LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

merelyjim · 2011-05-04 04:22:23

bobrossw wrote:

But I thought Microsoft Office was easier to use, and more consistent...not requiring users to adjust to new ways of doing things.
"....by using MSOffice 2007, we have reduced the internal support costs significantly because our staff is familiar with this system..."
See the ribbon is well understood and familiar to people!
Just like windows....

Bob, you're killing me. Just killing me...

Had an older lady come into the store today wanting a copy of Outlook. $139.99, right there. But, why? I asked a few questions, and she said that the stuff came "through the Google," as her son had set it up last year, but she had to replace her machine a few weeks ago, and Outlook Express didn't come with it "like last time." She called Microsoft, and they told her to go out and buy a copy.

Trying to achieve some positive karma points to off-set my teenage years, I told her that she could access gmail directly. "Son, my e-mail lives in Outlook. If you can't help me, I'll buy it from someone else."
"Yes, Ma'am. That'll be 151.54 with tax, please."

You can't push a rope. And at this rate, I'm going to be reincarnated as a goat. roll

Rumpelstiltskin · 2011-05-04 04:31:51

I use abiword, texmaker and google docs. Abiword is for general text processing, texmaker is for the long and complex works and google docs is for when I gotta write in groups, or I'm away from home, or for viewing and editing the other office stuff that I almost never use.

bobrossw · 2011-05-04 04:58:41

@merelyjim - yeah my grad advisor was blown away when he found out that he could check his e-mail from any computer...and that you could organize data into folders. "But what if I want to make folders inside of those folders?" He asked my colleague hopefully.

I've also had some interesting conversations with my mom, where she has come to realize that people in my generation and lower (I'm 30) don't read whole web-pages, but rather, scan for relevant information and then read that. She told this to her colleagues (faculty in a language department at a university) and they thought the whole idea was absurd....why wouldn't you read every single word on every page?

Oh one more thing, regarding MS trying to get people to buy multiple copies of things they already own. I got a cheap version of Win 7 from my school but it was an upgrade CD, which meant that I could do a fresh install from it, but the registration key wouldn't work. It also wouldn't take my original key, since that was from a different version than the one that I had used for the install....anyway I talked to tech support a bunch and they kept trying to get me to buy another copy of windows, or pay $50 for a tech support ticket. -remember this was in regards to something I had bought and not installed successfully yet. I finally got real help once I started ranting about how much I wanted to just drop Windows altogether in favor of linux.

merelyjim · 2011-05-04 05:13:25

/\ Every once in a while, as a way of getting revenge, I log onto "Windows Live" from a Linux machine, create and download an Excel spreadsheet with the MS Office Online app. I imagine each timew I do so, one of Steve Balmer's hairs turns silver, then gray, then shrivels and falls out. lol

...and again, at this rate, I'm going to be reincarnated as a goat.

Last edited by merelyjim (2011-05-04 05:14:03)

bobrossw · 2011-05-04 07:11:17

^I'm sure all you're doing is giving some code-monkey over there an "interesting" anecdote to tell his family at thanksgiving about the mysterious subset of Office-Online users who use linux...At the top all they're concerned about is staying relevant with the nerds (like us) while being completely dominant for everyone else. As long as we can help our mothers get the thing up and running after they bought it for the 4th time, I don't think they care if we're using it.

tranche · 2011-05-04 13:29:44

Thanks to Istvan and Sector11 for mentioning Ted. I had never used it, and it gets the less-is-more award for the month. It's a nice little editor.

The 64-bit version built and installed easily from the source tarball, requiring only libpcre3-dev, libxpm-dev, and libtiff4-dev beyond the libraries I had already. Regrettably, I don't yet know how to make debian packages.

Sector11 · 2011-05-04 14:26:41

bobrossw wrote:

another great thing about calc is they finally increased the number of possible columns to sensible 2011 numbers. this was an issue for me when I was trying to look at large datasets in open office (and older versions of excel). I'm not sure if gnumeric still has the older limitations or not.

Just what I need, 2011 columns on a 17" monitor running at 1280x1024.

That's 0.63649925 pixels +/- per empty column - and that's not counting the space for the row numbers of the left, the scroll bar on the right. Let alone the window borders. So it would be even less, more like 0.6016907, but whose counting ...

Add numbers or data to those columns and it would take a week to scroll to the right to see what is in column 2011. big_smile

Are you sure you are not mixing up the number of columns with the year you see on your calendar? lol

anonymous · 2011-05-04 14:32:35

Nah its just you thats mixing up the number of columns with the calendar year big_smile

Sector11 · 2011-05-04 14:32:53

macondo123 wrote:

Sector11 wrote:
How do you find SID?
I mostly use Wheezy, Sid is too temperamental for my taste, right now they got issues with udev, (the distro is running well, though) errors are showing at boot time, besides you can get the same Liquorix kernel with Wheezy and ditto with the apps.
I'm thinking about uninstalling it.:/

Liquorix - is that like Bailey's Irish Cream?
I've seen that and wonder as well if it's a worthwhile thing for a desktop. (Another topic.)

Uninstalling Wheezy? Or Sid?

bobrossw · 2011-05-04 14:36:25

@sector11 nope I was saying the year, the number is somewhere in the millions and it's both columns and rows. This was recently important for me because of some work I was doing with EKG data, where each row represents a millisecond or so...After a few hours of recording, you've got a lot of rows. I wasn't able to open these files on the old OOo (or office 2003) so I had to use office 2007 at the time. Now its built in to libre office.

Last edited by bobrossw (2011-05-04 14:38:08)

Istvan · 2011-05-04 15:30:50

Sector11 wrote:

Istvan wrote:
Sector11 wrote:
I have even looked at Ted, but never installed it, if they had a 64-bit deb I would have.
Ted is a small, but neat rich-text editor with basic formatting tools. One of my favorites. I use it for editing jobs, when no heavy formatting is needed. Its even lighter then Abiword. You should try it ...
Khmmm... really no 64-bit package :-(
Yea, if some knows how to make a Debian DEB package makes a 64-bit version I'd jump on it.
Or - maybe I'll try someday - what's the worse I could do? {click}
hello! anyone there?
honey, where's the flashlight?

If I only had a 64-bit desktop, I'd make a package from the sources....:-( But I run only 32-bit boxes. Perhaps is someone out there ....:-)

Sector11 · 2011-05-04 20:04:12

merelyjim wrote:

anonymous wrote:
...if you just want spreadsheets, why not try Gnumeric?
I tried. I really did. The one thing I couldn't get used to, no matter what, was the cross-hairs instead of a regular mouse cursor. I'd be moving along at my normal pace, and found that I had input data into the wrong cell because I hadn't clicked into the place where I thought the indicator was.
I know it sounds silly, but if it slows you down when you need to be working... And now that I'm thinking about it, when I have some spare time on my hands, I suppose I should go check if I can change that in the settings.

I don't think it's a viabe thing, unless you want to get further under the hood.

http://projects.gnome.org/gnumeric/doc/ … ouse.shtml

Sector11 · 2011-05-04 20:11:14

omns wrote:

merelyjim wrote:
And, yes, I DO still have the original CD!
Damn it, now I have to know if mine is lying around here somewhere as well

RE: StarOffice 5

I just got home fr0om downtown. As I was passing a "used a bit bookshop" I saw a pile of computer books near the enterance and on top of the pile, used, old, dusty for 30 pesos: StarOffice 5 for Linux (in Spanish). Just though I would let you all know.

Sector11 · 2011-05-04 20:15:01

vrkalak wrote:

I prefer AbiWord myself . . . light and simple to use. I don't do a lot of Word Processor stuff.
My all-time favorite WP program is: Jarte > http://www.jarte.com/
Unfortunately, it is a MS Windows only program, at the moment ... I'm waiting for the Jarte Devs to make a Linux version.

That looks like it would be very nice.

Writing Should Be a Pleasurable Experience
The problem with word processors designed for the corporate world is they tend to sap the joy out of writing. Office word processors have so many features it becomes frustrating trying to find the features you actually need among the seemingly endless excess of unused functions. You either lose your train of thought while wrestling with the program or you simply do without the feature you want rather than embark on an expedition to find it among the endless cascading menus and pop-up windows.

BOY OH BOY!! Do I relate to that smile

vrkalak wrote:

I refuse to use any Windows-based programs through Wine or other CrossOver App.

+1

Last edited by Sector11 (2011-05-04 20:16:36)

Sector11 · 2011-05-04 21:05:02

tranche wrote:

Thanks to Istvan and Sector11 for mentioning Ted. I had never used it, and it gets the less-is-more award for the month. It's a nice little editor.
The 64-bit version built and installed easily from the source tarball, requiring only libpcre3-dev, libxpm-dev, and libtiff4-dev beyond the libraries I had already. Regrettably, I don't yet know how to make debian packages.

Unfortunately I don't even know how to do what you did. big_smile

So if you have to re-install #!, you have to go through that process again?

bigbenaugust · 2011-05-05 05:17:49

Does anyone here remember the Applix suite? It was available for WinNT/Linux/BSD and at one time was a RedHat product, as I recall. Wish I still had my CD for that. I did my senior thesis at Cal Poly (SLO, please) in WP for Linux. Thankfully, I can order it on microfilm from the CP Library anytime I want and I have to original in a box somewhere, because that zip disk has disappeared and the files would be unreadable anyway. smile

As for usage, I use oocalc for a lot of things, household finances among them. The rest of the SO/OO/LO suite... meh.

macondo123 · 2011-05-05 22:11:24

Sector11 wrote:

Liquorix - is that like Bailey's Irish Cream?
I've seen that and wonder as well if it's a worthwhile thing for a desktop. (Another topic.)
Uninstalling Wheezy? Or Sid?

I uninstalled sid, now just using wheezy. As for Liquorix kernels, if you're using wheezy or sid, it's a good addition, it comes patched and helps with new hardware smile

Sector11 · 2011-05-05 23:32:23

macondo123 wrote:

I uninstalled sid, now just using wheezy. As for Liquorix kernels, if you're using wheezy or sid, it's a good addition, it comes patched and helps with new hardware

new hardware? me - hahahaha - my hardware is almost as old as I am. Guess I gotta google and read more.

Thanks

xavax · 2011-05-06 03:08:01

Hello to all.

@bigbenaugust I remember Applix, also StarOffice the first atempt of Sun to brake the MSO domination, and predecessor of OOo. SO was too slow compared to MSO. I use OOo and LibreOffice and LO is faster, so far not a glitch, but I never put it under real stress like an office environment. Sometimes people dont understand that switching to open source products have their benefits, like cutting license costs. One time I move an entire company first to SO and then to OOo to cut the high licenses prices of MSO, in less than a month people was screaming asking for EXCEL, because "is not the same thing". End of the story they prefer to pay a lot of money because "is not the same thing" factor. sad

Last edited by xavax (2011-05-06 03:25:47)

merelyjim · 2011-05-06 11:09:15

/\ Yup, it's amazing what some people will demand when they're spending other people's money. Ah well, pass it along to the customer...

bobrossw · 2011-05-06 13:45:45

^I still find it very disorienting when it takes less than 10 minutes to boot, and my web browser doesn't have 15+ search bars. I also really miss random pop-ups, surprise updates on shut-down, and asking me to confirm every action 3 times....what were we talking about again. Oh yeah, office programs.

Sector11 · 2011-05-07 01:36:17

OK, so I have this figured out.

We package up LO in a really nice fancy box with a #! logo on it.. I mean spare no expense on the box, and with the best quality paper we can get do up a nice simple "#! LO EULA" that anyone can read.

The electronic contents found on the enclosed CD labelled "LibreOffice" are your's to do with as you see fit. You may install it on as may computers as you wish, give it to your friends and neighbours and even change the code.
The Box: The box remains the property of #! Linux and you may not destroy it, give it away or reproduce it in any way. If at anytime #! finds out that you have destroyed it, given it away or reproduced it legal action will be taken.

We then put a price tag of $949.99, crossed out in red with "On Sale, Limited Time Only: $549.99".

Anyone that finds the price a bit steep, we slip a copy of the CD under the table while looking around cautiously to make sure we are not seen, thereby making the customer feel like he has a {cough cough} "original copy" FREE!

They will be lining up to buy it! big_smile

Last edited by Sector11 (2011-05-07 01:38:55)

merelyjim · 2012-01-30 17:58:53

Sorry, *. I know this is an older thread, but I felt that this was the best place to put a post-script, rather than starting a new thread rehashing everything already stated.

I was looking around to find a why to store, share, and even back-up docs off site, and I figured that Google Docs might be worth looking into. Glad I did. GD has recognized everything generated by Open Office, Libre Office, MS Office [used only on machines at work], PDF's, text - everything. I can edit on the fly, upload new versions, download, whatever.

I'm never going to get rid of my text-editors, spreadsheets, what-have-you on my Linux machines, but for Android devices (my Samsung phone and Nook color) this is pretty impressive. Thus worth mentioning... cool

dkeg · 2012-01-30 19:12:20

FYI...the zoho suite handles all of this quite nicely as well. Docs, pdf's, spreadsheets, ppt's, collaboration, versioning, etc. Worth a check out if looking for an alternative.

CrunchBang Linux

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#51 2011-05-04 04:22:23

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#52 2011-05-04 04:31:51

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#53 2011-05-04 04:58:41

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#54 2011-05-04 05:13:25

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#55 2011-05-04 07:11:17

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#56 2011-05-04 13:29:44

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#57 2011-05-04 14:26:41

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#58 2011-05-04 14:32:35

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#59 2011-05-04 14:32:53

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#60 2011-05-04 14:36:25

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#61 2011-05-04 15:30:50

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#62 2011-05-04 20:04:12

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#63 2011-05-04 20:11:14

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#64 2011-05-04 20:15:01

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#65 2011-05-04 21:05:02

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#66 2011-05-05 05:17:49

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#67 2011-05-05 22:11:24

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#68 2011-05-05 23:32:23

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#69 2011-05-06 03:08:01

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#70 2011-05-06 11:09:15

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#71 2011-05-06 13:45:45

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#72 2011-05-07 01:36:17

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#73 2012-01-30 17:58:53

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

#74 2012-01-30 19:12:20

Re: LibreOffice vs OpenOffice vs AbiWord

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