Remix.run Logo
▲ Narishma a day ago

> If LibreOffice were good enough already, it would already be popular.

Not true. There's inertia and network effects in play that often prevent better products from succeeding against established ones.

▲emsixteen a day ago | parent [-]

Let's be honest though, the UI is absolutely dreadful.

▲adrian_b a day ago | parent | next [-]

Are you talking about MS Office?

In my opinion, the user interface of modern MS Office is absolutely horrible.

I have used a lot of old MS Office versions, and until 20 years ago I thought that its user interface was very good.

Then there was a gap of about a decade when I did not need MS Office at work and I also had no reason to update my personally purchased MS Office Professional (which I was running on Linux, using Crossover, where it was more performant and more stable than on Windows; Crossover is a paid derivative of Wine, which ensures a better support for MS Office and for other professional applications).

After that gap, when I encountered again MS Office, I was shocked by how awkward its UI had become meanwhile.

Today I prefer very much the UI of LibreOffice, which is similar to the old MS UI, instead of the modern MS Office UI.

There are a lot of details that I dislike in the LibreOffice UI, but even so, I consider the MS Office UI much worse.

Because there was a time in the past when I was a heavy MS Office user, when using the modern MS Office I am aware about a great number of commands that exist, but I am no longer able to find them in the MS Office menus.

In the old MS Office, those commands were grouped in a way that was logical for me, so it was easy to find them even when I did not know where they were, because I had not used them before. But in the modern interface many commands are not where I would expect them to be, so there have been many cases when I had to do a random search through all menus, to locate them after a long time.

▲k0morebi a day ago | parent | next [-]

For years I used a custom plugin that restored the regular file menus in lieu of the ribbon. I still can't find anything in the ribbon in excel. Is it in the home tab, formatting, or data? Guess I'll look in each. Every time. Something about it that after so many years can't internalize it.

▲herbst 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This so much. Whoever thinks UI of MS Office is any good, must be windows washed in my eyes.

Libre has such a simple and clear UI just as we all got used to decades ago.

▲BadBadJellyBean a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

When was the last time you have used LibreOffice? The newer versions are heavily inspired by the office workflow. Maybe the design is a bit boring but it's not bad.

▲Krssst 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Note that LibreOffice now has an option to enable a ribbon interface rather than a menu interface. I think it asked which one I wanted last time I installed it. I really don't like ribbon interfaces, but I guess people do actually want them so it's good that they got one too.

▲hilbert42 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In what way? The ribbon in MS Office is far worse, it's horrible. I've both LibreOffice and Office on my machine and Office sits there unused.

▲chris_wot a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What specifically don't you like?

▲eastbound a day ago | parent [-]

On Mac, all key mappings are still wired for PC. In the Save As dialog, Alt-Shit-Left to select the last word of the filename doesn't work, the Home key doesn't work, the Cmd+C doesn't copy, nothing works like on Mac.

Basically the keyboard is all wired weirdly in LibreOffice for Mac.

▲inanutshellus a day ago | parent | prev [-]

The magic of capitalism is that it can pay for superfluous fluff like "make the toolbars look slightly different". Just costs $120/year!

... further... MS Office's look is, IMO, hideous now. So. YMMV whilst LibreOffice's just look "old", which is ... a perennial problem.