LibreOffice Writer 6 is Out

[AgentPete]

I’ve been using the free/open source LibreOffice suite for a year now, and have found it quite satisfactory, especially the LibreOffice Writer program that’s a direct replacement for Microsoft Word.

If you want to escape the clutches of Microsoft (or Apple, for that matter), you should try LibreOffice 6.0, just released. For most writers, it’s all you need.

 

[Howard]

The 'clutches' of Apple? Yes, those monsters, giving away a perfectly competent office suite with their completely free OS. Burn them!

Don't get me wrong, Libre is OK, especially for free (as long as we ignore the fundamental flaws in its coding and choice of building blocks), but there is a reason it is free. It's a better option than what Windows laptops ship with, I'll give you that, but it does not hold a candle to professional writing software, or even to the free software of Apple. It is also worth noting that LibreOffice has known performance issues on Mac: it is extremely slow and still as unstable as it always was on that platform, so, user beware. Its almost like coding in Java was a huge mistake!

Yes, free is free, but to be honest, if you can't shell out for something better (and they are not that expensive), use a notepad program and just apply markup later. At least you remain format agnostic.

I recall writing my first book on the forbear of LibreOffice, OpenOffice. Rattling away on a netbook, watching it corrupt file after file. Ah, fun times...

 

[Paul Whybrow]

I used OpenOffice for the first couple of years, after I returned to creative writing in 2013, but switched to LibreOffice once I realised that it was the breakaway arm of OpenOffice, which was continuing to be developed in helpful ways. I despise MS Word, always have done, as it's unnecessarily complicated and hard to understand. It's a prime example of, how when a new version of anything is released, it's always burdened with useless features. Nobody ever improves a product by simplifying it, do they?

Overall, I'm happy with LibreOffice Writer, as it does all that I want it to do. My only criticism of it, is that when you do want the solution to a problem, it's usually easier to Google it, rather than consult LibreOffice's Help pages—which are written in gobbledygook by a geek who thinks that he's talking to another geek. Such situations are one of the few times that I'd welcome something being dumbed down to my confused level.

 

[Howard]

I despise MS Word, always have done, as it's unnecessarily complicated and hard to understand. It's a prime example of, how when a new version of anything is released, it's always burdened with useless features. Nobody ever improves a product by simplifying it, do they?

This! Oh, a thousand times this!

 

[AgentPete]

The help function is still rubbish, you're better off searching online for an answer.

I've only used it since version 5.?, on a pc, Win10 and have no performance issues, crashes etc. But on a Mac it might be a different thing.

The user interface is similar to the best version of Word, a few iterations ago, which again is nice - you don't need to learn a new way of working simply because Microsoft decrees it.

 

[Howard]

The help function is still rubbish, you're better off searching online for an answer.

I've only used it since version 5.?, on a pc, Win10 and have no performance issues, crashes etc. But on a Mac it might be a different thing.

The user interface is similar to the best version of Word, a few iterations ago, which again is nice - you don't need to learn a new way of working simply because Microsoft decrees it.

Yeah, on Windows it works fine, and indeed, it does hark back to the 'good old' version os Word. Whoever invented that Ribbon on the new versions of Word should be beaten to death with their own grandmother.

 

[OperaDivaAlix]

Downloaded. Cheers Pete

 

[Carol Rose]

I'm too old school. LOL! I use Word for Mac on my MacBook Pro and have minimal issues. Then again, I'm used to Word on Windows machines because that's what we use at my day job, so I know how to deal with Word's quirkiness. It also provides a smooth transition for editors who are working on Windows machines. I had issues when using Pages, which is a Mac's built-in version of Word, when editors on the other end tried to work with the document. Even though Pages allows you to save it as a "Word" document, that didn't always happen on the other end. Not sure if that would be a consideration with LibreOffice Writer or not?

 

[Howard]

Pages exports perfectly to Word - I use it constantly. Issue only arrises when the end user doesn't know if they need .doc or .docx. While thing should be abandoned for RTF or PDF - doc formats are just awful, unreliable and entirely impossible to protect.

LibreOffice will have the same issues if the file type isn't considered. Even Word itself will generate the same problems. The problem isn't Word, exactly, it is people clinging to ancient versions of Word. The amount of people I would see, as recent as two year ago, when fixing their PC, still with Word 97 installed...dear god...

 

[Carol Rose]

Pages exports perfectly to Word - I use it constantly. Issue only arrises when the end user doesn't know if they need .doc or .docx. While thing should be abandoned for RTF or PDF - doc formats are just awful, unreliable and entirely impossible to protect.

LibreOffice will have the same issues if the file type isn't considered. Even Word itself will generate the same problems. The problem isn't Word, exactly, it is people clinging to ancient versions of Word. The amount of people I would see, as recent as two year ago, when fixing their PC, still with Word 97 installed...dear god...

Interesting stuff, @Howard. Thanks for the info.

 

[Geoff]

Downloaded.
I have the Cloud version of MS Office , which is fine until you go mobile and need to log on to use it. Bit of a problem when you don't have internet access. Result, I couldn't edit the word document I was working on. Very frustrating.