LibreOffice 3.4.2 Final

[bjoswald]

Why don't you install directly from .deb's?

Because it's not as easy as updating from a PPA. I peeked around inside of the DEB file

and saw a bunch of folders and files I had no idea what to do with.

[sanctified Veteran]

Because it's not as easy as updating from a PPA. I peeked around inside of the DEB file

and saw a bunch of folders and files I had no idea what to do with.

Dont worry. Just uninstall your installed libre office and double click the deb file.

[Beyond Godlike]

You?ll find it funny because in fact it does offend me every day. The story?s a little complicated, but here it goes :

The company where I work for has Office 2003 and Access 97, they are overdue for a change. They asked for companies to deploy Office 2010 on their 3000 computers or something, with the best support, cheapest price, etc.

Now, a journalist wrote a nice article saying we weren?t looking for alternatives like LibreOffice and OpenOffice. Result, instead of working with Office 2010 all summer, I?m working with an antique piece of software, buggy, slow as a dog and unoptimized for my dual-core computer. What this journalist doesn?t know is, it?s clearly not viable to switch to this. It has uncertain future, it?s not robust, and we would have gazillions of compatibility problems with our existing documents. The guy wrote that in the newspaper just to create **** and gain fame.

Having tried LibreOffice and OpenOffice this year, I realized that we would gain nothing over Office 2003, except more problems.

OMG +10000

My work uses OO still for some things and it frustrates the hell out of me. Its SO slow compared to office and cant handle large documents. Its buggy and unreliable as well. Cant even mass deploy it reliably. Not sure why they think this is an office alternative, its utterly useless for any professional use.

[Piers]

Nice!

[FMH]

Downloading. I have been using Office ever since I started using computer, and haven't tried anything else. This is just a personal experiment. :) Though, a question, how does this compare to OpenOffice.org, since I have heard a lot more about it than LibreOffice?

[FMH]

OMG +10000

My work uses OO still for some things and it frustrates the hell out of me. Its SO slow compared to office and cant handle large documents. Its buggy and unreliable as well. Cant even mass deploy it reliably. Not sure why they think this is an office alternative, its utterly useless for any professional use.

Microaft claims as so too, so it's good to hear that from a consumer also. In fact they made a video for it.

http://www.youtube.c..._embedded#at=13

(lol :D at the amount of dislikes)

[FMH]

nice. Could not find the release notes for this build though :(

http://www.libreoffice.org/download/release-notes/#LO342

[vasa1]

It is very feature limited, or at the very least, the interface disallows straightforward access to these features.

Everything is hidden somewhere, while it is easily findable in MS Office.

Not true, MS Office improved drastically over the years.

My University switched form 2007 to 2010 and I have to say, if 2007 was God-tier, 2010 is Dao-Tier.

Quick search on Google gave ~$100

That is the price of two video games these days.

Not anywhere near ridiculously expensive.

LibreOffice still has issues opening simple files.

Had many instances of "This should be one page, but FailOffice opens it as two" and so on.

It is a joke.

Those that do not want to pay can simply pirate the product. Why bother with FailOffice LibreOffice?

Remarkable views. Anonymity of the Internet does seem to encourage that.

Only thing I don't like about Libre Office is the size, since there aren't differential updates. I hope that will change if it's technically possible. Otherwise, there's a lot they can do to reduce the size of the download file and that of the installed version. A couple of Linux distros now come without Libre Office on the CD (700 MB) versions. Portable_apps_ ._com does provide a slimmed down version for users of the Windows version though they don't do every release.

[PyX]

Microaft claims as so too, so it's good to hear that from a consumer also. In fact they made a video for it.

http://www.youtube.c..._embedded#at=13

(lol :D at the amount of dislikes)

Of course the video is poorly rated, because companies who deface other companies or projects, especially a free, inoffensive, open source project, to make more profit is not morally acceptable. I can understand that, but the video is still saying the truth.

[FMH]

Of course the video is poorly rated, because companies who deface other companies or projects, especially a free, inoffensive, open source project, to make more profit is not morally acceptable. I can understand that, but the video is still saying the truth.

I would call that an advice. And my response was to a consumer, who confirmed, that what Microsoft claimed was true.

[MS Bob 11]

Do we still have to download the entire 200 MB suite for new point releases or have they finally grasped the concept of delta patches/updates?

[Yorak]

I actually own a copy of Microsoft Office 2010, and the last time I reformatted I just installed LibreOffice instead. Why? Because I do not do anything so special that cannot be done in LibreOffice. One thing that annoys me is that even though when I installed Access, Excel, PowerPoint, and Word, I still get Windows Updates for the products I did not select to install (Outlook, Pulisher, etc.). Really annoying if you ask me! Even one of my professors last semester said he used OO.

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

Downloading. I have been using Office ever since I started using computer, and haven't tried anything else. This is just a personal experiment. :) Though, a question, how does this compare to OpenOffice.org, since I have heard a lot more about it than LibreOffice?

LibreOffice is an fork of OpenOffice that was created after Oracle tried to ruin OpenOffice. Their efforts to turn OpenOffice into a money-spinner, and fears over the project's future in the hands of Oracle caused the main OO developers to quit. They then picked up the OpenOffice code, and carried on to add support for things like the Microsoft OOXML file formats and the like.

Nowadays, it's more highly regarded than OpenOffice (It's included as the office suite for Ubuntu now instead of OpenOffice), and looks like it's basically going to become the successor to OpenOffice, while OpenOffice dies off.

[PyX]

I would call that an advice. And my response was to a consumer, who confirmed, that what Microsoft claimed was true.

Oh ok sorry, I misunderstood you completely.

I thought you were trying to show that people seem to prefer OpenOffice overOffice 2010 or something like that, with all the hate towards Office 2010?s ad.

[Southern Patriot]

Not sure why they think this is an office alternative, its utterly useless for any professional use.

Maybe because many people don't use an office suite for "professional use", but simply for doing homework, writing up a flyer for their PTA meeting or church function, etc. And for those types of uses, LibreOffice works just fine.

[XX55XX]

I am a long-time OpenOffice user. For home use, it's fine. Even for my operations management class at the university (which really pushed my knowledge of spreadsheet software and macro programming to its limits) OpenOffice did the job.

I don't get the hate against OpenOffice, especially from fellow software enthusiasts like you guys. I am too cheap to buy Microsoft Office, so what is so wrong about OpenOffice? None of you have provided any examples where Microsoft Office was clearly superior to OpenOffice. I am sure Microsoft Office offers many critical enterprise-level features that are inherently a given in most IT environments, but most home users don't require these features.

[Max Norris]

None of you have provided any examples where Microsoft Office was clearly superior to OpenOffice.

A lack of a few programs aside (I can't do without Outlook or OneNote, OO/Libre doesn't have anything for those needs), OO/Libre isn't too bad if you can forgive the horrible interface, what kills it for me though is its resource usage and lack of performance. Not so noticable on my desktops, but when I'm on an older laptop the bloat really drags it down something ugly. Uses a lot more memory, and it's slow as molasses. Word for example uses a fraction of the memory and fires up near instantly. Also lacks some of the handy integration features with the OS and a few other apps. Doesn't happen too often, but when I get a non-PDF document from somebody else, abou 95 % of the time it's going to be in OOXML, which is a crapshoot with OO/Libre.

[XX55XX]

A lack of a few programs aside (I can't do without Outlook or OneNote, OO/Libre doesn't have anything for those needs), OO/Libre isn't too bad if you can forgive the horrible interface, what kills it for me though is its resource usage and lack of performance. Not so noticable on my desktops, but when I'm on an older laptop the bloat really drags it down something ugly. Uses a lot more memory, and it's slow as molasses. Word for example uses a fraction of the memory and fires up near instantly. Also lacks some of the handy integration features with the OS and a few other apps. Doesn't happen too often, but when I get a non-PDF document from somebody else, abou 95 % of the time it's going to be in OOXML, which is a crapshoot with OO/Libre.

The interface is pretty similar to that of Office 2003. I don't see anything wrong there.

I will admit that Office is a little more snappy and faster to start up, but these aren't really sound advantages. Especially if you are paying for them.

[Max Norris]

The interface is pretty similar to that of Office 2003. I don't see anything wrong there.

Fast forward almost 10 years and you will ;) But I agree, user preference there, and my preference leans very far away from the Windows 95 retro look. I rarely actually look at the upper bars either way, mostly go with keyboard hot keys, be it the old style pulldowns or ribbon (which I usually have collapsed anyway).

I will admit that Office is a little more snappy and faster to start up, but these aren't really sound advantages. Especially if you are paying for them.

It is if you're running it on older hardware. Just opening Writer and Word for example on the same machine, Word literally is using less than half the memory just to start up, does it near instantly, and has more features to go with it. On my main system which is pretty current(ish) hardware wise, it is instant, where Writer is still loading random stuff, waiting on Java, etc etc. Of couse you can speed Libre up with the startup helper thing that preloads everything... no thanks.

And again that's not touching on the stuff that Libre just doesn't have yet; I use both OneNote and Outlook daily, and it's just day to day home use, nothing corporate about it. Then there's wrestling with converting somebody elses document formats into something the majority works with and dealing with the resulting mess and hassles afterwards. Office overall tends to be a lot easier to work with for the first timer too as the interface gives a lot of visual cues versus "hunt the menus".

Not bashing it if thats your thing, but a blanket "it's perfect for any home user just because its free" isn't always true.

[ichi]

Fast forward almost 10 years and you will ;) But I agree, user preference there, and my preference leans very far away from the Windows 95 retro look. I rarely actually look at the upper bars either way, mostly go with keyboard hot keys, be it the old style pulldowns or ribbon (which I usually have collapsed anyway).

Is LibreOffice ugly? No, I'd actually say it's outright fugly, but still not as much as win95.

I'd probably cringe if I was sitting 8 hours every day at the office with that thing in the screen, but fortunately my job is somewhat more entertaining Let me put it this way: probably I'd cringe if I had to use Office (any vendor, any version) the whole day, every day.

For the odd time I use it, anyway, it looks kinda ok enough.

The widgets look out of place (it'd be cool if they switched to Qt so they could use native widgets on every platform), but my biggest gripe (from an aesthetic point of view, and forgetting for a moment that I've hated those damn toolbars since the very day computers began shipping with a mouse) is with those ugly drop down buttons with gradients that (to add insult to injury) are useless. To begin with I don't use the toolbars that often (let alone customize them) but even if I did, that menu could open when right clicking the toolbar (well, surprise, it actually does... so the button is stupid).

Is there even an option somewhere to hide that crap?

It is if you're running it on older hardware. Just opening Writer and Word for example on the same machine, Word literally is using less than half the memory just to start up, does it near instantly, and has more features to go with it. On my main system which is pretty current(ish) hardware wise, it is instant, where Writer is still loading random stuff, waiting on Java, etc etc. Of couse you can speed Libre up with the startup helper thing that preloads everything... no thanks.

LibreOffice Writter loads in about 4 seconds here (launching it for the first time after boot on an old-ish laptop with a core 2 duo T7300), which is not awesome but not painfully slow either.

[lalalawawawa]

Java... I stopped thinking about it there. Everything Java-based is banned on my lappy.

[resol612]

OpenOffice/LibreOffice's macro/automation support sucks big god-damn time. Not only is there very little documentation, and when I finally found a way to get things done it is very convulated compared to VBA. It's even worse if you want to modify OO/LO files from VBScript.

Not only on the automation front, I also have gripes with Calc. Only a max of 3 conditional formatting rules?

I feel that OO/LO is meant for really basic home or corporation use. Anything beyond that, or anything involving automation, please, go MSO.

[ichi]

Java... I stopped thinking about it there. Everything Java-based is banned on my lappy.

It uses java but it's not really based on it and can be disabled.