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LibreOffice 6.2 Brings New Interfaces, Performance Improvements To the Open Source Office Suite (techrepublic.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: New interface styles and feature improvements are available in version 6.2 of LibreOffice -- the most popular open-source office suite -- released Thursday by The Document Foundation. As with any software update, bug fixes and feature enhancements are present, making this release a significant upgrade, particularly for users coming from Microsoft Office, or working with files created with those programs. LibreOffice now supports SVG-based icons for toolbars in the Breeze, Colibre, and Elementary icon sets as an experimental feature, to better support HiDPI displays increasingly found in notebook PCs. The Elementary icon set was also improved significantly, adding a 32px PNG version, and fixing inconsistencies between the 16, 24, and 32px versions, as well as adding more icons across the set to prevent reverting to defaults. In LibreOffice 6.2, the "Tabbed" interface is now available for Writer, Calc, Impress, and Draw, and is considered sufficiently stable to be a default option. This interface mimics the oft-maligned "Ribbon interface" in Office 2007. The "traditional" Office-style toolbar is default, though the Tabbed interface can be enabled through the "View > User Interface" menus.

153 comments

  1. LibreOffice 365 by trb · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm waiting for LibreOffice 365, with the $0/year subscription fee.

    1. Re:LibreOffice 365 by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'm waiting for them to just move to AbiWord as an OOWriter replacement.

    2. Re:LibreOffice 365 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm waiting for them to bring back XP support, offer the parts separately, and dump the bloated, slow .Net/python mess. 400 MB for an office suite is nuts. But I live with it. At least it allows me to open docs and write an occasional doc when I need to. It's pretty good for free. But it would never succeed as a commercial product.

    3. Re:LibreOffice 365 by sheramil · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm waiting for the ability to apply a style to a sentence, and not have that style applied to the entire paragraph.

    4. Re:LibreOffice 365 by DarkRookie2 · · Score: 2

      Office 2016 is 800MB before install and 1.24GB after

      --
      http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
    5. Re:LibreOffice 365 by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm waiting for the ability to apply a style to a sentence, and not have that style applied to the entire paragraph.

      Make all your paragraphs only one sentence long -- problem solved. :-)

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    6. Re:LibreOffice 365 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Emacs has this: Meta-L Meta-O Alt+0365

    7. Re:LibreOffice 365 by PostPhil · · Score: 4, Informative

      You joke, but they're half way there:
      https://www.libreoffice.org/do...

    8. Re:LibreOffice 365 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      You can already do that, and you have been able to do that for a long time. I use it all the time in my technical writing. It's very handy when you have things like inline code samples that you want to have styled all the same.

      It's called a Character Style and applies to things that are within a paragraph. Use a Paragraph Style if you want to apply the same style to a paragraph or other block of text.

      In my technical writing, let's say I want to describe the getopt() function. I might include some sample program that shows how to implement getopt() in a program. For that block of code, I use a Paragraph Style. But there are instances where I need to mention the getopt() function within a paragraph. I could just use bold for every instance of that inline code. But what if I later want to change it so that it's not bold, but uses the same monospace font that I use for the code blocks? I just update the Character Style once and LibreOffice applies that style everywhere.

    9. Re:LibreOffice 365 by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      I'm willing to take the hit for the "format as table" feature that Excel has.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    10. Re:LibreOffice 365 by reboot246 · · Score: 1

      I just tried that and I see that I can apply a style to one sentence, one word, or even one letter within a paragraph without LO applying it to the whole paragraph. I wonder why yours is different.

    11. Re:LibreOffice 365 by kurkosdr · · Score: 2

      Realistically, a "cloud-enhanced" version of Libre office with collaboration features and seamless server-side storage would be a nice way for LibreOffice to raise money.

    12. Re:LibreOffice 365 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, grandma, I'm afraid you're stuck unless you can figure out how to arbitrarily select text like we've been able to do since the early 90s.

    13. Re:LibreOffice 365 by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      ^^^ Mod parent up!

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    14. Re:LibreOffice 365 by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      I'm waiting for LibreOffice 365, with the $0/year subscription fee.

      And your money back if you aren't satisfied.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    15. Re:LibreOffice 365 by pigsycyberbully · · Score: 0

      I used to use AbiWord a lot! you can create nice compact documents that office, would take 3 pages to create the same thing. They were one of the first I think to do "localised" languages. I discovered them on a TurboLinux desktop. Turbolinux I think was some Salt Lake? United States company who promoted their products through shareware in the shops in a yellow box with a vicious -looking penguin on the box. I had a soft spot for Turbolinux, you had to register with them with your e-mail. One of their employees sent me a nasty forwarded e-mail because he was being "layoff." I would have told him to fuck off nowadays but I was a nicer person in those days.

    16. Re:LibreOffice 365 by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 4, Funny

      You can already do that, and you have been able to do that for a long time. I use it all the time in my technical writing. It's very handy when you have things like inline code samples that you want to have styled all the same.

      It's called a Character Style and applies to things that are within a paragraph. Use a Paragraph Style if you want to apply the same style to a paragraph or other block of text.

      Dammit, now he's going to have to come up with a different reason that he hates LO.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    17. Re:LibreOffice 365 by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      I just tried that and I see that I can apply a style to one sentence, one word, or even one letter within a paragraph without LO applying it to the whole paragraph. I wonder why yours is different.

      Because he's never used LO.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    18. Re:LibreOffice 365 by rtb61 · · Score: 0

      Why not take the FREEDOM CHALLENGE and https://www.libreoffice.org/. What can you lose but what I hope is a reassuring guess, fifty years of paying rent to access your content, well not your content in 365 but M$'s content, they own it and you can only rent access to it (gees dude, even your children and grand children and great grand children and on down the line will all have to pay rent to access your content).

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    19. Re:LibreOffice 365 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LibreOffice Writer has Convert Text to Table, I use it all the time.

    20. Re:LibreOffice 365 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "... LibreOfiice 365" So you want LibreOffice but tied to "the Cloud"? Why? You do realize "cloud" is marketingspeak for "someone else's computer." And which cloud would it be? Go-ogle or Ama-zon, cause RedMond won't.

    21. Re:LibreOffice 365 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dammit, now he's going to have to come up with a different reason that he hates LO.

      Using Character Style is not an acceptable solution! We absolutely positively need to have Sentence Styles! Now!

    22. Re:LibreOffice 365 by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Dammit, now he's going to have to come up with a different reason that he hates LO.

      It doesn't have The Ribbon.

      Oh, bugger...

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    23. Re:LibreOffice 365 by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      Dammit, now he's going to have to come up with a different reason that he hates LO.

      It doesn't have The Ribbon.

      Oh, bugger...

      Indeed! The ribbon was what got me to look at OO back in the day.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    24. Re: LibreOffice 365 by mino31 · · Score: 1

      not have that style applied to the entire paragraph. https://xender.pro/ https://discord.software/ https://omegle.onl/

    25. Re:LibreOffice 365 by strikethree · · Score: 1

      I'm waiting for the ability to apply a style to a sentence, and not have that style applied to the entire paragraph.

      Make all your paragraphs only one sentence long -- problem solved. :-)

      But but but... I was told that part of the definition of 'paragraph' was that it was comprised of at least 3 sentences. :(

      Honestly though, the bug being described seems like an odd bug. A structural definition is not as black and white as it needs to be, or else it is a simple programming error that just isn't being fixed... but the second option seems unlikely.

      --
      "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
    26. Re:LibreOffice 365 by strikethree · · Score: 1

      LOL. So it is a bug in understanding, not a bug in programming. I kind of figured it had be something like what you described. Nicely done. :)

      --
      "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
  2. But by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When do we get the subscription model like Microsoft Office? This is 2019 people. If I can't have my subscription apps talk to AI API on my other cloud apps so that I can stay always connected to the social matters I need to be outraged about while in my office app than what's the point of even being a ha1b woman who identifies as a black man identifying as a gay transgender Latino woman in IT?

  3. OMG! Tabs! by DarkRookie2 · · Score: 2

    This is good. I never used anything before Word 2007 so the tab grouping are a lot more familiar to me.

    --
    http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
    1. Re:OMG! Tabs! by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 4, Funny

      I had hoped that Microsoft's patents on the ribbon interface would prevent anyone else from attempting to inflict it on their users. It looks like maybe I was wrong.

    2. Re:OMG! Tabs! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm surprised we didnt get stuck with a hamburger menu that holds everything.

    3. Re:OMG! Tabs! by DarkRookie2 · · Score: 1

      Fuck that thing
      At least with the tabs I can set them up the way I want.

      --
      http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
    4. Re:OMG! Tabs! by Immerman · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well, at least it's not the default. And it may turn out that the problem isn't the "Ribbon" strategy per-se, but that Microsoft's implementation of it is miserably bad. It would hardly be the first time they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    5. Re:OMG! Tabs! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had hoped that Microsoft's patents on the ribbon interface would prevent anyone else from attempting to inflict it on their users. It looks like maybe I was wrong.

      There's always OpenOffice as a fallback.

  4. Icons? Reallly? by cellocgw · · Score: 3, Insightful

    With all the important capabilities that need to be in a doc processing suite, you decided that FancyShinyIcons was what matters?

    What I want, and would have hoped most users want, is improved workflow and an absolute minimum of changes to the interface. Why learn a new set of icons when we just finished learning the last set of icons? Why deal with commands getting rearranged in Ribbon submenus? Let us do our work and just facilitate interfaces and filetype conversions.

    --
    https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
    1. Re: Icons? Reallly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then code it yourself, duh

    2. Re:Icons? Reallly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      True. All the bells and whistles do nothing but slow down performance. I still use an older version that is not as slow.

    3. Re:Icons? Reallly? by Immerman · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I can't say I disapprove of these icon changes, and it's certainly worth noting that new icons are likely made by artists rather than programmers - it's possible some programmers are wearing two hats, but in general the man-hours spent on icons, documentation, etc. in a big project are hours spent by contributors that you wouldn't want working on code anyway.

      I am generally annoyed with gratuitous icon changes - but in this case it seems like they (mostly) maintained recognizability, while improving legibility, which should be especially nice for those who choose to use smaller icon sizes. Can't tell you how annoyed I get about projects that go for the monochrome icon b.s. - icons are important functional components that must be easy to recognize, and they remove one of the most dramatic differentiating features for an arguable improvement in aesthetics?

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    4. Re:Icons? Reallly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Because LibreOffice probably wants to make more people happy than just the old 90's tech crowd. Like it or not, any company considering the transition to LO would probably deal with user pushback if the UI looks 20 years out of date.

    5. Re:Icons? Reallly? by mcswell · · Score: 1

      In the year 496, Rome looked 20 years out of date.

  5. Thanks for the warning by PinkyGigglebrain · · Score: 0

    I'm going to put a hold on LibreOffice updates until I get around to loading it up in a VM for testing,

    I'm all for feature and security updates but after having to deal with all the UI "improvements" in the UI's of various application (Firefox, Word, Windows, etc.) over the years I am hesitant to give up what I have become familiar with if I can avoid it.

    1. Re:Thanks for the warning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wise words. All too often the " alternative option" is code for "the way we'll force everyone to do it in the next major update". And if libreoffuce decides to inflict a ribbon on users then I guess I'm moving to openoffice.

    2. Re:Thanks for the warning by mcswell · · Score: 1

      LaTeX

    3. Re:Thanks for the warning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, LO gives you a _choice_ of UI layouts. MS's offering forces _one_ style on you while demanding annual sacrifices from your credit card.

    4. Re:Thanks for the warning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I use that for most of my work actually. *office is reserved for rare occasions where collaborating with non-tech types if publications requiring legacy formats like .docx

    5. Re:Thanks for the warning by Computershack · · Score: 1

      If only there was a way to go back to the old one..... Oh wait, there is. View->Toolbars

      --
      I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
  6. Re:The Swastika by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Who's parliament?

  7. MAKE IT LOOK COOL !!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Years ago I discussed with some OpenOffice developers telling them that OpenOffice required to have a modern look. They told me "we don't need Ribbon"... since when making look cool means to copy Microsoft's Ribbon? OpenOffice developers were very limited to have the same features of MS Office, but they never understood what "making it look cool" really means.

  8. Good for them by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm grateful to the LiberOffice folks. They're been the "Office-but-better" suite on my computers for a while now, and I'm very happy with it.

    If you use LIbreOffice (like I do), you should go donate if you can (like I do) and/or contribute to improvements if you're capable (I am not).

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:Good for them by fermion · · Score: 2
      I like the fact that there is a lot of development on the free front, both openoffie and libreoffice. I stoped using libreoffice when it broke on the Mac, and now tend to use the commercial Apple stuff or google docs for the simple stuff I do. More complex stuff I use LaTex as it tends to be technical.

      I am sure there is a business case to continue to buy MS Office, but given the cost I don't really understand why small firms would do so.

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    2. Re:Good for them by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I use LaTex

      I love LaTex. It's the one document production software that I feel really gets me since Nota Bene disappeared. I learned to use it when I was helping my mathematician wife with her PhD thesis (I was no help with the math part, but I like to make nice documents). My publications were all written in LaTex. Years later, it's still on every computer I own because if I want it to look just right, it's the best way.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    3. Re:Good for them by Immerman · · Score: 5, Informative

      >I don't really understand why small firms would do so.
      One word: compatibility.
      I'm not a fan of M.S. Office, but small firms often do business with big firms, and any digital paperwork that gets passed around will almost certainly be in MS Office format - which last I checked is neither fully documented, nor even fully compatible with their partially documented "open" format.

      LibreOffice, Google Docs, etc. mostly do a pretty good job of working with MS files - but mostly isn't perfect, and leaves open the possibility of costly mistakes, as well as introducing a steady stream of headaches and frustration from dealing with inevitable incompatibilities, with costly effects on morale.

      Plus, most new employees will already know their way around MS Office, and would require extensive training to use the alternatives. Not because they're any more difficult, but because most people seem to learn how to use their tools by rote memorization, so that any change requires them to relearn everything from scratch.

      When an Office365 subscription costs less than a day's wages per year, it's not really that hard a decision to make.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    4. Re:Good for them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ?

      https://www.notabene.com/

    5. Re:Good for them by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      I use and I like it, but I confess I haven't donated (yet). Maybe I'll go send 'em a few bucks.

      LIbreOffice is fast and clean- I wish it was the standard rather than MS Word.

      Word on Windows: Meh
      Word on Mac: Yuck

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    6. Re:Good for them by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      https://www.notabene.com/

      Honestly, they killed it when they dropped the DOS version and went with that modern Windows 95 interface that they're still using today. It's not what it once was. When I was doing my dissertation, I had every keystroke combination in my DNA. I could navigate that bitch so fast it would make your head spin.

      And I owe it all to a very great man and famous writer, Wayne Booth, who turned me on to Nota Bene in the first place. He also played a mean cello and had a heart as big as the world and the most generous mind I've ever known.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    7. Re:Good for them by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      >I don't really understand why small firms would do so. One word: compatibility.

      Cool story Bro!

      Microsoft Office isn't even compatible with itself. We used to get PowerPoint files that were done on the Windows version, annnnnd...... Nope, don't look at all the same. Weird printer business, and font issues in word processing despite supposedly identical fonts. Version differences not working, and often within one platform.

      I kept a copy of OO because it could handle that kind of stuff.

      Now I have control of some Linux, some MacOS, and some Windows system. And we don't cut Linux out of the loop, so it isn't a matter of compatibility, it's no options at all.

      So here comes LO, and the work done on any platform looks like the work done on the others,

      That's compatibility, not just saying "compatibility" Because MSO isn't even compatible with itself.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    8. Re:Good for them by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Hey, you're preaching to the choir here. If I had my choice everyone would use .ODF or some other open format and we could pick our office suite based on personal preference.

      Sadly, I'm not in charge. I'm one guy in a small firm that uses MSOffice, because they can't afford any format friction with the companies they do business with. And I can say from personal experience (because I refuse to use that tripe) that at least 20-30% of the documents that cross my desktop can't be read properly by OO, LO, or Google Docs. Fortunately I'm strictly on the receiving end of those files so I can just deal with the bad formatting and broken scripting, but trying to pretend it doesn't exist is disingenuous.

      On the other hand, I'm the guy that can usually open the files from older versions of MSO that give everyone else fits. It's the old MS treadmill, break compatibility just enough with every version to pressure everyone into upgrading regularly, and prevent the competition from being able to maintain compatibility with the current version.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    9. Re:Good for them by F.Ultra · · Score: 2

      usually when that happens (firm sends me a .doc or .docx that they want filled in) I usually fill it correctly and then send them back a .odt

    10. Re:Good for them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I like the output from LaTex. I've learned that just hypenating gets you most of the aesthetics without the miserable interface, though, so I wouldn't recommend LaTex for anything that wasn't going to be published.

    11. Re:Good for them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Great that it works for you, but if you have to create documents as (e.g. ppt files) and send them to third parties, knowing for certain that at least the most recent version of Office renders it properly is worth way more than the license fee.

      Of course I wish this weren't the case, and we use PDF for everything we can, but sometimes it just needs to be in a specific format, and if you don't have that software you're playing Russian Formatting Roulette with an important pitch or presentation. O365 is horrible rent-seeking and makes me feel dirty, but its also a trivial cost to any large organisation.

    12. Re:Good for them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Had one thing about a month ago that I had to produce for both general consumption and a guy that was probably going to use MSWord to fiddle with it. So I saved it in LO as PDF/ODF combination. Told him about that in the email; got the return that he not only could see the PDF so he knew what I was shooting for, but could open it fine in MSW. And thought that was cool, never seen it before. See, MSOfc users can learn new stuff! Even if LO users need to teach them.

    13. Re:Good for them by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

      Great that it works for you, but if you have to create documents as (e.g. ppt files) and send them to third parties, knowing for certain that at least the most recent version of Office renders it properly is worth way more than the license fee.

      But it doesn't render them properly. Between MacOS and Windows, the files most of the time need reworked. And of course, nothing for Linux.

      And the answer isn't to go Windows only. We have programs on each platform that are platform specific.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    14. Re:Good for them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh good; people sending me file types I didn't ask for makes filing them so much more convenient. Into the trash you go!

    15. Re:Good for them by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      I like the output from LaTex. I've learned that just hypenating gets you most of the aesthetics without the miserable interface, though, so I wouldn't recommend LaTex for anything that wasn't going to be published.

      Or anything that contains formulas or equations.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    16. Re:Good for them by mcswell · · Score: 1

      I'm with you more and more. For one, LaTeX does legal numbering out of the box; I've *never* been able to get it to work right in Word, all the way back to the 80s. (IANL, but so-called "legal numbering" is used in all the technical documents I've ever written.) And I can re-format the bibliography easily, by just choosing a different bibliography style.

      Not to mention, it just looks better.

    17. Re:Good for them by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      small firms often do business with big firms, and any digital paperwork that gets passed around will almost certainly be in MS Office format

      Funny, I find it's almost always PDFs these days.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    18. Re:Good for them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      >... MS Office, and would require extensive training to use the alternatives.

      Yeah right, like when Ribbons were introduced.

      Oops, these were introduced to MS Office, and afterwards LibreOffice and OpenOffice were more similar to MS Office than MS Office.

    19. Re:Good for them by Immerman · · Score: 1

      PDF is intentionally designed to work only for non-modifiable documents (and simple forms)

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    20. Re:Good for them by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Yep. Behold the power of institutional inertia.

      There was a brief window in which it could have changed - but unless a large percentage of institutions made the switch, you would still need to train every new employee. "Everyone" learns MS Office in school. If they went to college they probably learned how to do more advanced things... also in MS Office. If they worked somewhere else they probably also learned how to do more domain-specific tasks...in MSOffice.

      That's the problem with someone having a near-monopoly in a common tool - everyone gets used to being lazy and only learning program-specific processes rather than general procedures, and anyone who chooses to depart the captive ecosystem has to be willing to shoulder the burden of reeducating their employees.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    21. Re:Good for them by F.Ultra · · Score: 1

      That won't stop them from doing it though, instead they will keep on sending you the docx on a daily basis since they really want that damn form to be filled in. By returning a proper odt however I have complied and the problem now lies with them, and if they ever complain "why did you send me a odf" then I can just reply back "but you begun by thinking that it would be proper to send me a docx".

    22. Re:Good for them by hawk · · Score: 2

      >One word: compatibility.

      I've been using StarOffice, err, Open Office, I mean LibreOffice long enough that compatibility was a *reason* to use it instead of MS. It simply did better at importing from last year's (or next year's) version of MS than MS did.

      And it wasn't even necessarily from different versions--I had to deal with students coming in with nominally the same versions of Windows and MS Office, yet the file wouldn't work *quite* the same way for both.

      These days, for my practice, I just send what *does* need others to work with it in .doc (although LO seems to be getting up to speed on .docx).

      The last version of MS Word I used (and what I'd call the last MS product worth paying for) was Word 5.1/Mac.

      hawk

    23. Re:Good for them by hawk · · Score: 1

      I'm convinced that pdf stems from a far more malign drug experience than the LSD origins of HyperCard . . .

      When I was practicing immigration law, we had to keep three different pdf programs to work with the government documents, as they are all hostile to one another. It seems that they *deliberately* find ways to add data that won't appear in other documents . . .

      PDF is as standardized as the 16k RAM chips (for those young enough to chase off my lawn, the industry came up with a standard pinout--and then everyone did different things with them! ISTR that there *was* a pair of manufacturers whose chips could plug into the same design . . .)

      hawk

  9. Wow much cpu use on link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    more auto playz please! More scripts please!

  10. Ribbon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    In LibreOffice 6.2, the "Tabbed" interface is now available for Writer, Calc, Impress, and Draw, and is considered sufficiently stable to be a default option. This interface mimics the oft-maligned "Ribbon interface" in Office 2007.

    Obligatory "you were supposed to destroy them, not join them" post.

    At least the classic view still exists and is the default.

    1. Re:Ribbon by Immerman · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I've heard The Ribbon has improved a lot since it's introduction, so perhaps it's getting good enough to be worth cloning.

      It would also be quite hilarious if LibreOffice manages to make a ribbon that is actually an improvement over traditional toolbars, exposing the fact that the problem is not ribbon interfaces themselves, but Microsoft's general incompetence at making UIs.

      I know the times I've used MSOffice I've felt like the ribbon had a lot of potential, if only it weren't so infuriating to use.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    2. Re:Ribbon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've always prefered menu bars myself. Being able to browse what commands are available, and especially their keyboard shortcuts, is a very useful feature to have. Ribbons work exactly as intended: they hide features. And that's exactly what makes them more difficult to use.

    3. Re:Ribbon by Immerman · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Menus hide features almost as thoroughly and are much more tedious to use. Until you click on the menu, you have very little idea what's on it (except what you've memorized), and if there's no icons, and you haven't memorized positions, then you have to read through every option to find the one you're looking for. They're made worse by the fact that functions are very often not located on the menu you would expect, or menus are named such that *none* of them would lead you to believe they hold the function you're looking for.

      Really, when you get right down to it the Ribbon is essentially a hybrid of a toolbar and a sticky-menu - click the menu header, and the associated toolbar is displayed.

      The loss of text is quite annoying though - even though you rarely use the text for frequently-used functions, it's invaluable for trying to figure out which F'ing icon is associated with the rarely-used function you're looking for.

      Hmmm, actually..., what if you made a ribbon that simultaneously displayed the tool-tips for everything on the bar whenever the mouse was over its tab? Essentially you'd get a 2D menu, where the bulky text was only displayed on demand.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    4. Re: Ribbon by zkiwi34 · · Score: 1

      Menus are generally not customisable much if at all. Ribbons seem the exact opposite. Not exactly a fan favourite when one prefers the UI to be consistent.

    5. Re:Ribbon by mcswell · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I have the exact opposite experience.

      1) "Until you click on the menu, you have very little idea what's on it" Unless you keep the ribbon open all the time (in which case you're wasting a lot of screen space because of those icons), you can't see what's in them. And even when you do open a ribbon, you *still* can't see into half (my guestimate) the icons, specifically those icons that have a bunch of choices inside them. Take the Paste icon for instance; it has several sub-commands, but you can't see them without opening that icon.

      2) "if there's no icons, and you haven't memorized positions, then you have to read through every option to find the one you're looking for" Well yes, that's a skill I learned in first grade. What's wrong with that? I have to do the same thing with the icons in the ribbon, because interpreting an icon is pure guesswork. (Unless you're an ancient Egyptian, in which case maybe you're used to memorizing hieroglyphs.) In short, you have to memorize positions on the ribbon, or find the text under each icon (which is much harder than simply finding the text in a menu).

      3) "made worse by the fact that functions are very often not located on the menu you would expect": Where is the "insert row" command in Excel? It's under the "Insert" tab, right? Wrong! As I found out when I needed to insert a row in Excel the other day. I find very little logic to the layout of commands in the ribbon.

      4) "menus are named such that *none* of them would lead you to believe they hold the function you're looking for." Umm, yes. What's in the "Home" tab on the ribbon? Things that have to do with your house, right? Or what's the diff between the "Design" and "Layout" tabs? And then there's that all-important Mailings tab, which is perfect for 1980s-style mail merge.

      And don't even get me started on the Files tab, which teleports you into an alternative universe where you're not allowed to see what you're writing.

    6. Re: Ribbon by mcswell · · Score: 1

      Strange. With MsWord 2003 (and versions before, IIRC, although I am getting too old to remember that), I could customize the menus to my heart's content. One of the truly awful things about Word2007's implementation of the ribbon was there was *no* way to modify it in any way, shape or form. I think they've improved on that since then--I am told it is possible to modify the ribbon (within certain limits). But there's absolutely no reason Word, or any other program, should prevent you from modifying its menu OR its ribbon.

    7. Re:Ribbon by hackertourist · · Score: 1

      I've heard The Ribbon has improved a lot since it's introduction

      Nope. The ribbon is still a mess in the current Office 365 version. Luckily I don't have to use that pile of crap too often.

    8. Re: Ribbon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And yet both office 2003/xp and office 2007 look ahead of the times compared to libre office even now.

  11. Already there.I'm building LibreOffice from source by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I know it's meant as a joke,
    but I build LO from live sources every week.

    I actually even pay something. But only as a donation.

  12. Re:The Swastika by J053 · · Score: 1

    From Wikipedia:

    Parliament is a funk band formed in the late 1960s by George Clinton as part of his Parliament-Funkadelic collective. Less rock-oriented than its sister act Funkadelic, Parliament drew on science-fiction and outlandish performances in their work.

  13. What warning? by sjbe · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm going to put a hold on LibreOffice updates until I get around to loading it up in a VM for testing,

    Why would you do that if you weren't doing it before?

    I'm all for feature and security updates but after having to deal with all the UI "improvements" in the UI's of various application (Firefox, Word, Windows, etc.) over the years I am hesitant to give up what I have become familiar with if I can avoid it.

    You didn't read the summary. They didn't change the interface. They merely gave an alternative option that is NOT the default. The default is approximately unchanged. Some people like or at least are used to the current Microsoft interface so why not have an option to make those people comfortable? It won't be what I use but if it works for someone else then that is fine. My user interface preferences do not have to be universally shared.

    1. Re:What warning? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Because the idiot who wrote the summary misrepresented the additional UI by saying:

      In LibreOffice 6.2, the "Tabbed" interface is now available for Writer, Calc, Impress, and Draw, and is considered sufficiently stable to be a default option.

      When what he should have said was:

      In LibreOffice 6.2, the "Tabbed" interface is now available for Writer, Calc, Impress, and Draw, and is considered sufficiently stable to be included with the official release. The "traditional" Office-style toolbar is still the default. The additional Tabbed interface can be enabled through the "View > User Interface" menus.

    2. Re:What warning? by Stormwatch · · Score: 1

      That sounds fine, until you think of the possibility of this progression:

      >add shit feature as optional
      >make shit feature standard
      >remove non-shit option

    3. Re:What warning? by malkavian · · Score: 2

      You forgot the "fork" option.

    4. Re:What warning? by F.Ultra · · Score: 1

      Then perhaps wait with the panic till that actually happens?

  14. I do not call the ribbon (under any name) menu by oldgraybeard · · Score: 0

    an enhancement and if I can not go back to classic. I will stick with old versions or find a new choice.

    Just my 2 cents ;)

    1. Re:I do not call the ribbon (under any name) menu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't have to go back, Classic is the default setting.

  15. Why perople don't update by Snotnose · · Score: 1

    Just last week we were talking about why people don't update their programs. Changing the UI was a biggie. LibreOffice Draw changed it's UI a year or two back, took me an hour or two to figure out where things went and, when I did, I preferred the old UI.

    Ditto ribbons. I've been using them for several years now, still don't like them, much prefer the older way of doing things.

    LibreOffice does what I need it to do, as they're changing the UI again I doubt I'll ever update it again.

    1. Re:Why perople don't update by sconeu · · Score: 1

      Did you even RTFS (much less RTFA)?

      Tabs/Ribbon are available, they are not the default interface. If you are a masochist, you can turn them on. Otherwise, it looks the same (modulo icons).

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    2. Re:Why perople don't update by samwichse · · Score: 1

      "In LibreOffice 6.2, the "Tabbed" interface is now available for Writer, Calc, Impress, and Draw, and is considered sufficiently stable to be a default option."

      The problem is from reading the FS and not the FA. The summary is misleading and makes it sound like the ribbon-style interface is a default. The article says it's included in builds by default but you have to turn it on yourself in the menus.

  16. Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, is it up to Word 0.8b now?

    1. Re: Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I started using Microsoft Word with the 4.0 version for MS-DOS.

      I still think Office 4.3 was the best version.

      Though, Word for Windows 2.0 has the feature that winword.exe fits on a single floppy disk and could be run as a portable application without any binary support files on any version of Windows. That includes the VBA features, so it was a portable programming engine if used right. It was a nice little package in the early Win32 days.

  17. Too many whiners out there! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The world has lots of volunteers for all kinds of 'worthy causes'. If people want to donate their own time and/or money to something that they feel passionate about, then good on them! But I really wonder about all the users out there who complain when someone chooses to make changes that they do not like. It is free software! The people building it do not get paid to make it do what YOU want. They work on features that they think are fun, not ones that necessarily add value for you. You are not a customer, but rather a recipient of someone else's largesse. Take it or leave it.

    1. Re:Too many whiners out there! by DidgetMaster · · Score: 2

      It's like the homeless guy who complains about the food at the soup kitchen because it is not on par with the finest restaurant.

    2. Re:Too many whiners out there! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When the decision to make a change is made, they're often stepping on the philosophy and aspirations of the developers that got the project to where it is. You make it sound like every change that's made is for the better. If enough people complain about the change, then maybe that decision maker should be removed from the decision process. Sometimes projects aren't just "for fun" vanity projects.

    3. Re:Too many whiners out there! by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 2

      It's like the homeless guy who complains about the food at the soup kitchen because it is not on par with the finest restaurant.

      It's not really like that at all.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  18. If you put lipstick on a pig.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    .. you still have a pig.

    1. Re: If you put lipstick on a pig.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sure you still love your momma anyway

    2. Re:If you put lipstick on a pig.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You must be referring to the most lipsticked pigware in the farmyard... Microsoft 365. Its the Year of the Pig, so I guess happy oinky Satan Nutella!

  19. New interfaces? Where? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    New interfaces but no screenshots. Sheesh!

  20. The toolbars were broken on HiDPI. That's why. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    On high-DPI screens, the icons were so tiny, the interface became unusable.

    Granted, high-DPI is already idiotic itself, as it only wastes energy to display things you can't see anyway.
    But if you're suffering from having to use such a screen, trust me, you do want scalable icons.

    I still think Lotus SmartSuite's InfoBox had the best interface, and everything else is just a half-assed clone of it. (Especially because they don't even highlight which settings were changed from the base template class.) The only change it needed, was to spread the tabs into a sidebar, once the screens became big enough to allow it.
    The ribbon interface was especially stupid, since the "sidebar" was placed at the top! On wide screens! And because there was no logic between the UI visuals and the controls to change them via keyboard.

    1. Re: The toolbars were broken on HiDPI. That's why. by jabuzz · · Score: 1

      HiDPI screens are like the difference between a dot matrix and a laser printer. If you are happy with a dot matrix that is fine, but personally I prefer a laser and a HiDPI screen too.

    2. Re:The toolbars were broken on HiDPI. That's why. by caseih · · Score: 1

      I've never understood why this has to be so (the small icons). Surely the UI can scale everything according to DPI, right? Even it has to scale a bitmap. In some sense this is what HiDPI does already. But sadly the dream of using vector graphics everywhere for scaling to any resolution died along the way. I'd really like if the entire desktop could be scaled arbitrarily (and look clean and sharp). If I want things a bit bigger, I can. Or smaller. Or make the text exactly 12 pt tall (actual pt). Never quite understood why they ended up using fake pixels as a basic unit when we already had pt. Or mm.

    3. Re: The toolbars were broken on HiDPI. That's why. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Moron

  21. Microsoft Word was not able to load its file! by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Many years ago, I was using Microsoft Word. I wrote something for more than 3 hours. I then discovered that Microsoft Word was not able to load that file! Yow!

    I was able to load the file in LibreOffice. Since then, I don't use Microsoft Word.

    1. Re:Microsoft Word was not able to load its file! by jwhyche · · Score: 1

      I find stories like this both amusing and unbelievable. Makes me wonder what kind of weird ass format you saved your file in to prevent MS Office from loading it. I just loaded a file that I wrote on WordPerfect 4.1 on the Amiga in Office 365.

      --
      I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
    2. Re:Microsoft Word was not able to load its file! by BadDreamer · · Score: 2

      I've had that happen many times. Word's older file formats are really nuts. Among other things they contain raw memory dumps from Word, which are then reloaded and instantiated when the document is opened.

      It's a miracle (and a sign of the immense amount of work to fix quirks the developers put in) that it works as well as it does. Word not being able to read Word documents is very common.

      WordPerfect is well supported, on the other hand. That file format is well documented and sane. I am not surprised that can be opened in a modern word processor. The issue is with Word, not the age of the documents.

    3. Re:Microsoft Word was not able to load its file! by jwhyche · · Score: 2

      I've been using MS Word for years, since office windows 95/98. I have directories full of documents from practically every version off office. I can go down the list here and load every one of them. I plain short story documents all the way up to complex business documents. They all are loading fine.

      --
      I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
    4. Re:Microsoft Word was not able to load its file! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is not at all unusual in software development for something to work in many places but break on certain systems, surely with your ID you know this. You could try a million files on one system and everything is fine, go to a second system and have issues the very first time. Especially when older formats of Word do such crazy things it's surprising they work at all.

    5. Re: Microsoft Word was not able to load its file! by lala31 · · Score: 1

      am not surprised that can be opened in a modern word processor. The issue is with Word, not the age of the documents. https://audacity.onl/ https://findmyiphone.onl/ https://origin.onl/

    6. Re: Microsoft Word was not able to load its file! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ms Word is a stupid piece of shit, made by shitty H1B indians. Havenâ(TM)t used it for 10 years and wonâ(TM)t be starting ever again.

    7. Re:Microsoft Word was not able to load its file! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Believe. Microsoft can break anything if they try their hardest.

      Mom had a copy of MS Works running on a DOS 6 / Win 3.11 machine. Wrote a bunch of crap in to a document. Tried to save. "Can't save without SHARE.EXE." Well thanks a lot, maybe check for such a dependency before the user spends time writing the document.

      Most users could have printed the file or pasted it into another program. But not all users are computer literate. Mom gave up in frustration and had to re-write it all later.

    8. Re:Microsoft Word was not able to load its file! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's because you're ignorant, something which tends to make people easily amused.

      Microsoft Word saves its files as literal stackdumps. Any kind of corruption in there, and Word simply will not open the file but just fall flat on its face and crash. LO, as OO before it opens the files as real files, and then converts them on the fly to something saner.

      That's why you can save many "unopenable" Word documents with Writer. I've done it many, many times, and if you care to google for it, you'll see it's not an uncommon solution.

    9. Re: Microsoft Word was not able to load its file! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      An your a dumbass who can't format plan text correctly. Advice shit ball, don't copy and paste your shit from a word processor, and preview is your friend dumbass.

    10. Re:Microsoft Word was not able to load its file! by BadDreamer · · Score: 2

      I have the same. Lots of old documents. And mine usually load fine. The few that did not, I opened in LibreOffice and saved in a more reliable format. In the end I did that with all of them, since I don't keep Word on my personal systems any longer.

      But I have fixed countless Word documents for clients. Documents saved in the Word version they then tried to open them in, to no avail. It happens frequently enough that people know to contact me for help.

      I've encountered it once with an Excel document, but then it seemed like disk corruption. With Word files, it's just Word breaking them on its own, for the most part.

    11. Re:Microsoft Word was not able to load its file! by Trongy · · Score: 1

      To anyone who used Microsoft Word in the 1990s or early 2000s this story is entirely believable.

    12. Re:Microsoft Word was not able to load its file! by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      I've had that happen many times. Word's older file formats are really nuts.

      Older word formats, Fonting issues, printer problems, where the document only wanted to be printed on the original printer, then changing it to the printer in use caused the document to fly into outer space. PowerPoint files done on a Windows machine transported to a Mac Office machine, and freaking out needing to be pretty much redone, than the same thing when it goes back to the PC.

      The amount of time my group spent fixing Microsoft Office files was more than the amount of time for their initial creation.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    13. Re:Microsoft Word was not able to load its file! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This happened to me too. The cure? Save early, save often.

      Coworkers used laugh at my Document_v58.docx, but I always have something I can return to.

      And now I'm versioning my files as v0.5.8, and irrationally enough, the laughter is quieter now.

    14. Re:Microsoft Word was not able to load its file! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Gets better than that. I have some Word for Windows 2 files from Win3.1 days. LO opens them fine (doesn't save, but then who still uses WFW2?). MSW says huh?

  22. Please fix office import formatting. by labnet · · Score: 2

    I would love to roll Libre out to our company, but it still can’t open up 10 year old word or excel docs without screwing up the formatting.

    --
    46137
    1. Re: Please fix office import formatting. by lala31 · · Score: 1

      and not have that style applied to the entire paragraph. Make all your paragraphs only one sentence long -- problem solved. :-) [url=https://audacity.onl/]Audacity[/url] [url=https://findmyiphone.onl/]Find My iPhone[/url] [url=https://origin.onl/]Origin[/url]

    2. Re:Please fix office import formatting. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How much does the company spend on Office? How much would it cost to employ someone to fix the Libre bugs preventing you from dropping Office? Hire the person, fix the bugs, drop Office, and use the FOSS contributions for marketing when you're trying to hire new grads. Save $$$ in the long run.

    3. Re:Please fix office import formatting. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And modern MSW doesn't do the same thing?

    4. Re:Please fix office import formatting. by ledow · · Score: 0

      Strange. Have you got the MS fonts installed?

      I've been using LibreOffice to open up old formats because it does a damn sight better job that Word has ever done.

      P.S. try opening an old Publisher file in any other version of Publisher than the one it was created with whatsoever.

      If your business literally has SO MANY documents that you can't afford to lose the formatting on that it's a business issue, you should have converted them to signed, timestamped PDF years ago for archival purposes. And probably created a template that *does* work in LibreOffice, Google Docs, Word and anything else you might be likely to use. It's really not hard. Even for a fancy background/letterhead.

      "We save everything only in Word 2006" is the cause of your problem. Not "Some third-party software slightly messes up the formatting when we open up decade-old files". If you'd PDF'd for archival purposes and, maybe, kept the original Word template around for anything that you apply the formatting to, you would have a working archive and precisely one template to "change" to make it work in LibreOffice or any other office suite.

  23. Still in Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is it still written in Java instead of native C/C++?

    Because if it is still in Java it is a no go.

    1. Re:Still in Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Amazing! Where have you bought that CPU which runs native C/C++?

    2. Re:Still in Java by F.Ultra · · Score: 1

      It was never written in Java. Back in the OpenOffice days they had some plugins that where written in Java hence Java was an install requirement but none of the actual applications where ever written in Java.

    3. Re:Still in Java by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      From a glance at their site it seems they dumped the Java donkey and its all C/C++/C# and variants. But who knows - maybe one of their devs can comment on this?
      I checked my Mint 19.1 and we have v6.0.7.3. MX Linux 18 has v6.0.1.1. Manjaro reports v 6.1.4.2. It will be interesting, as always, to observe the "delay" in the DebianUbuntuMint updates versus the ArchManjaro tree updates versus SeveralOtherDistros.

    4. Re:Still in Java by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Is it still written in Java instead of native C/C++?

      It never was written in Java, even in part. It had a bogus dependency on Java added by Sun as part of the db interface which was one of the first things to be fixed when LibreOffice was forked away from Oracle.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  24. Have they figured out what a linked list is? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As in rudimentary data structures? You have a sequence of slides (aha! A linked list!) in Impress, drag to reorder them (change a few pointers), they inexplicably vanish (pointers incorrectly updated) and what few slides are still in the list are now in the wrong order (Free bonus: Memory corruption!), then Impress crashes two minutes later and you lose hours of work because its inept automatic save system doesn't actually automatically save anything. Meanwhile, PowerPoint and Google Slides actually work fine for the same task while Impress is busy falling all over itself on the most basic functionality.

    Can't fix stupid except to replace the entire LibreOffice team with intelligent devs who have a clue. Actually, scratch that. Replace both the team AND the product. Neither are worth salvaging.

    Good developers realize that correct functionality and stability come FIRST. Then, maybe, if there are no open issues to triage in the issue tracker, work on breaking the app with visualization enhancements. But good developers also realize that making such changes will likely break things and are therefore not eager to make them.

    1. Re: Have they figured out what a linked list is? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't need powerpoint and neither do you. Because... Because! Nobody needs to have anything I do not like! I'm so special! AND I MASTURBATE!!!

  25. Re:Still in --J-a-v-a-- by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    LibreOffice should modify its tie for OpenJDK instead of Oracle's Java (that requires fee for users and enterprises).

    And embedding support of WebP to this LibreOffice makes the documents smaller.

  26. UI not the only change by Compuser · · Score: 2

    The biggest thing for me is that they are working on the animations. Which is big because right now animations is the number one horrid thing in LibreOffice. If they can fix this aspect then the office suite will be instantly tons more usable.

    1. Re:UI not the only change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think I've ever seen an animation in a text document nor do I want to see one. What do people use these animations for?

    2. Re:UI not the only change by mcswell · · Score: 1

      To make the audience nauseated.

      All seriousness aside, the first animated slide I was was in 1976, using two sheets of plastic taped together on one side. The speaker showed the first slide, then overlaid the second on the first. The audience gasped. It was really quite nifty. (Yes, "nifty" was a word back then.)

  27. Libre base and PostgreSQL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We tried using Libre Base in combination with PostgreSQL for a company that wants Access like functionality but the data in PostgreSQL db's. The goal is to have the data not scattered on shares but on maintained servers.
    It seemed OK, but as soon as you have created tables with Libre Base, you can't edit the tables anymore using Libre Base. When this works we may try again.

  28. Version 4.2.8.2 by pigsycyberbully · · Score: 0

    I use it everyday it came down the pipeline for the Linux desktop yesterday version 4.2.8.2. My dad who lives hundreds of miles away also uses it every day although I do not know what for. He uses Windows 7 pro and LibreOffice 6.1, his mind is not what it used to be and he is stubborn and opens all those e-mail micro-viruses, almost on a daily basis so it is lucky he is not using Microsoft office.

    I cannot get him to use a almost useless Linux desktop, because he does not like change and can get very annoyed if you attempt to alter things.

    LibreOffice, has become very politically correct I do not like to see "the team gay Italians, and 70% women" quota. What happened to just being people.
    I like LibreOffice, but I do not care to know about the people behind it.

    People please just be people. You slogan wearing isolationists are going to be sad old slogans if you do not learn to be people.

    1. Re: Version 4.2.8.2 by pigsycyberbully · · Score: 0

      I seem to have it on a Samsung RF711 laptop as well.
      Ubuntu MATE
      Version: 6.0.7.3
      Build ID: 1:6.0.7-0ubuntu0.18.04.2
      CPU threads: 8; OS: Linux 4.15; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3;
      Locale: en-GB (en_GB.UTF-8); Calc: group

  29. Re:The Swastika by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    From Wikipedia

    Parliament is an American brand of cigarettes, currently owned and manufactured by Philip Morris USA in the United States and Philip Morris International outside of the United States. Wikipedia

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  30. I Have Poor Timing by mentil · · Score: 1

    I just updated to 6.1.4 yesterday, to patch a security flaw. Later in the same day they have a new major release? Bah.

    --
    Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
  31. Yet Calc still has a problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I use lots of comments in my spreadsheets, and the comment indicator in Calc is blocking some of the cell content. I'm sticking to v4.3.7.2, the last version with a less intrusive comment indicator.

    https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=91415

  32. Like Blender... by Optic7 · · Score: 1

    I am generally annoyed with gratuitous icon changes - but in this case it seems like they (mostly) maintained recognizability, while improving legibility, which should be especially nice for those who choose to use smaller icon sizes. Can't tell you how annoyed I get about projects that go for the monochrome icon b.s. - icons are important functional components that must be easy to recognize, and they remove one of the most dramatic differentiating features for an arguable improvement in aesthetics?

    You can say that again. Prime example of the moment being Blender, a massive, popular open source graphics app with hundreds of icons, no less. They are re-designing their icons in black and white designs for their major new version that is expected to make a big splash on this market segment, and it's caused pretty big arguments...

    https://blenderartists.org/t/n...

    1. Re:Like Blender... by Immerman · · Score: 1

      It sounds like they're talking about color-coded monochrome icons, which might actually be an improvement over arbitrarily colored ones. Maybe. I'll reserve judgement until I see at least some proper mockups, though I can't say I'm super hopeful.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  33. On Linux, your dream is reality. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    KDE's desktop can be fully scaled and uses only vector graphics since KDE 4. I’m pretty sure others do it too nowadays.

    The reason bitmap icons aren't scaled is because traditionally, they were so small, that they weren't like images that you could just scale, but stylized pixel art pictograms that would be ruined by any resampling. (Which is why SCUMMVM uses those amazing upscalring filters.)

    And it just never got changed, especially in the Windows world.

  34. Microsoft Office (local or remote) is a bad choice by jbn-o · · Score: 2

    Microsoft Office doesn't offer the compatibility its proponents claim. I've seen a lot of documents that don't render the same way across successive versions of Microsoft Office, so forward compatibility is shot. Microsoft Office 365 won't load and render all of the documents Microsoft Office 2016 (with all updates) will generate, so compatibility across current versions is not there either. Word also isn't designed for large documents; I never would have advised using Microsoft Word to begin this documentation project, but I wasn't asked when the project began so now the question is what to do with this huge document that doesn't work as it should on Microsoft's OS (either Windows 7 or 10) running Microsoft's word processor with all of Microsoft's updates applied.

    A few weeks ago a Word user generated a multi-hundred page document with Word from Microsoft Office 2016 and she was stuck with choosing between watching Word 2016/32-bit crash relatively slowly when editing the document (so she had some time to make a few edits and then watch the app die), Word 2016/64-bit crash more quickly, or Word/Office365 render the document so far away from anything reasonable it wasn't worth using. LibreOffice Writer also didn't render the document perfectly, but it did not crash so it was wiser to spend time fixing the lack of fidelity there and continue using LibreOffice than not knowing when the entire app would die and take the last edits after the most recent save with it.

    So I'm not convinced that even within Microsoft their programmers have written code to properly support even the currently-supported variants of Word documents. I have found this to be true across every version of Microsoft Office, this is not news to me. When considering the cost of Microsoft Office365, consider how much it will cost you to lose fidelity of documents even within Microsoft's proprietary software. I believe that cost is too high: I wouldn't trust any document I cared about to a program that locked me into their way of doing things. There's just too much at risk on top of the awful anti-user problems facing all proprietary software users.