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LibreOffice is pretty damn good (lemmy.ca)
submitted 1 day ago by ColdWater@lemmy.ca to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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Today I did my first advanced spreadsheet on LibreOffice after switching to Linux, and it handled itself pretty well. I had to search for some features on the web at first, but after I got it down, I felt comfortable using it. Also, LibreOffice's default menu layout is not pretty, but I can find all of the functions with just a click, unlike MS Office's ribbon menu where I had to click around to find what I was looking for. Sorry for bad English.

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[-] PerfectDark@lemmy.world 15 points 11 hours ago

I bring this up often because its so amusing to me.

Last year I did a lot of interviews with developers of popular Steam Deck and Linux programs. All went really well, and were quite fun to do.

One 'dev' (I use that term so loosely because I found out GPT is heavily used for their work) freaked out though when they saw my document I sent initially was an .odt file.

Knowing I am a pen-tester, they freaked out and told the public at large I was trying to hack them with a weird file type.

.odt

It still makes me laugh. Anyway, I swear by LibreOffice, I use it daily and love it so much!

[-] adarza@lemmy.ca 8 points 11 hours ago

if a specific format isn't requested or required, and the formatted text document is not expected to be edited by the recipient--only read, possibly by computer, or printed, i would default to using a pdf.

[-] PerfectDark@lemmy.world 3 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Most of these were not on-the-spot interviews. They were very informal questions and answers.

So Writer felt appropriate to me - the questions were there, they can copy to paste elsewhere, or enter their own answers in the document.

[-] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 5 points 13 hours ago

You can visually theme it so it looks differently

[-] Termight@lemmy.ml 9 points 17 hours ago

Indeed, LibreOffice Calc is a near-daily fixture in my operational workflow. The insistence on proprietary, data-harvesting alternatives like Google Docs is… unnecessary. For Debian-based systems, the installation process is straightforward: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa & sudo apt install libreoffice, referencing the official documentation at https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Install/Linux

[-] hexagonwin@lemmy.sdf.org 27 points 21 hours ago

offtopic but your english is great :)

[-] kittenroar@beehaw.org 2 points 13 hours ago

Yeah; it's pretty great. It lacks the excel functions, but if you know some python that is a total non-issue.

[-] Crabhands@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Yeah, but it'd be better if calc gridlines didn't have that unchangeable fade effect

[-] tombruzzo@lemm.ee 58 points 1 day ago

I do a lot of work with CSV files and LibreCalc is so much better for them. You can actually tell it how to delimit the file and to put quotations around each field.

Some programs actually advise against using excel if you're going to work on a CSV to upload into the program, which is funny considering it's meant to be the industry standard.

P. S. For anyone that would like to use LibreOffice at work, download portableapps and get it from there. It's so portable it can get around IT administration requirements

[-] joshcodes@programming.dev 27 points 1 day ago

On behalf of cyber and IT, just ask IT to install the thing, please. They can't really say no to a free app and bypassing restrictions ends badly for everyone. I had a user do that with video editing software... seriously, what could go wrong? Ransomware. Literally ransomware. Lucky for antivirus it stopped it but yeah, please work with IT.

[-] Joelk111@lemmy.world 19 points 22 hours ago

They can't really say no to a free app

What? At my workplace there's a bunch of stuff we aren't allowed to install that's free with the reasoning being security concerns.

[-] joshcodes@programming.dev 1 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

That may be true for Discord but for FOSS products the security concern is the attack surface (more to patch).

Like I said to the other commenter, if they say no they should have to justify that (in written form, argued, with points), even if the reason you want it is familiarity with the tool, workflow speed ups, or it has a nicer UI. Make them work harder if they say no, and make it really clear you will go away quietly if they say yes.

I do think that companies asking users to use standard tools so they can build processes and training materials is reasonable. Using other tools means more attack surface, it means more updates, more documentation, less familiar people and it means more risk.

Also assuming your company is like most and forgets to document everything ~~alongside the crucial processes~~, if you know how to do something and tie it to a FOSS product instead of say excel, they won't be able to hire a grad that can work for cheaper and do the thing half as well.

My point is it does do something for them, but not as much as they think. They didn't pay for the office suit for you to not use it. However, if you don't need it, they can also stop paying for it. Justification is important. So is making ITs life difficult by making them justify decisions.

Bypassing them makes the incident response team's life difficult, not ITs.

[-] Joelk111@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago

They should have to justify that

Have you worked somewhere before? Yeah, they should, but they won't. It's easier and cheaper to say no to everything unless there's a serious tangible business reason that you need to use it, at which point they'll look into it.

My company has rejected a bunch of stuff with the only reason being "Security Risk" with no further reasoning provided when asked. It's super aggravating.

[-] joshcodes@programming.dev 2 points 13 hours ago

I'm sorry your team is like that, they should do better. I get along with my company IT team, obviously working close with them has benefits, but we have a lot of oversight and executive support so giving two word answers isn't a thing where I work, they have to give a written justification etc.

In the same sense that not everyone works where I do, not everyone has assholes in IT who deny everything. Neither of our experiences are default and I was trying to write for someone in-between. Apologies if it didn't come across that way.

There are businesses who don't allow spotify on the corporate device, for sure. I saw a talk delivered by a guy who did. He worked for a mining company, they wouldn't let people install things and were inundated with policy violations. He had to change the entire company culture around who IT were, and started by letting people make install requests for apps they wanted to use. They just tracked the requests so they knew who had what, and by helping, they could be selective about where the software came from.

When people don't have IT as a support and see them as a regulator, they don't work with them and bad shit happens. This dudes mining company was hit, also with ransomware (this one worked), because the CFO had local admin since he didn't want to talk to IT.

My point is

  • a. they should be helping in this instance. Sorry they don't, that's frustrating to hear. Work culture is hard to change and I'm lucky with where I do work and the culture we have.

  • b. don't bypass security controls regardless. Sorry. It's still not the answer. If work makes you do things a slower or more annoying way, that's their time lost. HR will throw you under the bus for the policy violation.

[-] theblips@lemm.ee 4 points 19 hours ago

They can and most of the time they do complain about free apps

[-] cyberwolfie@lemmy.ml 3 points 18 hours ago

They can't really say no to a free app

A co-worker was told (verbatim) by the head of IT that " we don't use open source". So yeah...

[-] joshcodes@programming.dev 1 points 15 hours ago

Okay maybe I should have said they can't say no and appear reasonable? Was there a justification or is this guy Joseph Goebbels or something? I bet you didn't use AI 2 years ago but probably have that running rampant.

I'd love to live in a world where I trust everyone to install software on computers, but Mr Ransomware, albeit not common, is out there waiting to fuck up the business with a portable application he found. He wanted to do something for a colleague, but we all nearly suffered for it.

Install things the right way, and if you can't, make a case for it and get managers involved. Justify the time saved or the comfort it provides: everyone hates AI, blame it on copilot being in excel.

Bypassing security instead of working with them doesn't help anyone and it almost always ends badly.

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 2 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

They can't really say no to a free app

"No enterprise support" is actually scary for them. I did security, 'way back, but in Unix, and maybe that's why we were more cool with OSS back then. Windows people love the black-box binaries and fear a lack of pricy support.

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[-] whysofurious@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 18 hours ago

I agree with LibreCalc and CSV, in some internationalclasses we always had issues with excel saving CSV in actually different formats depending on the machine locale. LibreCalc never had this problem.

[-] toastmeister@lemmy.ca 1 points 12 hours ago

I do wish it had a self hosted docker though. I could see Proton mail and thunder mail adopting it that way, which would be neat.

[-] Schlemmy@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 hours ago

Is a self hosted docker different from this?

https://github.com/linuxserver/docker-libreoffice

[-] ssfckdt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 14 hours ago

Yes

[-] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 2 points 16 hours ago

Yes. Its the obvious choice for desktop.

But if you want web, have you tried CryptoPad.

[-] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 1 points 14 hours ago

Collabora used to offer Libre Office online, now it’s their Libre Office fork

Rollapp lets you use LibreOffice online but I don’t think there is collaboration

[-] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 18 points 1 day ago

Ribbon bar shit, personally I hate the MS ribbon bar. So for me the LO interface is way better. Just depends on what you like and what you learned and know well.

[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 8 points 19 hours ago

and libreoffice still has a ribbon interface if you like that.

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this post was submitted on 09 May 2025
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