LibreOffice 3.5.1 Released With Fixes

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LibreOffice 3.5.1 Released With Fixes

Posted by samzenpus on Monday March 19, 2012 @01:55AM from the check-it-out dept.

Thinkcloud writes "The Document Foundation has released LibreOffice 3.5.1. Some of the core fixes include: don't crash for empty input data in charts, UI fix on PDF export dialog, don't copy page styles into temporary clipboard doc, and use the correct db range for the copy. 'Another milestone for the LibreOffice project was hit this past month as well. "The number of TDF hackers has overtaken the threshold of 400 code developers, with a large majority of independent volunteers and several companies paying full time hackers." Although some are paid developers, no company employs more than 7% of developers, keeping the project independent and self-governing.'"

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Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 01:56 · Score: -1, Troll

It's not Microsoft Office.
1. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by MightyYar · 2012-03-19 01:59 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  It's more like MS Office than current versions of MS Office... ribbonless, the way I likes it. Now get off my lawn!
  
  --
  W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
2. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Murdoch5 · 2012-03-19 02:03 · Score: 1
  
  No it's not, it's an office suite meant to work!
3. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 02:11 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The ribbon is a nice UI that really isn't very different than the old UI. It takes vertical drop-down menus and makes them horizontal. Then it ads pictures.
  Big deal.
  Some people claim that it takes up more space, but that is debatable. If you're truly hard-up for space you can always minimize the ribbon. Apparently in the next version of Office it will be minimized by default.
  Dunno why people bitch about the ribbon so much. I think it's a combination of "I don't care why they changed it, it's different and I HATE different" and "Look! Microsoft is doing something! LET'S HATE ON IT!"
4. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 02:13 · Score: 1
  
  Don't worry, this thread will be full to the brim with Burson Marsteller astroturfers.
  W8 is clearly going to be a massive flop, so Office is MS's last living cash-cow and for most people, Libre is just a much better suite. The shills will be desperate to spread FUD before people realise just how much better.
  Expect more dirt than discussion.
5. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-03-19 02:22 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The one thing that I find very unfortunate about the timing of the 'ribbon' is that it managed to coincide with the massive shift in the most common and cheapest PC displays(especially in laptops) from 4:3 to a brief period of 16:10 followed by a rush to 16:9. Having the menu bar expanding even as vertical resolution was being nibbled away at made the always-slightly-awkward editing of 8.5x11 or A4 documents on computer screens even more irritating.
  
  I mostly blame the fuckers who killed 16:10, since that can't be fixed in software; but it wasn't a helpful coincidence.
6. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 02:25 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Oh, not so different, eh?
  How about those who use keyboard shortcuts? Alt+F, P. Hmmm, no printing? WTF? Alt+F, A. No save as?
  Yes, totally identical.
7. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Dhalka226 · 2012-03-19 02:26 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  I think it's a combination of "I don't care why they changed it, it's different and I HATE different"
  Yes, people are adverse to change. That doesn't mean change is bad, but neither does it mean it is good. Rather, it puts the onus on the person suggesting the change to show why the disruption and re-learning that will need to take place is worthwhile.
  If, as you say, it is a "nice UI that really isn't very different than the old UI" then why is it necessary to force people to spend any time re-learning the interface? Why take up more real estate to do so and then tell users "well if you want it back, just minimize our annoying new UI?" This isn't somebody's pet project; it's an enterprise-class software suite used by literally millions and millions of people around the world. Change for the sake of change is not helpful; it is actively counter-productive in the most literal sense of the term.
  I honestly can't decide if communication is Microsoft's great failure or if they really don't have a coherent reason for the things they do. It's happening again with Windows 8. Is the UI change just the stupidest possible idea in the world, or is it the greatest thing since sliced bread and they have just been utterly failing at actually communicating why? Don't get me wrong, I see how it's beneficial to THEM to essentially be able to focus on one UI across devices, but I don't see why I should want a touch-driven UI for my computer with mouse support tacked on top instead of an operating system built for that usage--and more importantly, one I have been largely familiar with for what, 15 years?
  So yeah, I'm not adverse to change but somebody needs to show me why the learning curve and lost productivity is ultimately worthwhile. I don't care if that learning curve is five seconds or five years. If they can't do that, they deserve the derision. It's not like they don't have the budget for it, so I have to assume it's because they don't have the rationale.
8. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by twocows · 2012-03-19 02:37 · Score: 1
  
  There should be a fallback. I shouldn't be forced to learn new crap for no reason other than Microsoft thinks it will improve my performance. That's not for them to decide.
9. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Lumpy · 2012-03-19 02:46 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Which I love they do. IT helps me push Libre office.
  Not only does it have Lower TCO, but it also has ZERO training for the users.
  Allowed us to avoid the MSFT Office tax cince 2005.
  
  --
  Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
10. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 02:59 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Microsoft has to change Office every so often. Its necessay otherwise how do they sell the same product over and over again ? It sure isn't getting new functions is it ? Oh maybe in 2 decades we will make the emacs joke about Office. But until then, to get the suckers (consumers, enterprises, etc...) to lay down $$$ every 3 years for whats basically a glorifed typewriter they have to change, even if its superficial change. Office attaigned maturity with the 95 version. Since then its been about superficial changes and format changes of course.
11. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 02:59 · Score: 0
  
  The ribbon is a nice UI that really isn't very different than the old UI. It takes vertical drop-down menus and makes them horizontal. Then it ads pictures.
  And then it plays dice with the buttons.
  "A two and a three? Then that button goes onto the fifth tab".
  "A five and a six? We don't have eleven tabs, I guess we need to hide this somewhere completely different".
12. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 03:00 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  WTF, WTF'er?
  Word 2007.
  ALT-F. A. Save-As dialog pops up
  ALT-F. P. Print dialog pops up.
  For crepe's sake, it even DISPLAYS the letters for you for keyboard navigation of the ribbon. It's almost like EMACs, except you can see where the heck you're diving down into.
13. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 03:13 · Score: 1
  
  People bitch about the ribbon because they knew exactly where to find features in the past, and now they can't find it.
  It's so simple... first you look across the TOP to find the ribbon you want. Click that. Then, look across the BOTTOM to find the group of icons you want. Then, look in the MIDDLE for the icon you're looking for. If you can't find it, see if there's a tiny arrow in the lower right of the icon group. Click that, and you will get a dialog with more options. Now, isn't that easier than a boring old top-down menu?
14. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Billly+Gates · 2012-03-19 03:27 · Score: 1
  
  Good luck having another supplier, vendor, or another business view your documents and have them all looking funny?
  Their is a reason businesses standardize on Office. Every office user who is not a FOSS zealot hates Libra Office with a passion and I have worked in projects before where it was replaced with Office so they can work and do things like everyone else.
  Maybe in the future it will take off, just like these same office workers scorend Firefox and went back to IE 6 because it felt better. But Libra Office needs to be faster and have more functions and start to do things that iWorks and MS Office does before people prefer it.
  
  --
  http://saveie6.com/
15. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Billly+Gates · 2012-03-19 03:31 · Score: 2
  
  I love the ribbon now and I cringe going back to menus.
  It has its benefits and if you hit the alt key, it will even number the shortcuts. You can preview changes by just having the mouse cursor over all the settings. I love it and the ribbon bashing is so 2007.
  It reminds me of those whinning about guis and how CLI terminals and DOS were soo awesome.
  It took a week to learn but unlike METRO solid R&D was behind it in usability. Word is certainly more tolerable.
  
  --
  http://saveie6.com/
16. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 03:40 · Score: 0
  
  And this is why my start bar is on the side of the screen and not the bottom. And why my second monitor is vertical.
17. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by muuh-gnu · 2012-03-19 03:42 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  > Good luck having another supplier, vendor, or another business view your documents
  Who has to conform to whom depends on who is the dominating partner in a communication. If the dominating partner mandates that all communication with him from now has to be LO-compatible, as a supplier you have to become LO-compatible, or you wont get his business.
  The key to establish LO in the office space is to make a few influential players start using it, everybody who depends on them in some way will have to follow.
  > and have them all looking funny?
  If they depend on getting money from you, it suddenly is their documents looking funny, not yours. It is just a matter of perspective.
18. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Billly+Gates · 2012-03-19 03:50 · Score: 1
  
  Call me cynical.
  But I once told an I.T. consulting executive, that I love FOSS because it is free and it is the best!
  He rolled his eyes and decided I not important enough to do business with. Doesn't even prefer expensive solutions and loves shareware?? This was 10 years ago and Linux was a toy compared to NT 4 in his eyes probably. But it was embarasing for me.
  I guess it depends how big you are. There is a reason many businesses still use IE 6 in 2012 like I mentioned above. It is because if you are Volkswagan you can simply demand to support it for their logon site if you are an auto parts supplier. Not everyone is.
  In small business or if you send a resume you need to look professional. I remember 15 years ago if you didn't have a fax number no one would want to do business with you. Then it was an email, and now it is MS file formats. I am hoping this will change but right now it is not.
  I do not like LO as OpenOffice was slow, ugly, and didn't do things that MS Office did. The file formats and personal and corporate image were one. I started becoming more cynical of zealots over the years.
  
  --
  http://saveie6.com/
19. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 03:54 · Score: 0
  
  No it doesn't. I've tried to use the Ribbon, but quite frankly, it's a mess. If you're making comments like that about CLI terminals then I think that's a pretty clear indication that you don't understand what you're talking about. CLIs when done right are incredibly efficient at the expense of requiring a more significant investment in time to learn the. The most efficient interface I've seen is in vi, but it has a significant learning curve to master it.
  Ribbon itself doesn't bring any particular benefits other than hiding things in random places where people who don't use it regularly won't find it.
  So, yes, it is great, if you're working at MS and want to force people to buy the newer versions. As those using ribbon can't use the older copies without relearning everything.
20. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by hackertourist · 2012-03-19 03:59 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Problems with the Ribbon:
  - the change was done with no regard for longtime users who lose ALL of their knowledge of where to find what feature, with no option to revert to the old ways.
  - Worse, Microsoft threw out conventions like the menu order (File, Edit) that have been the same in all Windows programs since W3.1. Again, loss of knowledge.
  - it takes much longer to go through all the Ribbons to find a feature than to drag through the menus. You could drag through all of the menus with a single click-and-drag action. You have to click on each of the Ribbon tabs.
  - minimizing the UI has its own cost in annoyance when the Ribbon deploys when you don't want it.
  - The Ribbon relies on icons more than text. I find that it takes me longer to find the correct icon than it took me to find the correct menu. Not everyone thinks visually.
  All of this for the sake of being more newbie-friendly and ooh-shiny.
21. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by MightyYar · 2012-03-19 04:02 · Score: 2
  
  Dunno why people bitch about the ribbon so much.
  
  I'll list my particular grievances:
  1. It undoes 15 years of expertise I had in using Excel and Word. I've been using the ribbon now for over a year and still find myself hunting occasionally - my productivity has still not caught up to the "old" interface.
  2. It changes depending on window size/screen size. On my laptop with a small screen, the ribbons are subtly rearranged compared to those on my desktop. On my desktop, I don't run Word full screen, since my monitor is large. Depending on how large I make the windows, the buttons on the ribbon rearrange themselves. This breaks a fundamental human interface rule that MS loves to break - things should not move around.
  3. Adding custom buttons is now murderous, and the built-in selection of buttons is very limited. They've had a icon editor built in to MS Office since, what, 1996? And they take it out because... they want to force you into this cumbersome XML editing workflow for user-defined icons. Ugh.
  4. You are absolutely correct - it isn't very different from the old UI. It takes vertical drop-down menus and makes them horizontal, then adds pictures. Humans are worse at scanning lists horizontally than they are scanning vertically. This change makes no sense. It now takes me longer to scan through the ribbon than it did to scan through the drop-down menu.
  In short, I am angry that Microsoft didn't spend more time fixing obvious flaws in Office and instead screwed up the GUI.
  Take VBA... it is the killer feature of Excel, and really the only reason to use it over other spreadsheets. Unfortunately, they haven't really updated it in 10 years and it is stale. Big macros have to be split into multiple procedures. The performance is awful. User-defined functions fail silently. Mostly, though, the IDE and language have not seen any modernization in 15 years and even simple things like a Perl "associative array" or a Python "dictionary" are painful to implement (via Collections is usually how I do it...). Meanwhile, Open/Libre Office has steadily improved their macro support and it is almost usable. I can see a day where I start writing to that package instead - especially if I can abandon VBA and use something more modern.
  Take graphing... Quattro Pro had better graphing tools in 1997 and it still does today :) No, I haven't compared them recently :) But Excel's graphing options are pretty much stuck in 1996. Heck, the formula bar still shows graphs as Excel 4 macros! Goodness... Meanwhile, Open/Libre Office has steadily improved their graphing capabilities and it is pretty much a credible alternative.
  Now to be fair, the ribbon in 2010 makes more sense than the ribbon in 2007, so there is hope.
  
  --
  W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
22. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Billly+Gates · 2012-03-19 04:05 · Score: 0
  
  Not everyone automates server oriented tasks with batch files. I love VI myself. My guess is your conservative who hates change.
  However a gui like Visual Studio or Netbeans can do a lot more.
  Guis show what you are printing exactly how it is viewed on the screen. Normal computer usage is creating documents for others to view them. This is why the gui is necessary in business. Sorry Latex does not cut it for marketing shops creating brochures and imageMagik or whatever it is called is no photoshop.
  Menus hide things in illogical and places that are hard to find. Ribbons show all the options and lets you preview them. It is a wonderful tool and if you open your eyes you can find out it is the most hot key friendly Office yet if you hate the mouse. My productivity is much higher as I do not have stop typing and look for functions in a sea of menus.
  
  --
  http://saveie6.com/
23. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by oldlurker · 2012-03-19 04:13 · Score: 2
  
  Oh, not so different, eh?
  How about those who use keyboard shortcuts? Alt+F, P. Hmmm, no printing? WTF? Alt+F, A. No save as?
  Yes, totally identical.
  What about those keyboard shortcuts? A quick test in Excel 2010:
  Alt+F,P -> Print
  Alt+F,A -> Save As
24. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by CosaNostra+Pizza+Inc · 2012-03-19 04:18 · Score: 1
  
  The ribbon is a nice UI that really isn't very different than the old UI.
  Sorry but I found the ribbon tedious and confusing but maybe that's because I'm an infrequent MS Office user.
25. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 04:32 · Score: 0
  
  The ribbon is a nice UI that really isn't very different than the old UI. It takes vertical drop-down menus and makes them horizontal. Then it ads pictures.
  Big deal.
  Some people claim that it takes up more space, but that is debatable. If you're truly hard-up for space you can always minimize the ribbon. Apparently in the next version of Office it will be minimized by default.
  Dunno why people bitch about the ribbon so much. I think it's a combination of "I don't care why they changed it, it's different and I HATE different" and "Look! Microsoft is doing something! LET'S HATE ON IT!"
  It is also clear that many criticizing the ribbon here on Slashdot clearly haven't even used it (as evidenced by being wrong about basic facts about the ribbon, like keyboard shortcuts, option to collapse it, what it shows and doesn't, how many mouse clicks to reach certain basic options, etc. And I don't mean being ignorant about options, but making factual wrong statements that are easily disproven if you have the damn thing in front of you. What we used to call spreading FUD). They are just jumping on the opportunity for a anti-MS circle jerk.
26. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by ericloewe · 2012-03-19 04:39 · Score: 1
  
  I don't think Metro's problem is lack of R&D, it's probably R&D too focused on tablets and phones, with mouse and keyboard functionality tacked on at the last minute.
27. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by elashish14 · 2012-03-19 05:19 · Score: 3
  
  Personally, I have found the buttons to be meaningless and totally non-descriptive. Words do a much better (and more consistent!) job of explaining what a task is supposed to do rather than a picture. For example, how does one distinguish between single spacing, 1.5 spacing and double spacing using an image? The icons are about 30 pixels square, and the image is basically just a series of vaguely shaded lines. On the other hand, it makes a lot more sense to me to click on the Format menu, then Paragraph, then find the Spacing portion of the dialog box. There are some things you just can't express using images (much less images which are less than a centimeter in size) that you can using words for directing workflow in a complex program like a document typesetter. I also take issue with the way things are organized, but I can't really give a concrete example - it's been years since I've used Office anyways.
  I think the appeal of the ribbon is not cause it's better but because it caters to people who don't spend any effort thinking about how they can do what they want to. Usability, organization and workflow suffer as a result. This is why a disproportionately large fraction of /.ers hate it while pretty much everyone else likes it.
  
  --
  I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
28. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Lumpy · 2012-03-19 05:33 · Score: 1
  
  No problem at all, we send them PDF files. What fool would send a contractor or supplier/vendor a DOC file? In fact we have less problems with all the customers and suppliers/ etc cxince we changed from MS office.
  P.S. The office people LOVE that save as PDF is native unlike the substandard MS office product.
  
  --
  Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
29. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by muuh-gnu · 2012-03-19 05:48 · Score: 1
  
  > All of this for the sake of being more newbie-friendly and ooh-shiny.
  Thats the PR make-believe.
  The real reason is that many businesses refuse to upgrade their XP/2003 offices because they work too well. So you have to intentionally break them by getting all new office users used to the ribbon, so when they get into a company still using XP/2003, they feel helpless and ask for 2007 because of the ribbon.
  This is something I've observed over the years, users accustomed to the ribbon complain much more about having to work with menus than menu users complain about the ribbon.
  The one and only raison d'Ãtre of the Ribbon is to enforce office upgrades. Once companies stop upgrading their ribbon versions, they'll change it again.
30. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by WankersRevenge · 2012-03-19 05:57 · Score: 1
  
  The folks in Redmond were caught by surprise again. Only this time, it was by tablets (which is surprising since they tried to push it ten years ago) and they are reacting how they always react. That is, by leveraging their desktop monopoly to break into new markets.
  The new ui in windows 8 is forcing people to learn how to use their new fancy tablet UI so users can transition between Microsoft devices with little adjustment. That's the idea. While this ui appears to be pissing off the technical crowd, I'm wondering how it is being regarded by the non-techies as they will ultimately determine the fate of this effort.
  Honestly, I though the Kinnect was a dud, but Microsoft really pulled it off so I'm hesitant to dismiss this effort. One thing is certain, though. I will not be using it. Or so I hope :/
31. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Billly+Gates · 2012-03-19 06:02 · Score: 1
  
  How would they edit the forms then?
  How can someone highlight your resume and make amendments when copying the file back and forth between people?
  
  --
  http://saveie6.com/
32. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by crhylove · 2012-03-19 06:07 · Score: 1
  
  Dumb argument anyway. I have TONS of clients that are moving to LO. Big stodgy corporate clients, too.
  
  --
  I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
33. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by elashish14 · 2012-03-19 07:12 · Score: 1
  
  This is the wonderful thing about corporate software. If there's something that they decide is too expensive to maintain, they drop it. Then you have to retrain all your employees. Remember that again the next time someone talks about TCO...
  
  --
  I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
34. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 07:20 · Score: 1
  
  Why would a contractor or supplier/vendor highlight your resume? I believe that the GP doesn't want to send editable forms to such people.
35. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 07:38 · Score: 0
  
  Sorry Latex does not cut it for marketing shops creating brochures and imageMagik or whatever it is called is no photoshop.
  If marketing shops are too stupid to use LaTeX, then why should I bother with them?
36. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 10:13 · Score: 0
  
  If marketing shops can't delivery files where the customer can't see exactly how their material looks because they run GUIS and they run green screen terminals then why should I do business with them?
37. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 11:49 · Score: 0
  
  Personally, I have found the buttons to be meaningless and totally non-descriptive. Words do a much better (and more consistent!) job of explaining what a task is supposed to do rather than a picture. For example, how does one distinguish between single spacing, 1.5 spacing and double spacing using an image? The icons are about 30 pixels square, and the image is basically just a series of vaguely shaded lines. On the other hand, it makes a lot more sense to me to click on the Format menu, then Paragraph, then find the Spacing portion of the dialog box. There are some things you just can't express using images (much less images which are less than a centimeter in size) that you can using words for directing workflow in a complex program like a document typesetter. I also take issue with the way things are organized, but I can't really give a concrete example - it's been years since I've used Office anyways.
  I think the appeal of the ribbon is not cause it's better but because it caters to people who don't spend any effort thinking about how they can do what they want to. Usability, organization and workflow suffer as a result. This is why a disproportionately large fraction of /.ers hate it while pretty much everyone else likes it.
  From a lot of the comments, including yours, it actually sounds like a lot of the /.ers that hate the ribbon are very infrequent users, or not users at all (as you yourself say you haven't used Office in years!). As a frequent (eg. daily) user of Office, the change to the ribbon took some time getting used to, but now I would never go back. I really don't get this claim that it is unclear what the buttons do. Most have both icon, text and keyboard shortcut-guidance. Your example of spacing - there is a button on default home ribbon that very clearly depicts line spacing (you'll get it after first attempt) and then directly gives you an option of single, 1.5, 2 etc. In numbers, just as you want.
38. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by westyvw · 2012-03-19 17:01 · Score: 1
  
  I agree with this completely. You dont communicate with other businesses with office documents, you send PDF's. You want something that maintains presentation, while giving you some piece of mind that some desk jockey isnt editing away at your document only to be picked up by a manager/executive and then wondering why you are offering low prices etc.
39. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 21:21 · Score: 0
  
  Normal computer usage is creating documents for others to view them
  Depends how you define "Normal". This is definitely not my normal usage of a computer.
  Note however that I agree with you on the ribbon thing, I prefer it over old menus, even if it took me a while to get used to it and every now and then it still takes me a few minutes to find that old option that I haven't used in the past months/years (but I'm a linux guy, using Office only once in a while).
40. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by tehcyder · 2012-03-19 21:40 · Score: 1
  
  Why would a contractor or supplier/vendor highlight your resume? I believe that the GP doesn't want to send editable forms to such people.
  This argument really refers to recruitment agencies, who love to receive people's CVs (resumes) in Word format so they can quickly copy and paste the information into their own template and thus make it look like they have added some value as part of the justification for their fees..
  
  But this is a relatively specialised case, normally when you send documents to external customers, contractors or whoever you don't normally want them to be editable.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
41. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by tehcyder · 2012-03-19 21:54 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry Latex does not cut it for marketing shops creating brochures and imageMagik or whatever it is called is no photoshop.
  If marketing shops are too stupid to use LaTeX, then why should I bother with them?
  Businesses exist to provide a service/product and make money, not to take part in software religious wars. They want common tools to be good enough to do what they want and not require specialised knowledge or expertise. If you can knock out your material on Word, anyone you employ can get straight down to working on it rather than having to learn LaTex
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
42. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by tehcyder · 2012-03-19 22:11 · Score: 1
  
  But Excel's graphing options are pretty much stuck in 1996.
  MS Office's graphs are intended for general business users. If you have some especially complex technical graphing requirement, you should be using another or an additional piece of software. But for the majority of people, it's more convenient to have adequate graphing features built into the software you're already using.
  
  For work, most people use basic line/.bar and pie charts, and that's about it.
  
  Right tool for the right job, as always.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
43. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by MightyYar · 2012-03-19 23:51 · Score: 1
  
  Whatever Excel was "for", it has become a jack of all trades. It is often the quick dirty way to look at some data. And some of it's features, like pivot tables, make it even more powerful than some of the "additional pieces of software" you mention. I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty with Matlab - but Matlab is really more suited to analyzing the same kind of data set over and over. Excel is far more flexible, even though it is not nearly as powerful overall.
  The only place I would caution people away from Excel is in statistical analysis. Until very recently, some of the basic functions were simply broken. Even now, I don't always trust the results (though that may not be fair to the current version). Let's just say there has been a long history of problems.
  
  --
  W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
44. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-20 01:54 · Score: 0
  
  Why do resume's need to be in an editable format? You ought to send the resume in PDF.
45. Re:Biggest flaw remains unfixed- by treeves · 2012-03-26 09:10 · Score: 1
  
  "resume's need to be in an editable format" so you can remove the offensive extraneous apostrophe's!
  
  --
  ...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
I wish... by CryptDemon · 2012-03-19 02:02 · Score: 1

I wish they'd improve the Base application. It's horrendously slow and clunky and has a horrible interface. I can't stand that I have to right click on the table name and hit paste to paste data into a table, rather than just doing it directly in the the table view editor (the way most people would think to do it).
1. Re:I wish... by bbbaldie · 2012-03-19 02:05 · Score: 1
  
  Interesting how un-Access-like the base app is. Is Access 2003's functionality that hard to duplicate?
2. Re:I wish... by chocolatetrumpet · 2012-03-19 02:13 · Score: 1
  
  Access 2003? Even Access 2000 would be a huge landmark for open source!
  
  --
  Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
3. Re:I wish... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 02:14 · Score: 1
  
  You should try Access 2007, minutes later you'll be reading in braille.
4. Re:I wish... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 02:18 · Score: 0
  
  Interesting how un-Access-like the base app is.
  Thank Ghod.
  
  Is Access 2003's functionality that hard to duplicate?
  No. Bloated inefficiency and poor interface design are always easy to copy. It's just as easy as mouthing puerile pseudo-intellectual jargon (bullshit words like functionality instead of plain English function or functions).
  What'd Maslow say? Good enough is the enemy of the best? Something like that. Access 2003 is worse than many databases that were invented 20 years previously, it's a fucking bloatfest.
5. Re:I wish... by h4rr4r · 2012-03-19 02:28 · Score: 1
  
  Because a real DB is also free so why use a dumbed down one?
6. Re:I wish... by medv4380 · 2012-03-19 02:32 · Score: 1
  
  Why would I want base to be Access? Access has poor threading, no bigint support, tighter field restrictions then other databases(ms sql 1024, access 255), and is a pain to get it to talk nicely to non MS products. Base is little more useful than the MS Works Database, plays with a wider verity of different databases nicely, and gives more flexibility for people who don't want to program in VB for Applications which isn't even as good as VB.net.
7. Re:I wish... by bbbaldie · 2012-03-19 02:38 · Score: 1
  
  Well, can you do ANYTHING with base? If so, could you share your knowledge?
8. Re:I wish... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-03-19 02:44 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I'm pretty sure that Access' mission in life is making it comparatively easy for people to develop database frontends(and often get in over their heads and produce some real nightmares...) not to be a database per se. Although I think that MS has been moving toward killing JET, in favor of SQL Server 3-legged-puppy edition, to make upselling to SQL server proper easier, the point is making it easy to dump some forms and buttons in place without having to be a real programmer.
9. Re:I wish... by ArhcAngel · 2012-03-19 03:09 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  THIS! We have an Oracle corporate wide license and recently a new manager hired several people for her group. Unknown to IT these people were brought in to create a complete DB in Access. We found out when she approached me and asked me to install Access on everyone's PC. She became irate when I said no that she should be using our Oracle DB. Ironically they were pulling data from one of the Oracle databases to populate their Access DB. Her argument was that it was "easier" to get stuff done in Access and she had never had any problems at her previous employer. Unfortunately she was also friends with the new president of the company and got what she wanted. The guy who created the DB moved on and the DB "broke" and IT doesn't support Access so they had to hire him back to maintain his code. If it was so "easy" why couldn't they get somebody else in their group to maintain it?
  
  --
  "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
10. Re:I wish... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 03:30 · Score: 1
  
  LOL, no way. Open source might need the equivalent of 4th dimension.
  Unless the recent versions of Access allow multiuser concurrent connection, and feature an automatic web frontend and server, Access it is utterly useless for modern scenarios.
  legacy access DBs -> mdbtools or plain csv export -> web2py is the best route IMHO.
  Or, if you are illiterate wrt programming, wagn or pythoncard.
11. Re:I wish... by Billly+Gates · 2012-03-19 03:37 · Score: 2
  
  Would you rather have a 1 million line excel spreedsheet where there are 5 different versions all emailed around and not synchronized instead? Yes, this happens because people do not have time to wait for I.T. and some BS policy on databases. This causes a lot more headaches.
  I will take access thank you.
  If it is such a pain do not buy an Oracle License. Use Mysql or postgresql and use ODBC as an external datasource. A fresh college grad making websites in college should be able to set it up in about a day or two.
  If people are emailing databases back and forth they are doing it wrong. It defeats the purpose. Seriously in 2012, this should be universal as databases were taking ground in the 1980s. It seems we are going backwards.
  
  --
  http://saveie6.com/
12. Re:I wish... by Billly+Gates · 2012-03-19 03:42 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Because it is not a server database.
  It is a personal one. If you need real databases then use an external source like SQL Server or even Mysql through ODBC.
  Access has a great gui that a non IT professional can create a solution quickly without having the hell of 5 versions of a 1 million line excel spreadsheet emailed and unsynchronized floating on the network were 1 - 2 hours a day are spent finding errors. Yes corporate America is doing this more commonly thanks to restrictive I.T. and the high demand for more results with less employees.
  Think of it as a gui builder to store data for small to medium sized business. Not that is can't datawarehouse and run on 32 cpu systems with a thousand users at once, etc. That is not what it is for. An average Joe will not setup an Oracle Enterprise Data server to store client records in his small local business store. Access fits perfectly.
  
  --
  http://saveie6.com/
13. Re:I wish... by Hatta · 2012-03-19 03:57 · Score: 1
  
  Do you really need a crappy integrated database app? Aren't one of the powerful free stand alone databases capable enough?
  
  --
  Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
14. Re:I wish... by ArhcAngel · 2012-03-19 05:41 · Score: 1
  
  Would you rather have a 1 million line excel spreedsheet where there are 5 different versions all emailed around and not synchronized instead?
  We have that anyway. Every day there is another Excel spreadsheet unleashed that some guy cobbled together to pull in data from twelve other spreadsheets and two external data feeds that he gave to his buddies and now he has left the company and the hard coded credentials he had embedded in the macro no longer works. We are called to "fix" the problem and it needs to be done in less than 10 minutes for a report that is critical to the business.
  
  Yes, this happens because people do not have time to wait for I.T. and some BS policy on databases. This causes a lot more headaches.
  
  Who said anything about waiting for IT? The tools and ability to create a DB in SQL are readily available and licensed. All that was needed was for them to request the SQL developer software be installed on the programmer's PC. They didn't even bother to convert the completed Access DB into a standalone binary that could be distributed to the PC. Instead they insisted we install Access on every PC in the business unit. They didn't even lock it down. Anyone who was accessing the system could make changes to it!
  
  --
  "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
15. Re:I wish... by WuphonsReach · 2012-03-19 06:16 · Score: 1
  
  Why would I want base to be Access?
  
  Because Base is horrid at letting you quickly and easily connect two different data sources together and move data from A to B. In MSAccess, you simply link to the tables and can write queries to move from one to the other, or write out to a temporary table temporarily, etc.
  
  Or the whole "can't import/export to CSV without going through Calc" nonsense?
  
  Base is a toy, and a not very useful one at that.
  
  --
  Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
16. Re:I wish... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-03-19 06:32 · Score: 1
  
  Again, I'm not totally deep on the dirty details; but it is my understanding that you can use Access as a friendly rapid frontend development tool for any database that there is an ODBC driver that makes Windows happy available for, which I think includes Oracle stuff. I'm sure that the further from the One Intended Path you travel, the uglier the subtle gotchas get; but your Access enthusiasts must really have been drinking the kool-aide if nobody was able to sneak an ODBC connection to a database that they actually wanted to deal with in the future into the picture...
17. Re:I wish... by ArhcAngel · 2012-03-19 09:14 · Score: 1
  
  You are correct. They were pulling data from an Oracle DB via ODBC to build the Access DB. They knew virtually nothing about SQL and had little desire to learn because Access was "good enough" for their needs. Except...when it wasn't
  
  --
  "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
18. Re:I wish... by jyx · 2012-03-19 10:52 · Score: 1
  
  I'm pretty sure that Access' mission in life is making it comparatively easy for people to develop database frontends(and often get in over their heads and produce some real nightmares...) not to be a database per se. Although I think that MS has been moving toward killing JET, in favor of SQL Server 3-legged-puppy edition, to make upselling to SQL server proper easier, the point is making it easy to dump some forms and buttons in place without having to be a real programmer.
  It was... However the latest ribbonified reincarnation of Access is a big bucket of wtf. Its uglier than a hat full of arseholes and as user friendly as a razor blade ice cream. Now its like some sort of bastardized excel with forms. And whilst you might be able to make a case for the ribbon tool bar on word and excel (NOOOOO! I will hate if for EVER!) it sure as hell doesn't belong on a development platform.
  (Can someone please explain to me how the new navigation thingy works? What was so hard about 'tables,views,forms,reports,code' because I'm fucked if I can find anything now.)
19. Re:I wish... by ratboy666 · 2012-03-19 14:30 · Score: 1
  
  I would like you to expand on your reply. As far as I know, linking tables in Base is just drawing a line between them. You may be right about moving data -- but doesn't Base allow SQL?
  Temporary tables, temporarily? Wouldn't that need table descriptions to be executed? I imagine that would be a bit beyond what Base is intended for.
  I thought the purpose of Base was to allow table, form, and report design. And allow links from the tables to spreadsheet and word processor.
  You can put buttons and stuff on a form and build mini-aplications as well.
  I didn't know about the CSV export issue. By the time I have a desire to do something like that, I am (usually) using PostgresQL as a data store anyway, and I don't bother with a export/import as part of a workflow. If it's a small amount of data, I usually have it in a spreadsheet anyway. So I guess I have never had the need.
  
  --
  Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
20. Re:I wish... by hey! · 2012-03-20 01:25 · Score: 1
  
  Interesting how un-Access-like the base app is. Is Access 2003's functionality that hard to duplicate?
  Having a manual?
  The problem with Base isn't that it's clunky. From my perspective sooner or later *any* product like this starts to look clunky. The problem with Base is that it's almost entirely undocumented except for a handful of "how to's".
  Take the underlying database engine: HSQL. It's actually quite a nice system. Even the rather old version that ships with LibreOffice is head and shoulders above Microsoft's JET both in correctness and standards compliance. And HSQL has pretty good documentation. So you'd think this would be a strength for Base, but it's not because Base doesn't ship all HSQL libraries and a lot of things simply don't work, like user defined functions and triggers. It's not just a lack of a GUI for them; you can't get HSQL features to work even through a database console window.
  What exactly doesn't work? We don't know *because there's no documentation*. I eagerly went to the 3.5 release notes for Base, which I reproduce here in their entirety:
  
  * Lots of bug fixes
  * Integrated PostgreSQL native driver. Will be shipped out of the box with LibreOffice 3.5. The driver is still beta-quality, but works well (and much faster than alternatives such as JDBC or ODBC) for basic features. We will continue to improve the driver in the 3.6 release cycle. (Lionel Elie Mamane)
  Now I could dig into the project website and find out what was changed, but the point of release notes is not having to do that. That's a pattern with Base. The way you figure out how or if something works in Base is to search the support forums, even if that thing is fairly basic.
  The UI of Base *is* clunky. The report editor is quite simply the worst I've ever seen, not because it fails to reproduce some kind of MS Access secret UI sauce. Actually those bits aren't bad. The Base report editor fails on basic user interface operations. Simply selecting report elements and placing them where you want them to go is an exercise in frustration. But that wouldn't deter me from using Base. It's HSQL being crippled in undocumented ways that's the deal-killer for me.
  I recently evaluated Base for a pro-bono client who needed and access-like platform for providing volunteers with data entry and reporting capabilities on their own computers. On the face of it Base would appear to be ideal, but after spending over a week trying to find ways around Base's limitations that would not become a support nightmare, my recommendation was to stick with Access.
  
  --
  Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Finally get good doc support? by Murdoch5 · 2012-03-19 02:02 · Score: 5, Informative

I'm a Libre Office fan, it's one of the only good office solutions on the market as it's free and cross platform, something Microsoft Office can't say for itself;. My only lasting big peeve is that Libre can't seem to open a docx document with out having formatting / rendering issues. It also can't copy charts from a doc / docx and keep the chart in tact. Other then that's it's a bullet proof office suite, does any one have this issue or have a fix for this issue?
1. Re:Finally get good doc support? by denis-The-menace · 2012-03-19 02:50 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  It might have to do with MS not releasing how OOXML does some things like âoeAuto Space like Word 95â.
  MS also has 2 versions of OOXML:
  -OOXML original flavour (what current version of MsOffice writes)
  -OOXML ISO-flavour (version of OOXML that MS was able to buy an ISO standard for.)
  I don't know which version LO supports.
  
  --
  Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
2. Re:Finally get good doc support? by JohnnyBGod · 2012-03-19 03:22 · Score: 2
  
  My pet peeve is really on Calc. Why the hell can't I merge cells which were previously merged?
3. Re:Finally get good doc support? by Murdoch5 · 2012-03-19 03:37 · Score: 1
  
  I know what you mean! I forgot about that but it's a small issue.
4. Re:Finally get good doc support? by Ihmhi · 2012-03-19 03:58 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  OpenOffice had the same problem and probably still does.
  I'm sure I'll be modded down into oblivion for saying the following, but it bears repeating and it's true, so... yeah. I really don't care if a bunch of people want to be shut out from hearing something true but uncomfortable.
  The inability to nail down problems like this is one of the reasons open source is not always taken seriously in the business world. You can't claim to be a good alternative to the paid thing if your product doesn't do what it's supposed to do. Companies (and many individuals) need close to 100% reliability as possible. Too many FOSS projects seem to have people focused on geeky technical details (we made it 5% more RAM efficient!) and less so on user-friendliness or functionality.
  I've tried to introduce people to OpenOffice (and LibreOffice after they forked from OO). I've had more than a few instances where a friend tries to open an old college assignment or something in OO/LO and the formatting is completely fucked. They deride it as being completely unusable when said document would open just fine in any version of Microsoft Office from that year or later, and inquire about pricing or where to grab a bootleg.
  I mean, we all know that usability and function should win? If something has the features the majority of people want and make it easy as shit to use, they're going to take over the market. This is why the iPod and iPad are so successful compared to their competitors - they make it shiny, and they make it easy. Lots of open source software (specifically, all of the stuff marketed as "alternatives" to commercial products: OO/LO, Linux and its distros, GIMP, etc.) fails miserably at both and they're never going to gain any ground until they remedy that.
  (Hoo boy, I just said Apple was better than open source software at something. I had better stock up on the KY for the reaming I'm about to get in downmods.)
  P.S., I used OpenOffice and now use LibreOffice in my home on all of my computers and I love it. It's great when you create documents natively in it. It just isn't always that great when opening docs from other programs, but I'm a technically-savvy person and I can adjust. The layperson can not.
  
  --
  Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
5. Re:Finally get good doc support? by Clarious · 2012-03-19 04:00 · Score: 0
  
  OOXML standard is a few dozen megabytes, and that is without the scripting part. While OpenDocument standard is a 7,4 Mb zip file. It isn't suprising that LO couldn't support OOXML properly.
6. Re:Finally get good doc support? by Murdoch5 · 2012-03-19 04:16 · Score: 1
  
  You shouldn't get reamed out for that, it's true and I can agree to every word you said. I'm in a small program at University of 4 people, we have 6 profs in total. Everyone in the program knows I use Linux on my Computers for numerous reasons but for the short version because it works. I have to use Libre office because Microsoft Office just isn't a viable solution for me. I know it can run using crossover but that's not a program I want to buy when I can just use Libre. For the most part documents and power points open perfectly fine with no issue. The issues come up when I'm sent documents that either have crazy formatting applied or some kind of embedded data in the document. I've ask thats everyone just save everything in doc or ppt etc... format and that no one uses crazy formatting. For the most part maybe 90%+ of the time there is no issue, it's the 10% that bothers me, all you have to do is to select the doc format when you save or the ppt format and there will be no issue.
7. Re:Finally get good doc support? by Ihmhi · 2012-03-19 04:32 · Score: 1
  
  You shouldn't get reamed out for that
  But I will (and you probably will, too). I already have a bit, judging by the comment history. Talking about Linux or FOSS here in anything other than a positive light is tantamount to sacrilege. It'd be as if I went to the Apple community and called Steve Jobs anything other than a technological revolutionary. It's not a big deal, though - every community has its unreasonable fanatics.
  
  --
  Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
8. Re:Finally get good doc support? by jones_supa · 2012-03-19 04:48 · Score: 1
  
  I've tried to introduce people to OpenOffice (and LibreOffice after they forked from OO). I've had more than a few instances where a friend tries to open an old college assignment or something in OO/LO and the formatting is completely fucked.
  Works other ways too: last autumn a schoolwork doc of mine including charts and line art was all Looney Tunes when afterwards viewed in MS Word. For this kind of quirks LibreOffice is too dangerous to be used in the real world.
  The thing is, as a word processor, LO is excellent. But the compatibility with Word needs more work regarding the accuracy how documents are displayed and opened/saved. This is important thing to get right.
9. Re:Finally get good doc support? by Microlith · 2012-03-19 05:03 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  It's hilarious how people bash LO for not being 100% compatible with what is effectively an undocumented, proprietary format that shifts greatly between versions. Even OOXML is deeply tied into Microsoft internals and features a ridiculously large spec full of binary blobs. Seriously, I'd buy the criticisms if the all of the formats were open and fully documented but virtually every criticism is specific to undocumented formats that the vendors leverage to hinder competitors from encroaching on their market share.
  The rest of your arguments are off topic for the subject at hand.
  
  I had better stock up on the KY for the reaming I'm about to get in downmods.
  Ironically, if I were to downmod you rather than post, it'd be because of this silly passive-aggressive statement.
10. Re:Finally get good doc support? by JasterBobaMereel · 2012-03-19 05:21 · Score: 1
  
  My experience is that it is MSWord that is incompatible, I have fixed broken Word documents using LibreOffice to get them to open in Word ... and corrected layout issues in LibreOffice because I could not fix them in Word
  
  --
  Puteulanus fenestra mortis
11. Re:Finally get good doc support? by jasno · 2012-03-19 05:50 · Score: 1
  
  I tried using calc the other day to deal with a table of hex values. The built-in hex2dec() function couldn't handle a leading '0x'! I tried working around it with a custom function written in basic and ran into endless problems dealing with the poorly documented API/language.
  The word processor is fine for basic work, but for spreadsheets I'll stick with the copy of MS-Office provided by my employer.
  
  --
  
  http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
12. Re:Finally get good doc support? by antdude · 2012-03-19 06:47 · Score: 1
  
  Ditto. It's funny that even old, updated Office 2000 SR-3(?) with converter packs, does a good job handling with all newer Office documents. LibreOffice and OpenOffice still can't. :(
  
  --
  Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
13. Re:Finally get good doc support? by rastos1 · 2012-03-19 08:21 · Score: 1
  
  The inability to nail down problems like this is one of the reasons open source is not always taken seriously in the business world. You can't claim to be a good alternative to the paid thing if your product doesn't do what it's supposed to do.
  
  Let me explain that to you: OpenOffice/LibreOffice is supposed to allow word processing, creating and editing spreadsheets and presentations. It is not a product supposed to import Microsoft files. Once you accept that, you have to say that OOo/LOo do what they are supposed to do. And they do it well.
14. Re:Finally get good doc support? by Ihmhi · 2012-03-19 08:28 · Score: 2
  
  It's hilarious how people bash LO for not being 100% compatible with what is effectively an undocumented, proprietary format that shifts greatly between versions.
  ...that nearly every business, government, university, high school, and grade school in the world uses.
  Use, .doc, .docx, OOXML, etc. are fucked, but they are the (unfortunate) standard. And if LO/OO can't render them properly then they are all but useless in those situations, which is honestly the majority of places you would use a word processor.
  And I'm not passive agressive. You're passive agressive! And kind of a poopy head! So there. d=
  
  --
  Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
15. Re:Finally get good doc support? by Ihmhi · 2012-03-19 08:31 · Score: 1
  
  Let me explain that to you: OpenOffice/LibreOffice is supposed to allow word processing, creating and editing spreadsheets and presentations. It is not a product supposed to import Microsoft files. Once you accept that, you have to say that OOo/LOo do what they are supposed to do. And they do it well.
  I... I am aware of this. Perhaps you did not read my post in its entirety?
  
  P.S., I used OpenOffice and now use LibreOffice in my home on all of my computers and I love it. It's great when you create documents natively in it. It just isn't always that great when opening docs from other programs, but I'm a technically-savvy person and I can adjust. The layperson can not.
  The problem isn't one person using LO/OO. It's someone else using Word and sending a document to someone who uses LO/OO. Even if you can get them to put in the effort to change it to a different format (and if it's some luddite manager up in a corner office, you can forget that shit ever happening), the majority of people will not and you are still out in the cold.
  I also take issue with the whole "it's not supposed to support Microsoft files". That has been built into OO for a very long time and in fact was touted as one of its advantages when it started getting popular. "Use OO! Open any Microsoft file in our program!" I guess they left out "and it won't render correctly."
  
  --
  Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
16. Re:Finally get good doc support? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 08:46 · Score: 0
  
  You've got an unusual experience. I have documents from 1995 that open up perfectly with modern versions of Word. I have been on multiple different computers at uni labs, internet cafes, etc. If they have Word, it works perfectly.
  LibreOffice will break as soon as you reach a complexity threshold of having a table in the document.
17. Re:Finally get good doc support? by markdavis · 2012-03-19 09:59 · Score: 1
  
  One thing people need to keep in mind is that POORLY FORMATTED documents will usually fall apart when anything is changed. Just because something looks good on the screen at the moment, doesn't mean proper formatted was used.
  For example, a document that did not use tab stops, but someone just used a bunch of spaces to position something- if the destination system doesn't have the EXACT SAME FONT, the spacing will change and the wrapping might fall apart. Same thing with lines- it is SO common for people to MANUALLY press hard returns to try and get to a new page, instead of using a hard page. Change the font just slightly... BAM, all the pages look wrong.
  Yes, there are some things that OO/LO don't quite get right 100% of the time (bullets seem to be one of those things). But the *majority* of the issues I see when something doesn't look right is because the source document is crap. These are often the same documents that *ALSO* look like crap when opened in a different version of MS-Office or one with different fonts.
18. Re:Finally get good doc support? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-20 01:41 · Score: 0
  
  And if LO/OO can't render them properly then they are all but useless in those situations, which is honestly the majority of places you would use a word processor.
  Newer versions of Microsoft Office do not correctly render their own documents from a previous version. Transferring a document with the same version with a different printer doesn't render the document correctly. Therefore Microsoft Office is completely useless in all these situations.
19. Re:Finally get good doc support? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-20 08:05 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, that's hilarious. An old Microsoft program with updates from Microsoft can read the file format in a newer version of that product and an open source program without the benefit of code or proper documentation of that format can't do as well, you'd think it would be the other way round wouldn't you?
20. Re:Finally get good doc support? by treeves · 2012-03-26 11:36 · Score: 1
  
  It wasn't passive aggressive. It was a common strategy on Slashdot (I've seen it several times and it always seems to work) for pre-empting downmods and gaining up mods. I'm not sure why it works but it does.
  
  --
  ...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
So when will Open Office merge? by Bananatree3 · 2012-03-19 02:05 · Score: 3, Insightful

The Document Foundation is eating Open Office's lunch. When will Open Office merge with the Document Foundation?
1. Re:So when will Open Office merge? by Kjella · 2012-03-19 02:59 · Score: 2
  
  As I understand it LibreOffice nabs anything useful from OpenOffice anyway since it open source and LibreOffice doesn't need any copyright assignment. So in practice I just expect it to slowly die off like xfree86 did after everyone continued on as xorg. Maybe they get the name back or maybe they don't, but it'll practically be a rename not a merger.
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Thank you, TDF! by dskoll · 2012-03-19 02:09 · Score: 1

I hate office suites, but they're a necessary evil. And I'm beginning to mellow and even like certain parts of LibreOffice like the spreadsheet component.
Thanks for all the hard work, TDF guys and gals.
1. Re:Thank you, TDF! by b0bby · 2012-03-19 03:23 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I just installed the new version because I needed to work on an old Visio diagram & I had read that Draw supports Visio imports. It didn't actually support the ancient version I was dealing with, but I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to just duplicate the old diagram in Draw, connectors & all. Big thumbs up!
2. Re:Thank you, TDF! by markdavis · 2012-03-19 10:07 · Score: 1
  
  Please note that there is almost NO difference in LO Draw and OO Draw. But your discovery is typical... most people have NO IDEA how powerful Draw is. It is actually quite useful and flexible.
3. Re:Thank you, TDF! by treeves · 2012-03-26 11:38 · Score: 1
  
  Is it better than Inkscape?
  
  --
  ...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
4. Re:Thank you, TDF! by markdavis · 2012-03-26 13:27 · Score: 1
  
  It depends on what one means by "better". I would say there are features in both that are better than the others. The primary advantage of Draw is that it is contained in the same suite as the other OpenOffice apps. So the menus, use, etc are consistent and easier to learn. It is also more tightly integrated with the rest. But IInkscape has certainly progressed beyond the capabilities of Draw.
  I drew a scale, many-layer vector diagram of a huge facility in Draw. With connected objects, snap grid, etc. Most people just have no idea how many features are in Draw, since many are hidden in non-visible buttons and menus.
Quick question by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 02:10 · Score: 5, Insightful

Did they, finally, remove that nonsensical Java dependency?
It made strategical sense as long as it was Sun's baby. But, technically, it really is just a huge "WTF?"
1. Re:Quick question by dkleinsc · 2012-03-19 02:34 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  According to the System Requirements documentation, LibreOffice will run without Java, but still has some features that make use of it.
  
  --
  I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
2. Re:Quick question by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 02:35 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Work is under way, but it's a non-trivial task since large bits of the code are in Java, most notably in Base. The rest will as far as I know run without it but you might get errors when you try to use some functionality. Patience, my friend.
3. Re:Quick question by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 02:36 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Not yet, there is only so fast they can remove it without breaking working features, they are making progress though. Among other gradual improvements help has just been made Java independent and there has been some rather extensive work on wizards, although I understand the latter is not yet good enough to use for end users.
4. Re:Quick question by twocows · 2012-03-19 02:38 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  That's the way OpenOffice was as well. But Java was loaded by default if it was available, which slowed down performance. That behavior should be removed if the Java features aren't commonly used (they aren't) and it gives a big performance hit (it does).
5. Re:Quick question by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 03:38 · Score: 0
  
  On my machine, Java takes 200 ms to load and execute a simple program (e.g., native2ascii). I doubt that this makes a big performance difference.
6. Re:Quick question by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 03:42 · Score: 0
  
  >On my machine, Java takes 200 ms to load and execute a simple program (e.g., native2ascii). I doubt that this makes a big performance difference.
  Your machine and comment are irrelevant.
7. Re:Quick question by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 03:45 · Score: 1
  
  You means, when you have the memory to spare for what is universally agreed to be a large JVM by any reasonable measure. On older machines, dragging in such dependencies can completely kill performance. So please, put things into proper perspective. Simply saying, "well it works for me", means exactly that and no more. In other words, you wasted our time.
8. Re:Quick question by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 05:03 · Score: 0
  
  I just chose custom install and left it out. Apparently some features need it, but I've yet to notice anything missing. Obviously those features aren't particularly significant.
9. Re:Quick question by assertation · 2012-03-19 07:44 · Score: 1
  
  The java features were the wizards ( the GUIs for them ). If you do anything more than type a note you would miss their presence.
  Seriously, they should write new things, fast things, to replace that stuff.
10. Re:Quick question by galanom · 2012-03-19 13:16 · Score: 1
  
  That's why gentoo use flags exist! :D
11. Re:Quick question by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-20 14:26 · Score: 0
  
  No, your machine and comment are irrelevant.
12. Re:Quick question by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-22 04:08 · Score: 0
  
  So the LibreOffice developers should rewrite what's probably tens or hundreds of thousands of lines of code to save a couple of seconds of startup time on hardware that's an order of magnitude worse than the current low-end, or a negligible amount on current low-end hardware. That makes about as much sense as adding back the OS/2 code to support the Packard Bell you keep in your mom's basement.
  There are reasons to complain about Java support. That the JVM is too large isn't one of them.
Hope not by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 02:49 · Score: 0

I hope they never merge, and instead each project takes a different path and we end up with two great choices.
There's fungus among us! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 02:54 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Once again, you are an excellent fungus. Good comment.
1. Re:There's fungus among us! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 03:38 · Score: 1
  
  Trust the fungus.
Before the LibreOffice Bashing Begins by eternaldoctorwho · 2012-03-19 03:49 · Score: 0

For all those who are questions why we should use LibreOffice instead of something proprietary like MS Office, I just want to leave this obligatory XKCD here.
1. Re:Before the LibreOffice Bashing Begins by galanom · 2012-03-19 13:30 · Score: 1
  
  I've quit MSOffice at 97 version for OOo ~1.1 and I've never heard such an argument.
  There's not about price or freedom. OOo/LO is technically superior for the average user. I don't care if it lacks a special feature of MSO. It had pdf support from 1.x versions which Word97 lacked -- a deal breaker, it had infinite spell checkers, not just English and the local language, and above all, it has a consistent and logical, predictable UI. After I quit Windows in early 00's, it was not an issue at all, since MSO doesn't run on Linux natively.
  For anything more than a 1-page letter, I use latex anyway.
Calc and VBA. by CrashNBrn · 2012-03-19 04:58 · Score: -1, Flamebait

Useless. Calc can't even handle a simple VBA script using If/elseif.

If Cell.Row = pBegin(0) Then
'Do Something
Elseif count = 1 then
'Do Something
Elseif count > 2 then
'Do Something
End if

ERROR: BASIC Syntax Error. Expected: ,.

ALT+F11 doesn't open the Script Editor.
ALT+Q doesn't close the script Editor, when it opens Automatically when it can't understand valid VBA.

I can't actually find any way to manually open the Script Editor to access the code.

I don't see how this is remotely close to "ready for business".
Paying $100-$200 for an Office Suite only needs to save you 2-4 hours of time over the lifetime of it's license to make the purchase cost effective. I can certainly see losing far more time than that trying to troubleshoot problems that do NOT exist when using MS Office 2000, XP, or even 2003.

Prior to this most recent "Script Error", the Interpreter was claiming a completely working script's if/elseif blocks weren't closed.
1. Re:Calc and VBA. by ratboy666 · 2012-03-19 05:36 · Score: 1
  
  OpenOffice/LibreOffice is not Microsoft Office.
  Now, in OOo/LO, try
  Tools/Macros/Organize Macros/LibreOffice Basic (or Python, JavaScript, BeanShell).
  If you've choosen LibreOffice (since this major discussion is about LibreOffice 3.5.1 and the minor discussion appears to be about "VBA" or LibreOffice BASIC), you will see My Macros/LibreOffice Macros, and the individual documents. Under each of these, you will see library names, module names, and then the macros.
  I assume you knew this, given that you were trying out the macro!
  Using My Macros/Standard/Module1/Main, I entered your code.
  REM ***** BASIC *****
  Sub Main
  If Cell.Row = pBegin(0) Then
  'Do Something
  Elseif count = 1 then
  'Do Something
  Elseif count > 2 then
  'Do Something
  End if
  End Sub
  (including the boilerplate produced by LibreOffice). You are in a combined editor/debugger IDE, by the way. Now "Cell.Row" and "pBegin(0)" doesn't work when I run this thing. Instead of converting to a LibreOffice script, I replaced with 0 = 0. You claimed syntax errors, which I never received (with your code exactly, or with the 0 = 0 replacement).
  Script accepted and runs. And, I know I got it right, because I cut&pasted from your post.
  You can redress the menus, the keyboard or toolbars. "Edit Macros" is an available function. These can be individually edited by application (with the BASIC IDE considered its own application). These features are under Tools/Customize.
  "I can't actually find any way to manually open the Script Editor to access the code."
  I don't think you are asking what you think you are asking... You had to access the Script Editor manually in order to enter the original script. Please clarify.
  LibreOffice is not Microsoft Office. I personally prefer LibreOffice -- you may not.
  
  --
  Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
2. Re:Calc and VBA. by CrashNBrn · 2012-03-19 06:03 · Score: 1
  
  It is an existing Document Set, that I copied from Vancouver to Vancouver (OO) --- So that I could open pre-existing Excel.xls workbooks to see how Calc would handle them.
  With Further investigating, it appears Calc is attempting to Interpret code that isn't supposed to run --- Older versions of functions (backed up) before significant changes were made to the functions. So the interpreter is bailing cuz unused code has errors in it. As I stated the Script Editor was opening due to interpreter errors. When I would close the Script Editor, there is no way to manually re-open it.
  "Edit Macros" - does not exist in the Tools Menu, or any of Tools' sub-menus.
  
  The last time I used OO's Calc, 3-4 years ago, Calc couldn't even apply background colors to cells. SO I didn't proceed any further than that.
  
  After deleting the "unused code/function" now Calc is choking on a simple Cells() query/assignment:
  
  Public Function Toggle_Stat_Increase()
  If (Cells(1, 1) = 1) Then
  Cells(1, 1) = 0
  Else
  Cells(1, 1) = 1
  End If
  End Function
  
  BASIC runtime error.
  '1'
  Type: com.sun.star.uno.RuntimeException
  Message: unsatisfied query for interface of type ooo.vba.excel.XWorksheet!
3. Re:Calc and VBA. by ratboy666 · 2012-03-19 07:21 · Score: 2
  
  Calc doesn't do VBA. Different Macro semantics. If you want help in the conversion, you can contact me at fred (dot) weigel (at) zylog (dot) ca.
  Assuming you want to go it alone:
  ActiveWorkBook is replaced with ThisComponent
  ActiveSheet is replaced with ThisComponent.CurrentController.ActiveSheet
  ActiveCell is replaced with ThisComponent.getCurrentSelection
  etc.
  try http://www.openoffice.org/api/docs/common/ref/index-files/index-1.html
  Basically, OOo BASIC macros are really not that useful for beginners -- there is a lot of crufty stuff.
  msgbox WorksheetFunctions.Average(Range("A1:A5"))
  is replaced by something like
  Dim oSheet, FuncService
  FuncService = createunoservice("com.sun.star.sheet.FunctionAccess")
  oSheet = ThisComponent.CurrentController.ActiveSheet
  msgbox FuncService.callFunction("AVERAGE", _
  array(oSheet.getCellRangeByName("A1:A5")))
  As you can see, the VBA can be replaced, but it's not easy.
  What version of OpenOffice/LibreOffice are you using? Did you (or someone) use Tools/Customize to delete Tools/Macros? (possible, and I might do it for a delivery platform). In which case, use Tools/Customize, and select Menus. Select "Tools" from the Menu pull-down and add the Macro Editor again. Or, reinstall.
  
  --
  Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
4. Re:Calc and VBA. by ratboy666 · 2012-03-19 07:28 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry for replying to my own post. Note that I don't do this for free -- it's a commercial service. There should be some other benefit for your selection of OOs over Microsoft Office. Simply saving a couple of bucks on licensing won't make up our conversion fee. However, platform support, ability to control both the app and platform layers, ability to write extensions in other languages, whatever, may justify the conversion.
  
  --
  Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
5. Re:Calc and VBA. by galanom · 2012-03-19 13:42 · Score: 1
  
  Wow!
  Also, in Linux, typing "del *.*" says "zsh: command not found: del".
  So Linux is so buggy that it is, as you said, USELESS. It can't even handle a simple delete command using del/erase.
  Like if your English would not work eg in Spain. That's because Spain is a defective, useless country. Right?
6. Re:Calc and VBA. by CrashNBrn · 2012-03-19 13:50 · Score: 1
  
  *Chuckle* Ah, I got flamebaited.
  
  Can't question Open Source on Slashdot, I guess.
  
  It was actually a valid question I thought. I didn't realize OO/Libre Office was so broken that it couldn't understand VBA. I don't see how any IT Manager could convince Upper Management to switch over from MS Office to OO/Libre when VBA is broken out of the box.
7. Re:Calc and VBA. by galanom · 2012-03-19 16:53 · Score: 1
  
  Uh... You aren't the smartest kid in the family, are you?
  OO is NOT supposed be an MSOffice clone. It is a DIFFERENT piece of software dammit. It is NOT a drop-in replacement. Never was, never will be, and it was not advertized as such.
  It's not that VBE support is "broken", it's that it does not exist at all, as also does not exist any support for Clippy, Facebook, speech recognition, cloud integration, Windows Scripting, etc.
  If you rely on VBE stay with MSOffice, you IT Manager, Upper Management, Supreme Management and Ultimate Emperor.
  If your company has so many Managers, and Upper Managers, and Supreme Council, it has some shitload of money to pay $200/pc to Microsoft every 5 years.
  And don't talk about open-source, I don't think that companies are so idealists.
  If GNU was a copy of Microsoft products, I swear to my life, I would switch to OSX.
8. Re:Calc and VBA. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 23:39 · Score: 0
  
  I didn't realize OO/Libre Office was so broken that it couldn't understand VBA.
  Yes, 'Broken' in the same way a C compiler is broken because it can't compile Fortran.
Repeatability by coats · 2012-03-19 06:04 · Score: 1

It's my experience that the only repeatability you have with printing from MS Office is on the same computer with the same fonts (no new font-installs). If you're lucky. Change computers, and repeatability just will not happen.
Otherwise, print-repeatability is out the window.
You were saying...?

--
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
The biggest problem is not the UI by hackertourist · 2012-03-19 07:59 · Score: 1

OpenOffice faithfully replicates the MS Office way of doing things, even if it is the wrong way.
Text styles for instance.
Every sensible program assigns a style to a paragraph, and a style update will change all paragraphs that have this style assigned. Same for character styles.
MS Word messed this up royally. Half the documents I open have all paragraphs use the Normal style with different customisations on every paragraph. Cleaning this up is a nightmare. And the list goes on.
1. Re:The biggest problem is not the UI by Dog-Cow · 2012-03-19 08:57 · Score: 1
  
  Word can work that way, but it's not obvious or easy (to me, anyway) so no one does it.
Still no Outlook? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-19 11:06 · Score: 0

Still no outlook equivalent! And evolution simply doesn't cut it when communicating with an exchange server. No Address Book, Calendar syncing etc. Open/Libre Office development is sooooooooooo slow.
1. Re:Still no Outlook? by westyvw · 2012-03-19 17:08 · Score: 1
  
  What are you talking about? I have evolution linked with calendars and addresses. Trolling are we? Maybe YOU are slow?
Pretty good compatability by firefrei · 2012-03-19 15:33 · Score: 1

Sometimes I'm amazed at the compatibility which DOES exist in LibreOffice for reading MS Office files. As an example, at work we have a travel budget calculator in the form of an .xls (Excel spreadsheet) file. Out of curiosity I loaded it in LibreOffice 3.5.1 and it worked almost perfectly - it even understood all the macros. The only stuff wrong were some slight misalignment of some labels but I doubt anyone would notice or care since it's an internal document. Of course I have MS Office here as well but it was still an interesting test of the capability for reading such files in LibreOffice.

--
I remember when Linux was good... too...