I tried to use LibreOffice but couldn't stand the UI coming from Windows and macOS. Honestly as much as it sucks, the either ugly design of the applications or them not being straight up available just had me move back to macOS and Windows.
this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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I use LibreOffice daily (mostly Writer, but also Calc) to run my small consulting business. I compile reports which can be quite long and complex including front matter sections, table of contents, index of tables and multiple levels of headers. Lots of internal referencing and footnotes as well. I have also used it in windows within a company where everyone else was using Word, without any more issues than the Word users were having. The main problem with Word documents is the build-up of auto-generated "styles" and people's use of direct formatting for everything. This leads to inconsistencies. With LibreOffice, the use of styles is much more integrated at all levels than in Word and learning to use them properly is a game changer. I have found the direct generation of PDF from Libreoffice to produce a better result. I like Calc better than Excel but they use different but similar macro languages so Excel macros are not always directly compatible in Calc.
Does anyone actually use Google docs?
https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/typical-mind-fallacy
https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/mind-projection-fallacy
Now that that's out of the way...
yes, all the time. It's the best for linux 8) Wish theming was better though tbh
I use it all the time. Sometimes it can't handle complicated .doc files correctly but I use it mostly for spreadsheets, and its rare that I have any problems.
My main gripe with LibreOffice is just the UI, but that is partially because I don't use it often (negative reinforcing loop). Late 90's and Early 2000's me would be right at home. However, what I use on a daily basis is Only Office that I have in a docker hosted alongside my NextCloud docker. Only Office integrates well with NextCloud.
I installed Linux Mint on my Dad's older computer and he uses the word and excel versions of LibreOffice, since he stores data on a USB, he uses them to modify data, he doesn't like it when google docs makes a copy of your file when you open something from USB.
I use Libre Office for some things, but I didn't make any effort to "learn" it, so I only do simple things with it. I'd like to be better at spreadsheets but haven't gotten around to making the effort. For text formatting, very basic LibreWriter has been good enough for my purposes. For fancier things there is always TeX ;).
I don't need any office program very often but LibreOffice is my go-to if I have a choice. I prefer flatpacks for the quickest updates.
I've used it for university. There's some documents that other free software (including Google) can't open. Other than that, I try to do most of my work on LaTeX these days. I've even written my resume and cover letters in it.
It's interesting that you state "is it worth learning?" surely the power of libreoffice/open office is that they are drop in replacements for the microsoft suite?
I can appreciate that they're copies of office "pre-ribbon" but that was superior anyway.
They are not "Drop-in replacements" and are not intended to be. They fill the same ecological niche, but are parallel products, not a copy. Quite different under the hood.
Why pay Microsoft for an office suite that opens your system up to all kinds of attacks (seriously, MS products are a real security threat) when you can have pretty much the same for free and open source? And who would want all their documents on some corporation servers like Google's cloud? Sure, convenience, but you can become self-reliant and still have convenience for example by setting up your own Nextcloud. So, yes, of course people use LibreOffice.
Always used LibreOffice. Rarely have I touched anything else.
I've tried to use it on my personal MacBook before, but the MacOS UI seems clunkier than what I've seen on Windows. Also, I have run into a few compatibility/layout problems with Word Docs and Excel Files. Lastly, the icon is basically just a white rectangle which I find offputting for some reason.
I avoid MS Office like the plague. Absolutely hate it. Libre Office isn't perfect, but at least it's not MS Office.
I also like Libre's Excel program much better than Microsoft's. It doesn't crash constantly, for starters.