[Informatics] Adventures in Libre Office

[Mark]

Hi, Microsoft fans

Several months ago I said I was weaning myself off MS Office and
transitioning to Libre Office (LO), which is free.

Here are some preliminary findings.

*Writer - the word processor. *

   - It does not have the MS ribbon (which may or may not be a A Good Thing
   for you). I actually prefer the old menu/toolbar model.
   - I have not found any major MS Word features that are missing in Libre.
   - It has loaded MS docx perfectly and has warned of potential
   incompatibilities. On only one occasion a table created in Libre turned
   into an angry red "X" box when loaded into Word. That's all.
   - More sophisticated tools such as comments and tables of contents seem
   to be fully implemented.
   - In summary - after acclimatising, you would rarely notice that you are
   missing MS Word at all.

*Calc - the spreadsheet.*

   - You'd never know you weren't in Excel. In fact, graph creation is
   superior.
   - All imported Excel formulas work as expected. I have complex
   spreadsheets on my home network that I open and save in Excel on one
   computer and Calc on another computer and there has been no sign of
   incompatibility after multiple loadings and savings in the two programs.

*Impress - the slideshow software*

   - This may be the tool that raises more compatibility issues than Writer
   or Calc. It *does* load Powerpoints properly, but you may find that
   Powerpoint might have occasional problems loading Impress docs without
   glitches.
   - It's symptomatic that I instinctively revert to using Powerpoint to
   edit my vceit.com slideshows, but I don't think twice about using
   Libre's Writer or Calc.

*Draw - drawing tool*

   - It's interesting that Libre has a separate tool for drawing whereas MS
   doesn't.
   - I believed the 'Insert Shapes' feature was primitive compared to MS
   because shapes could not be connected together and stay connected when
   moved about... until five minutes ago I discovered 'Glue Points' which does
   exactly that.
   - Libre tools may sometimes be a bit less intuitive than MS, or use
   different terminology but the functionality *is* there. e.g. I was
   missing the 'Format Painter' on the toolbar, until I found 'Clone
   Formatting' in the menus.
   - Libre sometimes surprises and delights with features that MS lacks,
   such as the lovely 'Clear Direct Formatting' which instantly strips all
   formatting from text (great for stuff copied and pasted from webpages or
   other dox). If I spent as much time delving into Libre details as I've
   spent getting used to MS Office, I bet I'd find many more hidden delights.

*Base - database*

   - I must confess that I have not dared delve far into Base yet, since I
   suspect that merely cracking its shell will require some learning, and I
   already have Filemaker and Access to fall back upon when in real need.
   - Base does not seem to be designed for dopy database beginners.
   - I suspect Base will be at least competent, but will take some getting
   used to. That is my next excursion into the world of Libre Office.

*Summary*

If you (or your school) are paying retail rates for MS Office and no longer
want to, Libre Office is a serious contender as a near-seamless
replacement.
There may be occasional and minor issues when sharing documents with
Microsoft users, but these may pale into insignificance compared with the
costs of MS licensing.
You will need to unlearn some habits and do some things in new ways or with
new words, but Libre Office is a surprisingly-mature replacement for MS
Office.

Cheerio

Mark


-- 

Mark Kelly

mark at vceit.com
http://vceit.com

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