this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
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I got my parents in their 70s to use Ubuntu for a few years now. All they use is a web browser and word processing application for .docx files. They used MS Word for years and I found Only Office has a similar UI and opens word docs.
At one point I gave them an older laptop running windows again and they hated it. They wanted Linux back.
Libreoffice has an option for a ribbon user interface. It makes it nearly identical to Microsoft's stuff that I grew up on.
Onlyoffice is a near clone of MS office though, so there's basically no friction in adopting it unless you're heavily into advanced Excel features.
From my experience, OnlyOffice provides better compatability with MS Office-files (that is, more so than LibreOffice). However, having used Powerpoint quite a lot in my professional life, and using OnlyOffice Presentation to make a slide deck now, that is an area where I unfortunately find it severely lacking. There's also the issue about their license - I am not all that familiar with it, but apparently they are not as free and open as they claim to be.
What ever happened to Open Office? That used to be the defacto replacement to Microsoft Office. I haven't used office tools on a personal computer in over a decade though, so I'm very out of the loop there.
For historical info - Oracle bought OpenOffice and started to close it down, so all the developers that worked on it forked it into LibreOffice
Oracle has since given OpenOffice to an open source group, Apache, but the main development still happens on LibreOffice
LibreOffice is as far as I know a continuation of OpenOffice.
Thanks. Can that still be installed on Windows systems?
Yes indeed!
W00t!
Holy shit that's a blast from the past lmao.
If it was for me, I would support a FOSS alternative but, parents didn't enjoy the Libreoffice experience.
I've never really liked the UI in LibreOffice either. It's usable, but always felt clunky to me. And it feels so heavy and ponderous to use. That says something from someone who wears the sackcloth and ashes of FreeCAD.......
I did use OnlyOffice for a bit and I thought it was better for my needs than LibreOffice. But it was still overkill my current needs. So now I'm down to just AbbyWord and Gnumeric since I only need the odd document and simple spreadsheet.
Edit for missed word
How do I use it?
There's a button labeled "User Interface" in one of the alt menus that I don't remember the name of.
Seems to be under "view"
That's definitely it! Thanks for clarifying!
I tried to find this, but had big issues finding where to toggle this. I find the default UI very cluttered and confusing.
View > user interface > tabbed
I can't actually find the View-menu (or any other of the usual File, Edit etc.). Maybe it doesn't play nice on KDE under Wayland? In LibreOffice Impress I can right click the gutter and click "More" and bring up what is called "Options - LibreOffice". Here I can find "Peronsalization" which allows me to select different themes (to no effect) and that's it.