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I need it for doing CVs and job applications and that's literally it.

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[-] jeffw@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

LibreOffice

Or if you can spare $10-20 you can get a gray market Office key

What's a grey market office key

[-] Vegan_Joe@piefed.world 9 points 1 week ago

If I understand it correctly, Microsoft sells discounted keys to organizations as part of their Volume Licensing for businesses.

Some places on the internet take advantage of that, and sell the keys individually.

Oh thank you

[-] Tanoh@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago

More likely it is a key purchased with a stolen credit card. Do not use gray markets

[-] jeffw@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

Highly unlikely. The grey market keys are clearly for large companies. You couldn’t purchase thousands of keys with a stolen credit card.

[-] Tanoh@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago

Take this blog post from Factorio a few years ago, they much rather you pirate the game than use gray markets. (Second header)

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-171

[-] jeffw@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

K. We aren’t talking about game theft, we are talking about a specific known issue that Microsoft has talked about. Thanks for linking to an unrelated article?

[-] Tanoh@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago

Gray markets are just full of stolen stuff. To think something else is just fooling yourself.

Anyway, keep using it if you want but they are not "I am so smart for finding it cheaper" but rather "I don't mind support illegal activities"

[-] jeffw@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Did I say it was smart? It’s certainly against Microsoft’s TOS and they could revoke your license at any time.

That being said, theft from a corporation is a little different than theft from your neighbor. You are conflating those two ideas by implying this is theft from an individual.

[-] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 7 points 1 week ago

If that's it, Libre Office.

[-] Smoogs@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Also if you’re using windows and avoiding acrobat try Sumatra for reading pdfs. FOSS is the way. Libre draw also does document signing for pdfs

Thanks mate! I've downloaded it but I'm really struggling with the layout any tips? it's so different looking to word

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 week ago

I find it's exactly identical to MSWord, but from the mso97 days before the Ribbon bollocks. I used o97 Word because it was like win3.1 Word .. word-perfect? It's been a while.

But, TL/DR, LOWord is like Classic MSOffice from when it didn't suck. This will not help you adjust, but hopefully the knowledge that you're going back to a better era of UX could help blunt the pain.

Go carefully, and have your favourite vice handy to goose the positive reinforcement loop.

[-] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

I've been using LibreOffice's Writer for several years. And I've been happy with it.

[-] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I am composing my resume with markdown and then using a python script to produce a PDF. The result is vertical and clean and machine readable:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
"""Convert Markdown files to PDF."""

import argparse
import sys
from pathlib import Path

try:
    import markdown
    from weasyprint import HTML, CSS
except ImportError:
    print("Missing dependencies. Install with:")
    print("  pip install markdown weasyprint")
    sys.exit(1)


CSS_STYLES = """
@page {
    margin: 0.5in 0.6in;
    size: letter;
}
body {
    font-family: "Courier New", Courier, "Liberation Mono", monospace;
    font-size: 10pt;
    line-height: 1.4;
    color: #222;
    max-width: 100%;
}
h1, h2, h3 {
    margin-top: 1em;
    margin-bottom: 0.3em;
    padding-bottom: 0.2em;
}
h1 { font-size: 16pt; }
h2 { font-size: 13pt; }
h3 { font-size: 11pt; }
h4 { font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em;}
ul {
    margin: 0.3em 0;
    padding-left: 1.2em;
}
li {
    margin-bottom: 0.2em;
}
p {
    margin: 0.4em 0;
}
p + p {
    margin-top: 0.2em;
}
strong {
    font-weight: bold;
}
"""


PAGE_BREAK_MARKER = "<!-- pagebreak -->"
PAGE_BREAK_HTML = '<div style="page-break-before: always;"></div>'


def process_page_breaks(html_content: str) -> str:
    """Replace page break markers with actual page break HTML."""
    return html_content.replace(PAGE_BREAK_MARKER, PAGE_BREAK_HTML)


def md_to_html(input_path: Path) -> str:
    """Convert a Markdown file to HTML content."""
    md_content = input_path.read_text(encoding="utf-8")
    html_content = markdown.markdown(md_content)
    return process_page_breaks(html_content)


def convert_md_to_pdf(input_paths: list[Path], output_path: Path) -> None:
    """Convert one or more Markdown files to a single PDF."""
    html_parts = []
    for i, input_path in enumerate(input_paths):
        if i > 0:
            html_parts.append(PAGE_BREAK_HTML)
        html_parts.append(md_to_html(input_path))

    full_html = f"""
    <!DOCTYPE html>
    <html>
    <head><meta charset="utf-8"></head>
    <body>{"".join(html_parts)}</body>
    </html>
    """

    HTML(string=full_html).write_pdf(output_path, stylesheets=[CSS(string=CSS_STYLES)])
    print(f"Created: {output_path}")


def main():
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="Convert Markdown files to PDF")
    parser.add_argument("files", nargs="*", type=Path, help="Markdown files to convert")
    parser.add_argument("-o", "--output", type=Path, help="Output PDF path")
    parser.add_argument("-m", "--merge", action="store_true", help="Merge all input files into a single PDF")
    args = parser.parse_args()

    # Default to all .md files in current directory
    files = args.files if args.files else list(Path(".").glob("*.md"))

    if not files:
        print("No Markdown files found")
        sys.exit(1)

    if args.merge:
        if not args.output:
            print("Error: --output is required when using --merge")
            sys.exit(1)
        for md_file in files:
            if not md_file.exists():
                print(f"File not found: {md_file}")
                sys.exit(1)
        convert_md_to_pdf(files, args.output)
    else:
        if args.output and len(files) > 1:
            print("Error: --output can only be used with a single input file (or use --merge)")
            sys.exit(1)

        for md_file in files:
            if not md_file.exists():
                print(f"File not found: {md_file}")
                continue
            output_path = args.output if args.output else md_file.with_suffix(".pdf")
            convert_md_to_pdf([md_file], output_path)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()
[-] Strider@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

I recommend the data approach since you can just change layout on the fly and not have classic word processing mess up:

https://rxresu.me/

[-] swordgeek@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago

Libre Office. I've been using it for decades.

[-] Fokeu@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago

Libreoffice

[-] 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago

all words are free. i just used thirteen of them and paid nothing.

[-] ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I used fourteen words and got arrested for hate speech, so I think your theory has a flaw and I blame minorities

No it's not minorities it's trans people they somehow caused it by sneakily sneaking in a bathroom

[-] 18107@aussie.zone 2 points 1 week ago

If you want something that looks amazing but takes a little extra effort to learn, LaTeX is great.

If you want intuitive, LibreOffice should do everything you need.

[-] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

+1 to LaTex. It excels at carefully laying out a short document for maximum clarity. Perfect for a CV or resume.

It's worth mentioning that LaTex can signal to employers that the candidate might have a very advanced degree or equivalent nerd experience, of some kind.

There is a perception that most LaTex users encounter it while doing advanced science work or getting an advanced degree.

[-] T156@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Though the initial learning curve can seem a bit intimidating if you're used to something like word, which does everything for you with a single button.

Especially for things like picking which packages to use, or how to make a functional document from it.

[-] Miaou@jlai.lu 0 points 1 week ago

I'd recommend typst, easier than latex, nice tooling, and has enough templates to get started

[-] 18107@aussie.zone 1 points 1 week ago

I'll have to give that a try. I've been doing a lot of markdown work recently, so it already looks intuitive.

[-] Contramuffin@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

OnlyOffice. Good compatibility with MS Office, and UI is basically equivalent

[-] lunarcat@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 week ago

Are we anti google docs here? I feel like it has everything word does and you can easily save/download files onto your computer as a PDF.

If that doesn't work, you can use word online! It's basically MS word, you just can't access it offline. It's on the web.

[-] EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 1 points 1 week ago

Given that many here are anti google in general, that would mean anti google docs by extension.

[-] garth@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

If you have a Google account, Google ~~Sheets~~ Docs is free and probably does everything you need.

MS Office is also really easy to pirate.

Great thanks how user friendly is it?

[-] garth@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

It's basically Word lite: very similar interface, with a stripped-down feature set that covers most basic needs. You should have no problem diving right in and writing CVs and cover letters.

[-] Apytele@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Libre office was too clunky for my usage. OnlyOffice is FOSS, lightweight, and cross-platform to mobile.

[-] sbeak@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 week ago

Both OnlyOffice and LibreOffice (Writer) would work. The main differences are that OnlyOffice has all the tools (documents, presentations, and spreadsheets) while LibreOffice separates them. LibreOffice also has an additional two tools: Draw (kind of like Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape) and Base (database stuff).

Generally documents that are exported to and from MS Office will be better when working with OnlyOffice. If you aren't doing a bunch of formatting that is absolutely critical (or no formatting at all), I wouldn't worry about using LibreOffice. LibreOffice, for me, works well, but sometimes page break can happen a line or two earlier/later depending on how images, tables, headings, etc. are rendered, which is slightly annoying. In "Impress" (presentations), whenever I made one object transparent, ALL objects became transparent when viewing from MS Office, which was strange. That's my experience, and it seems that other people have had similar formatting problems with LibreOffice too.

Another thing that's different is that, on Windows, LibreOffice doesn't look very nice. On Linux, it looks fine (I selected "Tabbed"), but on Windows, I'm not sure if they're using some other graphical package or something, but the top toolbar is all squished together with no wiggle room, even if you select "Tabbed". One other thing, LibreOffice uses Qt so it will work with those themes in Linux (e.g. In KDE Plasma, which is what I run, LibreOffice will match with the system theme!)

For a Linux-specific thing, it seems that LibreOffice doesn't really like Wayland much, and was chugging and running at a jogging snail's pace (certainly not a fast snail, this one), so I had to manually set the shortcut to run LibreOffice in XWayland or something like that anyways.

One thing I like about LibreOffice is that there's a few more plugins available than OnlyOffice. For example, LanguageTool has a LibreOffice plugin but don't think there's one for OnlyOffice. LibreOffice also has like a bazillion different settings to change how everything is rendered, you can change the order of the items in every toolbar and menu, I think Writer has a basic Java IDE built in too? Basically, LibreOffice is more customisable and configurable than OnlyOffice, and by a lot. OnlyOffice tries to be a little simpler than LibreOffice and I guess is more "dumbed down" with fewer buttons and settings?

TLDR: LibreOffice has five separate programs, OnlyOffice has three in one. Files exported from OnlyOffice generally render with correct formatting on MS Office (and vice versa), the same may not be true for LibreOffice depending on the content of your documents. LibreOffice Windows isn't nice (but looks better on Linux), LibreOffice doesn't play nice with Wayland, LibreOffice has more plugins, options, etc.

Ahhhh I really struggled with Libre earlier I'm old and neurodiverse and can't handle the layout. Does only office have a similar layout to word?

[-] sbeak@sopuli.xyz 0 points 1 week ago

If you use Windows, yeah, LibreOffice doesn't look all that nice. Setting it to "tabbed" view mode makes it a bit better (try that first)

but the icons are still pretty small with little padding (on Windows at least. On Linux it is perfectly fine, so I use LibreOffice!). OnlyOffice will be more padded and has bigger icons than LibreOffice in Windows, yeah. I think it would work.

That's so helpful thanks so much! Have a lovely weekend

[-] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago

Libre Office is trash, too. OnlyOffice is far better.

[-] daggermoon@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

As someone who used Microsoft Office 2003 to get through college in 2020. They're all the same shit.

this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2026
15 points (100.0% liked)

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