Microsoft Word is just fine. I assume most of the hate is for Microsoft because Word works just fine for most people’s use cases.
All the issues mentioned in the OP are longstanding issues with word. It’s not “just fine”. It’s really annoying.
PDF is not meant to be edited, it’s meant to be a digital representation of physical paper.
The other problems are just people who don’t actually learn to use Microsoft Word, you certainly can add more words to spellcheck and you can change how images and text interact, the only thing I can think of that caused issues is at one point they changed the default, too many people never learned how to change the layout and keep expecting the old behavior after the change.
These people don’t want to hear it. They’re obsessed with the cult of hating Microsoft. If they said, software should be libre/open source and LibreOffice is superior in that regard, I could take them seriously.
Intended or not, millions of people have to edit millions of pdfs every day.
That’s not the problem of a text editor from the 90s. That’s the problem of people who need that function. If only there were several fine tools for that function that already exist.
Microsoft word also doesn’t let me edit SOLIDWORKS files, and yet I somehow find it in my heart to not shit on word for this.
For me, it isn’t that it doesn’t work, it works fine enough most of the time. It’s that it’s so heavy! My work PC is just an office special and it can chug with all the bloat from the office suite. Especially Outlook. God I hate Outlook.
Carving animals on the wall of the cave is just fine. I assume most of the hate is for caves because carving animals on the wall works just fine for most ungabungas’ use cases.
I’m not sure which is worse, the fact that you thought this was clever and relevant or the fact that other people upvoted it and helped to validate your unbounded idiocy.
Fine if you’re so evolved, what’s your magnificent “good” document editor?
And if you say libre office I’m going to laugh at you forever.
I don’t deal with that kind of file much but when I do usually Typora
Seems solid, although I think it’s safe to say for the core function it doesnt look as powerful as word (which is fair since most people don’t need that) and it does seem to have nice add-ons like graphs and code blocks.
I would be cautious about using a markdown editor and assuming it’s cross-compatible. Core markdown is shockingly limited, and every other flavor seems just a little bit different from one another. Whether it’s how they do code blocks, or how they add other functions, there’s always something. But as long as you’re not switching between tools that’s no risk.
I’m not sure about charts but code snippets and blocks are handled the same as standard markdown:
function myFunc(arg1, arg2) { const test = 'This is a string'; return null; }It also supports exporting to a variety of formats, although I can’t speak to the accuracy when reading them in other applications as it’s not a feature I’ve used.
Never understood the attraction. It sucks.
This why LibreOffice called out Microsoft for using “complex” file formats to lock in Office users
You using complex file formats for vendor lock in
Me using complex file formats because my code base is shite.
We are not the same
Word works fine and has just about every feature business users needs. This stuff hasn’t been true in a long time.
Want to move an image but you don’t know how text wrapping works? Want a .DOCX editor to edit a file format from Adobe? Don’t know to R-Click? This memes for YOU!
Word has long since become a low value comodity. Why pay at all when Libre Office does everything well for free.
Thanks to US enshittification, governments and corporations around the world are de-americanizing their tech stacks. FOSS for the win.
Microsoft will eat dirty ass.
Libre office doesn’t offer you sharing and interactivity with role and user based access, pii and phi scanning, on top on the idp they offer you that can be used in just about any compliance situation.
Nobody is paying for just the notepad editor. They just don’t have to deal with any security whatsoever.
Libre office does offer sharing, and RBAC can be handled at the storage level.
https://help.libreoffice.org/latest/en-US/text/scalc/01/shared_spreadsheet.html
There are other tools for PII and PHI scanning and this is part of foundry, not Office. You pay more for that.
Oh, so it’s more expensive for less features. MS is so cooked.
LaTeX supremacy has entered that chat
Overfull hbox has left the chat un formatted
99% of issues people have with Word are because they never bothered to learn how to use it. Remember those IT classes back in school where they taught you how to do a mail merge? Yeah I bet you can’t remember how to do that now.
If you don’t use \LaTeX, that’s on you.
I think I have used word, like, twice in my life
Lucky you.
$150 a year, you mean
And unwanted AI features!
Software as a disservice.
Saad ='(
It’s $150 for a “perpetual” license - but that’s not including any one drive storage. The Office 365 SaaS (I think now it’s Microsoft 365?) starts at $99/year.
I know this because I’ve been trying to find a solution for my sister who absolutely needs office to get a workable solution for Linux. Supposedly, she has to submit papers/writing as docx and can’t trust LibreOffice not to fuck up formatting.
I’ve never used it, does it handle docx authorship better than libre?
Honestly, I’m not even 100% sure they need Word or if they’re just being told that by their boss.
The only thing why this is still the case is because microsoft is bundling everything in a single subscription and is also providing you with software that automatically keeps everything updated.
The software is shit, but companies using the entire ecosystem probably save money. Sadly.
I switched to onlyoffice not looking back
Why would anyone use that garbage over Libre Office?
I love Libreoffice but the dictionary on there is abysmal. Like fully wretched.
I’m sure there’s a way to add others but I just haven’t discovered it yet.
Anyone who needs to do something serious
Because businesses have been using it for decades, they have old spreadsheets with all kinds of functions and shit that may not easily port over, etc.
The unfortunate reality.
Who cares? Still doesnt explain it. Libre Office is way better
Perhaps you work for geek squad, or at USPS, or a mill.
You won’t get it until you’ve been working at big companies that use Excel extensively. Shifting priorities, support people to support the products they’re using, skeleton crew for IT staff, a support lifeline if needed, etc. Or you haven’t met many managers of said orgs…
It’s not about what’s better. It’s about what’s familiar and what translates well. Pets say a law firm receives an excel file with all kinds of shit done to it (macros and other excel things), and nobody can open it because they all use Excel. And like I t or not, it is presently the dominant product so you are going to run into less issues using it, unfortunately.
I was using LibreOffice Calc on my work PC with a Threadripper CPU, and somehow it still chugs at times. Scrolling was very laggy with larger spreadsheets for example. I ended up using Google Sheets instead, which is way more responsive for me. If it was for personal use, I’d probably try IronCalc.
How does gnumeric work for you? That’s my spreadsheet goto, but to be fair I have very simple demands.
I’ll try it out! I totally forgot it exists.
For business, they need Excel.
It’s free (aaaaar) and it does everything I need it to. The pdf editing is a dream though. Use something else.
I’m old enough to remember Microsoft Works.
I miss the simplicity of those days…
I member Corel Word-perfect…
I remember WordPerfect when it was still a DOS program. The simplicity of “this format code affects all text after it” was elegant.
And then we got Word foisted on us, with “this format code (which you have no way of viewing) affects the block of text before it” so if you accidentally delete or move that format code then you screw up a seemingly random bunch of text. And here we are.
I dunno, having two different word processors was kind of confusing
Three. Wordpad also existed.
I honestly have more things against excel than word… or maybe im just mad about how ribbon was stupidly implemented in excel
