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We’re pleased to announce the release of LibreOffice 26.2 🥳 (blog.documentfoundation.org)

submitted 6 days ago by Kwurli@lemmy.world to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

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[-] mech@feddit.org 12 points 5 days ago

The only weak point LibreOffice still has is collaboration with people who abuse proprietary software (which violates its own published filetype "standard") to do things it was never designed for.

[-] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 3 points 5 days ago

i'd be interested to learn about this

[-] mech@feddit.org 14 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Microsoft Word defaults to saving in its own file format .docx, instead of the ISO standard for word processing (.odt)
To allow others to collaborate, Microsoft publishes documentation on how Word builds and opens .docx files.
So LibreOffice would have no trouble opening .docx files with all formatting perfectly intact.
If Microsoft actually followed their own documentation when building Word. Which they don't.

The other issue is that people use Word files to share documents with extensive formatting and embedded images in the first place, instead of converting them to PDF or using typesetting software.

[-] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 days ago

It's a dilemma. MS might be breaking shit but they're still the biggest player. It was mostly thru the fact people can open docx that people are willing to try LibreOffice in the first place.

Hopefully now that they have large players behind them, they can start shifting the terrain.

[-] rumba@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 days ago

The other upside is that Google Docs aren't entirely compatible either. So people are already used to imperfect versions and needing to pass around PDF's if output matters.

The biggest problem I see is Microsoft can only cleanly collaborate with Micrososft and Google with Google. The second you open that docx in Google, all bets are off.

The real downer is the libre's lack of supported online collab, that's pretty much a requirement for business these days.