, the ribbon does not allow you to put commonly used but unrelated things on the screen at the same time.
The AC mentioned these points but I want to reiterate them so more can see, since you're modded +4 insightful yet you're completely uniformed:
1) I've done the calculation: From the top of the screen to the top of the page, the default ribbon layout in Word uses THE SAME vertical space than the default menu+toolbars in open office writer. Further, you can minimize the ribbon by double clicking on it. Can't do that with toolbars. Further still, the ribbon scales better to the screen size; whereas the ribbon adjusts the size of buttons, keeping them visible on the screen, the menu system will hide them in a drop down list.
2) There are keyboard shortcuts to every feature in the ribbon. Press Alt and follow the letters. This is more discoverable and provides more functionality.
3) You can put any shortcuts you want in the quick access toolbar at the top of the screen, or you're free to customize the tabs in any way you wish including adding your own tabs.
Re: (Score:3)
From the top of the screen to the top of the page, the default ribbon layout in Word uses THE SAME vertical space than the default menu+toolbars in open office writer.
But you can turn off all of the toolbars, and still have everything reachable form the menus in less mouse movement than from a hidden ribbon (although more from an unhidden ribbon).
2) There are keyboard shortcuts to every feature in the ribbon. Press Alt and follow the letters. This is more discoverable and provides more functionality.
Unlike the more conventional shortcuts, these are not side-effect free. They change the currently exposed tab on the ribbon. If you have your quick access tab open, and you save with alt-f-s (for example) instead of control-s, then you will now have the file menu open and need more mouse movement to return to the old state.
Re:Number One! (Score:5, Interesting)
I think there is an awful lot to dislike about the ribbon interface. For example in Excel in 2003 if I wanted to insert a row, I'd go "Insert -> Row". In the ribbon I have an insert tab which allows me to insert lots of things but none of them are a row. No if I want to insert a row I have to press the Insert button on the Home tab and select the option from the drop down on there. How is it any easier when I have two Insert options and there is no way to know which one I need to use to insert something without clicking through both of them of and hunting for the option.
There are similar problems with Word. For example if I want to insert an object, I use the Insert tab then select object on the drop down. But if I make the window a little narrower it becomes just an icon and it's not exactly obvious until I click on it what that might do. If I make the window narrower still, to the width of the document, it puts the object button under another drop down labelled Text. So I have to click a box marked "Text" to insert something that is NOT text? This is better how?
Then there other features like the fact the "File" menu now takes over the entire window of the program.
Now with the old system I had drop down menus which makes it much quicker to go through and find all the options then go through the ribbon, click each button and navigate through all the various drop downs off those buttons. The pull down menus also made it very easy for me to find the keyboard shortcuts for an option, so I can quickly learn to use the program more efficiently. All this is now hidden in the help system - it is not obvious what the keyboard shortcuts are and I suspect users new to the system will keep reaching between the mouse and keyboard for even simple things because the keyboard shortcuts are hidden away.
However for me the worst of all is the inconsistency. In years gone buy these things were defined in a style guide so if I used one program I could quickly get familiar with others as many of the options would be called the same and in the same menus (e.g. Edit for the clipboard functions, file to save, open, close, print and so on). Once I'd learnt one program it made it much easier to find my way around other programs. Yes the menus may be illogical in places (e.g. Find, a read only option, on and Edit menu) but at least once the user has learnt these oddities they can easily navigate around other programs. The toolbar was a useful addition to this, making common options a single click away, and the user could customise them to their hearts content. Now we're stuck with a horrible interface (in my opinion) that has very few possible customisations. Worse as Microsoft has patented it, it stops other application writes from using the same interface - thereby making Microsoft programs have different interfaces from other vendors and increasing the learning curve of non-Microsoft applications.
Sorry but I'm just NOT going to be convinced the ribbon is a good idea.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, everyone hates the ribbon interface! That's why Office 2010 has sold over 200 million copies. You'd think if it was so universally reviled and killed productivity (as slashdot claims with no proof), people would have stopped buying Office at 2007. Fact is the ribbon was designed from user feedback, and while slashdot trolls can cite himself and his 5 immediate co-workers as people who do not like the ribbon, Microsoft can point to thousands of data points and usage metrics to explain why the Ribbon is
Re:Number One! (Score:4, Insightful)
No because someone else in the org upgraded and will now hand out only 2010 files... It spreads like a virus.
Or companies have an agreement with MS to buy the latest version so they can get a discount on something else.
2 inches of wasted space for functions I only use once and awhile. It is a toolbar within a toolbar, with the menu burred so you can not get at all the cool things it does...
Re: (Score:3)
I bought it for my new laptop but hate the ribbon. However, the huge student discount was very alluring, and they don't sell Office 2007 anymore and I like to stay legit. Plus, on the Mac, at least you still get the menus in conjunction with the ribbon. Just because someone bought it is not an endorsement of the ribbon.
Re:Number One! (Score:4, Informative)
Office 2010 sold licenses because Office XP went EoL.
Sit someone down who's been using office since the 90's with Office 2010 while still being saddled with Windows XP (extremely common in the corporate environment even today). Tell them to find Save As. Watch even the most mild mannered person get physically angry because it's not in an obvious place. The UI components when first released assumed that people would be using Vista (which obviously didn't happen for most companies).
Oddly enough I don't mind the ribbon UI on Office 2011 Mac, but that's because it still have a standard menu bar up top that gives me a choice between ribbon or traditional menu UI. Though I would be hard pressed to actually buy Office Mac on my own because LibreOffice really does 99.9999% of what I do and is free.
Re:Number One! (Score:5, Informative)
There is no File menu
Thanks for commenting on a product you haven't used. You have not used Office 2010, because if you had, you would see the big colored tab with the word "File" in it.
Re:Number One! (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a bad comparison.
I like the ribbon, but those numbers ar ebusiness that just buy whatever the version is, and computers that come with it; regardless if anyone uses it.
If I buy a new computer for my home, it's likely to come with a version of word. A home version, or a trail version. Those get counted as sales even though I will never use it in the home. I prefer google docs.
If MS didn't have the ribbon, they would have 'sold' just as many.
Re:Number One! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure Microsoft can point to millions of users in lots of statistics and hundreds of focus groups about people liking clippy.
200 million copies of a default suite (Score:3)
If they would seriously investigate wha
Re:Number One! (Score:4, Informative)
Our school district stopped buying Office at 2003 because of the ribbon interface. Since you can't buy licenses for Office 2003 anymore, we use the "downgrade license" in 2007 and 2010 to install 2003.
We have a few staff members that have laptops that came with 2007/2010 pre-installed, and after trying to use it for a month or so, they all come crawling back asking for 2003 to be installed.
We also use OpenOffice.org on our Linux stations, and make OO.o available to our Windows users.
So my anecdotal evidence includes just under 3500 co-workers, and just under 14,000 students.
My personal beef with the ribbon is that there's no organisation to it. It's just a mishmash of large icons, small icons, text, jumbled together.
A toolbar has every icon the same size, and organised according to a grid.
A menu has every entry the same size, and organised according to a grid.
And, the biggest thing, is that if you turn off the annoying "personalised menus" feature, everything is in the same place, everytime. Nothing moves, nothing jumps around.
The ribbon may have it's uses. But I've yet to find one.
Re:Number One! (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, everyone hates the ribbon interface! That's why Office 2010 has sold over 200 million copies. You'd think if it was so universally reviled and killed productivity (as slashdot claims with no proof), people would have stopped buying Office at 2007.
Your underlying point has merit, but your logic is also flawed.
For one thing, Slashdot, like the Office user base, is not a single person with a single mind. Different people have different preferences. In particular, most users of most software products are not so-called power users. The Ribbon interface works well for people who are not power users, and most such people do seem to prefer it once they get used to it, as Microsoft's usage data suggested they should.
However, that does not mean that the significant subset of Office users who really do intimately understand their way around a tried and tested combination of keyboard shortcuts, toolbar icons, menu commands, dialog tricks and so on will appreciate having the new UI and the underlying models forced on them as well. The Ribbon caters very much to cosmetic hacks and a quick-and-dirty approach. Don't bother defining styles, structuring your document systematically, or understanding how to present your data effectively! Just slap the format with the most "clever" borders on every table, format paint your headings so they're all the same colour that is a bit like your corporate standard, and use some random combination of bold, italic, faked small caps, underlining, colours, background colours and all-caps if you want to emphasize something. Oh, and if the spacing's not quite right, just hit enter a couple more times. Of course, MS Office has been going down this path for a long time and has never been shy about who it was aiming at, but the emphasis on the Ribbon pretty much seals its fate as any sort of productive tool for power users.
As for your 200 million sold copies statistic: the overwhelming majority of people who use MS Office do so because it came with their computer, it's their corporate standard at work, or it's the only thing they ever heard of so they pirated it. Microsoft sells about three individual licences a decade for Office applications and about a bazillion copies through mass licensing or preinstallation deals every year. The number of sales really doesn't tell us anything meaningful about what the people using Office actually think of the new ribbon.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
But it's moved a lot of people to Open Office because they find it easier to use. And that's a good thing.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Number One! (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently you've never tried to round trip an ODF file from LibreOffice to MS Office and back to LibreOffice have you. Microsoft CLAIMS to support ODF, but the hard reality is.. MS Office does not support Open Office files... it appears to, but they've intentionally broke it so that it looks like ODf files are crap... when the reality is MS is playing dirty games.
Try this... create a Calc spreadsheet with a formula... something simple like =LEN(B1) and type a short text string in B1, open it in MS Office and take a look at your formula field. Nice eh? MS Office strips off the formulas. Surprise, now your spreadsheet is useless.
Open a docx file in LibreOffice and chances are something will fall off... because Microsoft's "documented" Office Open XML format is NOT actually what they use for docx. Surprise... again.
The list goes on. The file formats are not portable.. they give the appearance of working and being portable, but they are not. If the document is simple, it will mostly work, but if it has any mid-level content, it'll fail... either way (LIbreOffice to MSO, or MSO to LibreOffice).
How do I know? I actively participated in the development of OpenOffice from 1.5 through to 3.3, and then LibreOffice from 3.3 to now.
Pages and Keynote! (Score:3)
Man I dislike the ribbon. But even more I dislike how word 2011 puts all your embedded figures and textboxes in these weird hierarchy of wrappers I find impossible to manipulate. I can't find anything that word 2011 does better than 2008 did.
When I want to lower my blood pressure I turn to apple Pages. man what a breath of fresh air. It too has a different interface than the old word, but it is very very self consistent so the learning curve is fast. unlike the ribbon which is required for some functi
Re: (Score:3)
Different strokes I suppose -- I love using the ribbon.
I prefer real toilet paper myself.
Journalist telling me how product he uses (Score:5, Insightful)
is better than one he does not use.
Not defending Word here, but MS PR can also write article '12 ways word tops writer'.
Re:Journalist telling me how product he uses (Score:4)
Re: (Score:3)
I would write "12 Reasons Why I Agree With You."
Am I the only one in the world that likes Ribbon? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Am I the only one in the world that likes Ribbo (Score:5, Funny)
Did you like Microsoft Bob as well? How long have you been a member of the communist party?
Re:Am I the only one in the world that likes Ribbo (Score:5, Funny)
I can top it. It miss Clippy. I thought the Ewoks and Jar Jar were cute. And I liked disco.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I can top it. It miss Clippy. I thought the Ewoks and Jar Jar were cute. And I liked disco.
You like things that everyone else hates, so...... you're a hipster?
Re:Am I the only one in the world that likes Ribbo (Score:4, Funny)
so...... you're a hipster?
I have a MacBook and iPad to prove it.
Re:Am I the only one in the world that likes Ribbo (Score:5, Interesting)
I didn't get the hate for Ribbon either...till I realized that it was mainly all the people who had memorized all their shortcuts and exactly which obscure menu had the function/tools they needed to use. They were the power users of old, and suddenly they were castrated, and they were back to being on the same level as MS noobs. To make matters worse, the ribbon interface actually made the MS Office suite of software easier to use for noobs and probably made these same power users feel threatened.
I was never a power user of Excel/Word/Power Point 2003, but I always found them to be exceedingly frustrating to work with. Sure, if your work requires you to master those tools, I'm sure you'd get really good after months/years of use, but to a new user, the tons of nested menus with features hidden away made MS Office use an exercise in frustration.
Then I used Office 2007, and once I realized the orb was the file menu (that, I agree was a terrible decision), I found myself using tons of new features that I could never have known about or discovered in Office 2003. The quality of my Word documents, Powerpoint presentations and Excel files greatly improved. I actually find the interface extremely useful because everything is arranged in a logical manner and it is fairly easy to find the tools you need to use without having to spend tens of minutes trying to find the feature in some hidden menu.
Not to say that Word and Office doesn't have its fair share of issues (formatting documents consistently in Word is just a nightmare. I had to write my doctoral thesis in Word because my adviser did not know to use or care about LaTeX), but as far as the new ribbon interface goes, it certainly seems a big improvement over the old Office interface.
Re: (Score:3)
This is it. Lots of people had behavioural understanding of how to use the old menu system, and it had 2 decades of inertia behind it. But that didn't make it a good way to do things. For all the new users (3rd world, and high school kids learning) the old system didn't really click with their understanding of how computers behaved. It very much represented things as layers of types of computer operations, not types of tasks you want to perform.
They've taken some time to get it improved, and there are c
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not sure I would ascribe so much psychology to it. The interface changed significantly, and everyone who was used to the old interface found the new interface counter-intuitive and difficult to use, so they raged. It's what users do.
Re:Am I the only one in the world that likes Ribbo (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Am I the only one in the world that likes Ribbo (Score:5, Insightful)
At any rate, if you really need to, you can customize the ribbon layout in Office 2010 in pretty much any way you choose.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
You're not alone. I like the ribbon.
It's a helluva lot better than a thousand menu layers.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
You're not alone. I just don't like the fact that it requires actual processing power to work, unlike a regular old Word 2003-style menu... this results in keyboard shortcuts lagging on slow machines (such as netbooks). Other than that, I actually quite like it - much easier to find stuff if you're actually new to Office or haven't used the application for a while...
Re:Am I the only one in the world that likes Ribbo (Score:4, Informative)
I don't mind the ribbon much one way or the other - but I still find myself getting more use out of an extensively customized Quick Access Toolbar than out of the ribbon itself.
Re: (Score:3)
What I don't like about the ribbon is that there are many functions I used to use regularly that were always on screen. Now they're spread out across many different ribbon tabs, and sometimes where they ended up is non-intuitive for me. What used to be a simple click turns into an Easter egg hunt.
Perhaps if I used Office daily, I'd develop the appropriate muscle memory. But, I only use it a few times a month, and it's usually different apps -- this week it's Excel, next week it's PowerPoint.
I don't care
It's free. (Score:5, Insightful)
I made a big mistake when I bought MS Office. I spent ~$150 and used it to update my resume. Have done very little else with it.
For us casual users the free version of Open/Libre Office can save a lot of money. PLUS writer doesn't come with the stupid ribbon interface. (Where's the find menu option? Where's spellcheck? I don't want to play Where's Waldo? with my software.)
Usability (Score:3)
Libreoffice writer is more annoying to use than Word, but it's not so bad. I use LaTeX/vim for the vast majority of what I write. It actually does what I tell it to do, which is better than any WYSISWG program.
What's really bad is Impress. It's a complete mess from a usability standpoint. When I need to make a presentation, I use Powerpoint. I should figure out how to use LaTeX instead.
Beemer (Score:4, Informative)
When I need to make a presentation, I use Powerpoint. I should figure out how to use LaTeX instead.
Check out the Beemer [wikipedia.org] class; it's handy but not exactly pretty. However, you can find some decent templates floating around the net.
Re: (Score:3)
I like the Singapore theme with beamer: it's clean and minimal. here's an example I created recently [llvm.org]. The overall structure is beamer with the Singapore theme, the diagrams are done with TikZ, the PDF annotations with pdfmarginpar and the code listings with the listings package. The really nice thing is that you can compose all of these things, so I have some code listings embedded in TikZ drawings: listings does the syntax highlighting and then TikZ places that box somewhere and draws a background behin
Formatting features are not the killer app anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
For the record, I haven't taken the recent version LibreOffice for a spin. But from what I remember of OpenOffice, these features were not that functional. I thought OpenOffice was a decent piece of software, but it's still based on prior definitions of what a documenting software has been, rather than what it could be.
Re: (Score:3)
Putting latex files under revision control just works. Doesn't work so well with word/openoffice.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Revision control is only a collaboration tool to those who haven't used real collaboration tools.
Comment removed (Score:3)
About half of those ways were just . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
. . . "Guys, we have a styles system! And it's better than Word's!"
From the title of the article, I was expecting 12 distinct and separate features, not 6 features and a treatise on how awesome Styles are in LibreOffice.
I am counting hyphens as another point in styles, because the hyphens point is essentially "You can specify this with styles too!"
Forbidden features! (Score:5, Funny)
You don't have permission to access /applications/how-libreoffice-writer-tops-ms-word-12-features-1.html on this server.
Google Cache (Score:5, Informative)
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3Ltr4XFiuzEJ:www.datamation.com/applications/how-libreoffice-writer-tops-ms-word-12-features-1.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca [googleusercontent.com]
What? (Score:3)
I use LibreOffice because it's free - that's the only reason. If both were free, I'd use MS Office. But, for someone who wouldn't spend a lot of time using LibreOffice/MSOffice, it's just not worth my money to buy a copy of MS Office.
Some details (like facts) wrong... (Score:4, Interesting)
Advantage: Hierarchical Paragraph Styles.. "since every style is based on Normal"
Let's examine that. The first four properties of a style in Word 2010, sitting open next to me.
-Name
-Style type
-Style based on
-Style for following paragraph
So a Style can be based on any other style, or (no style) should you want to start from blank. Does that sound like a hierarchy? It does to me, and I use it as one. Set up what you want. Knock yourself out. It works, and allows you to create a hierarchy.
His piece on list styles/bullets seems slightly ill informed too, as is the tirade on headers and footers, tables of contents... Word can do what is described.
Custom properties, linked to fields, are extensively used by many organisations and what he's describing sounds more like Word than Writer to me. That one has me really confused as metadata management is really quite good in word.
In short, I know Word quite well and I think the 'advantages' that are being proposed as Writer advantages are simply down to the author's lack of knowledge.
I fully expect flamebait moderation for this, but it would be nice if someone could point out where I'm wrong!
Re: (Score:3)
Seems unfair to pick that direction. Why is that not Word's fault?
It is also why I always send important documents in pdf, I have seen different versions of Word render documents very differently.
Re: (Score:3)
That is false.
The docx Word 2010 produces does not follow the documented standard.
Even if it was true, the openoffice/libreoffice document types are actually publicly documented.
Re:No way (Score:4, Informative)
Because the standard MS uses is now public.
If you're referring to OOXML, then perhaps you should take a look at how Word does in the OOXML conformance test suite. Last time I checked, there were about 10,000 test failures.
Re: (Score:3)
I've yet to load any Word document into a different version of Word and have it look the same.
This does not appear to be a deal breaker for anyone.
Print page and Google's cached copy! (Score:5, Informative)
I got that too.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?oe=utf-8&client=mozilla&hl=en&q=cache:3Ltr4XFiuzEJ:http://www.datamation.com/applications/how-libreoffice-writer-tops-ms-word-12-features-1.html+http%3A//www.datamation.com/applications/how-libreoffice-writer-tops-ms-word-12-features-1.html&ct=clnk [googleusercontent.com] OR http://preview.tinyurl.com/7u9z3j4 [tinyurl.com] for Google's cached copy.
Weird that the non-cached copy worked fine and home page's link to the first page is broken too.
Print pages worked too:
http://www.datamation.com/print/http://www.datamation.com/applications/how-libreoffice-writer-tops-ms-word-12-features-1.html [datamation.com]
http://www.datamation.com/print/http://www.datamation.com/applications/how-libreoffice-writer-tops-ms-word-12-features-2.html [datamation.com]
http://www.datamation.com/print/http://www.datamation.com/applications/how-libreoffice-writer-tops-ms-word-12-features-3.html [datamation.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
You are correct.
Only the slashdot summary makes this mistake. The actual article is written by someone who knows a lot more about the subject than the slashdot submitter and the slashdot editor who approved this story.
Re:They have one huge disadvantage: Landscape mode (Score:4, Informative)
Are you joking? Menu : Format / Page. Then check "orientation : landscape" in the Page tab.
(translated from the French menus, may be slightly different on your computer)