I would use word for this, but I can’t close vim. I guess I’m learning LaTeX.

Ya, the first few times I used vim (well neovim) I exited by closing the terminal

And unwanted AI features!

Software as a disservice.

It's $150 for a "perpetual" license - but that's not including any one drive storage. The Office 365 SaaS (I think now it's Microsoft 365?) starts at $99/year.

I know this because I've been trying to find a solution for my sister who absolutely needs office to get a workable solution for Linux. Supposedly, she has to submit papers/writing as docx and can't trust LibreOffice not to fuck up formatting.

I used LibreOffice Writer for my coursework the past semester, and when I used my spouse’s Windows computer to double check the images were correctly placed before submitting a paper they were on completely different pages. This was when I saved it as a .docx, because the only two options accepted were .docx or pdf. I wound up doing everything as a pdf if I needed images, but I think LibreOffice doesn’t have a save as pdf option? Or if it did I missed it, I just used Google Docs to save it as a pdf.

LibreOffice is as good as Word. Which sadly means there are still no really good document editors out there.

I've been enjoying OnlyOffice myself! (LibreOffice is fine, I just like the UI of OnlyOffice more.)

Only Office > Libre Office

Also I don't see the problem with the other two.
Move image? Works fine if you select the right wrapping.
Ignore spelling mistake? Right click -> ignore once / ignore all / add to dictionary

I think from an end-user perspective it's realistic to expect Word to edit PDFs. It's just that the PDF format is an unbelievably complex clusterfuck and thus requires an entirely separate and expensive program.

100% for real. I simply can't do freelancing Excel work with LibreOffice because I know the 1:1 compatibility falls apart quickly. Basic formulas are about as far as I can trust it.

Is there a decent FOSS alternative to excel? Libre has been my goto for years because I never needed anything more, but just in the last week I have a new client with some more rigorous needs, and I REALLY dont want to bite the buellt on 365

That's fair. Imagine if people invested that much time into calc. A person can dream...

The main problem with LibreOffice as a whole is the vast install base of MS Office. If you can work from the beginning in LibreOffice and store things as ODTs and ODSs, you'll have a fine time. The second you need to work with someone who uses MS Office or deal with legacy documents made in Office, it beats your chin on the floor.

I straight up used draw.io to create a paper form. I needed high information density so I can't waste space formatting stuff the normal way, I need something more graphical and publisher got axed.

You know it's bad when I prefer a nice markdown editor to word lol

I wrote things in a community college class in latex and they made me resubmit in word because their anti cheat software couldn’t read pdfs. Upsetting. I was 30. I’m not cheating on a heavily sourced psych paper.

I feel like Microsoft products steadily get worse over time. It's like they spend money to have their programmers seen how bad a product gets before people will get fed up and dump it.

That was my first thought too. Somehow they seem to be able to make the shittiest possible version of everything they attempt, and yet it almost always becomes the standard that everyone uses.

would you send that to my mom please?

!antiquememesroadshow@lemmy.world

At one point, Microsoft was maintaining three different word processors.

• Word, the top of the line component of the flagship Office product
• Works, their "for home and small business" product that was honestly good enough for basically everyone, to the point you have to ask why anyone would buy Office, which is almost certainly why Works got canned, and
• Wordpad, because a GUI OS is basically useless without a rich text editor.

I agree lots of things about word sucks. But FYI single page landscape is achieved by using two section breaks. It's not ideal, but its somewhat understandable given how styles are prioritized. I've tried others that work well, but they also suffer on things that word does well that we take for granted.

Overfull hbox has left the chat un formatted

My choice of file-format for documents sorted by complexity of the content:

1. Markdown
2. Orgmode
3. Typst

I wish Markdown had better support for tables.

I miss the Steve Jobs era of iWork.

I won’t say it was the best (why were there no pivot tables in numbers?? And why is the current implementation shit requiring manual refreshes that you can’t rely on?), but the software worked very uniformly and was straight forward.

If he hadn’t died he would still be yelling at them to make keynote and numbers work, and he probably wouldn’t have missed the collaborative editing boat.

iWeb was pretty sweet too.

You using complex file formats for vendor lock in

Me using complex file formats because my code base is shite.

We are not the same