LibreOffice downloads on the rise as users look to avoid subscription costs | The free open-source Microsoft Office alternative is being downloaded by nearly 1 million users a week
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Exactly. I'm really interested in running Linux but it would be more of something interesting to try when I have time rather than an actual OS change.
The biggest issue for me is I'm a photographer and I depend on Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, etc. I know there are open source alternatives, but from what I've seen they are far behind adobe.
I guess dual boot could be a solution
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x 3 + 3 obviously.
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If you ever figure it out I'd love to know, too. I relied entirely on Libre Office as an undergrad but missed this feature of MS Word. I currently use a combination of Scribbr and Purdue Owl but would prefer an offline and open source solution.
Zotero has plugins for LibreOffice and other word processors: https://www.zotero.org/support/word_processor_integration
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x 3 + 3 obviously.
Not x 4 - 4
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As a lifetime Windows user who switched to Linux about ten years ago, I recommend Linux Mint. It's designed to look and feel like Windows 7 so it's an easier transition when you first move from Windows. Also Mint is a rock solid distribution and has been my daily driver for about 9 years now. And before I forget, Mint has great documentation and community so when you get stuck on something you can easily Google for help.
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They'll have to settle for "warning" the user if they detect a file that was made by libreoffice.
The warning can be disabled from the settings
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Interest in LibreOffice, the open-source alternative to Microsoft Office, is on the rise, with weekly downloads of its software package close to 1 million a week. That’s the highest download number since 2023.
“We estimate around 200 million [LibreOffice] users, but it’s important to note that we respect users’ privacy and don’t track them, so we can’t say for sure,” said Mike Saunders, an open-source advocate and a deputy to the board of directors at The Document Foundation.
LibreOffice users typically want a straightforward interface, Saunders said. “They don’t want subscriptions, and they don’t want AI being ‘helpful’ by poking its nose into their work — it reminds them of Clippy from the bad old days,” he said.
There are genuine use cases for generative AI tools, but many users prefer to opt-in to it and choose when and where to enable it. “We have zero plans to put AI into LibreOffice. But we understand the value of some AI tools and are encouraging developers to create … extensions that use AI in a responsible way,” Saunders said.
Don't forget to seed the torrents to help the servers.
And donate if you can
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Interest in LibreOffice, the open-source alternative to Microsoft Office, is on the rise, with weekly downloads of its software package close to 1 million a week. That’s the highest download number since 2023.
“We estimate around 200 million [LibreOffice] users, but it’s important to note that we respect users’ privacy and don’t track them, so we can’t say for sure,” said Mike Saunders, an open-source advocate and a deputy to the board of directors at The Document Foundation.
LibreOffice users typically want a straightforward interface, Saunders said. “They don’t want subscriptions, and they don’t want AI being ‘helpful’ by poking its nose into their work — it reminds them of Clippy from the bad old days,” he said.
There are genuine use cases for generative AI tools, but many users prefer to opt-in to it and choose when and where to enable it. “We have zero plans to put AI into LibreOffice. But we understand the value of some AI tools and are encouraging developers to create … extensions that use AI in a responsible way,” Saunders said.
I replaced MS Office with libreoffice on my dad's PC and he didnt even noticed for months.
Libreoffice is just better. -
If you're a nerd, also check out Typst and LaTeX. Being able to format your documents with pure code is awesome, and you can also define functions for different things, import libraries to generate graphs, and write comments that don't show up in the document.
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The funny thing is you can still buy Office standalone but you have to actively go looking for it and Microsoft doesn't advertise it because 365 subscriptions make more money.
Microsoft actively doesn't want you buying standalone versions of software, but they still have to sell it because there's still a market for it.
And if you monitor Slickdeals, you can often get a copy for under $40.
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it increases your chances of getting accidentally added to confidential group chats
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Interest in LibreOffice, the open-source alternative to Microsoft Office, is on the rise, with weekly downloads of its software package close to 1 million a week. That’s the highest download number since 2023.
“We estimate around 200 million [LibreOffice] users, but it’s important to note that we respect users’ privacy and don’t track them, so we can’t say for sure,” said Mike Saunders, an open-source advocate and a deputy to the board of directors at The Document Foundation.
LibreOffice users typically want a straightforward interface, Saunders said. “They don’t want subscriptions, and they don’t want AI being ‘helpful’ by poking its nose into their work — it reminds them of Clippy from the bad old days,” he said.
There are genuine use cases for generative AI tools, but many users prefer to opt-in to it and choose when and where to enable it. “We have zero plans to put AI into LibreOffice. But we understand the value of some AI tools and are encouraging developers to create … extensions that use AI in a responsible way,” Saunders said.
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I have used latex a lot with overleaf, but I’d like to try using an offline version. Do you have any tips?
Just to throw in some other options: you can easily convert basically anything to latex (and ultimately to Pdf) using pandoc. For instance, if you use Zettlr as your markdown editor, you can also use a citation software (eg., Zotero) and quickly invoke it using the @ character. Then, you can write your documents in Markdown and inline Latex and create a Latex-powered Pdfs via pandoc. I use this approach to write scientific papers and it works pretty well.
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Libreoffice was created as a fork of OpenOffice because the development of OO became stale due to Oracle. If you're still on OpenOffice, try LibreOffice - it's kind of the same, but better
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I've found Linux Mint to be easier to install and use than Windows. (I don't have to enter the console and allow myself to setup an offline account because no network drivers were working in Linux. Windows 11 did that).
I've never had issues with graphics drivers, despite using Nvidia cards. The only issues with Linux have been because I broke something when I was messing around.
Get a USB drive, burn a Linux ISO to it, and try it out without installing it.
And then something doesn't work during installation or you have to postpone it, you have to abort the installation, run into the MMOK error that blocks you from installing ANY UEFI Linux...just happend to me. I REALLY like the idea of Linux but man, if such things still happen :/.
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Not sure but it's free to download and try out
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Teams has decided it won't recognise like 50% of word docs anymore. So you can no longer edit them within teams and have to download them. If you simply read and scroll down it, the scroll glitches so bad for no reason. Ugh
No matter who you ask, it still seems like everyone fucking hates it. I never heard a single good word about teams and still its one of the most widely used conference softwares.
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Don't forget to seed the torrents to help the servers.
And donate if you canVery few people will actually know how to do that.
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It's not just the subscription they want to avoid. Office has been steadily enshitified to the point nobody I know likes using it anymore.
It started going downhill when they got rid of word art.
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No matter who you ask, it still seems like everyone fucking hates it. I never heard a single good word about teams and still its one of the most widely used conference softwares.
It's absolutely terrible. I'm looking at it now and just glancing at the screen I can come up with problems. All your recent chance are down the left hand side in chronological order with absolutely no way for you to organize or label them, It frequently just doesn't work and you have to use the online version which has a different UI for zero reason at all, that is no configurable options for muting. It's either on or off. Even WhatsApp has options to mute for 30 minutes.
That's just the surface stuff. There's a bunch of little annoying UI issues as well that only become really apparent when you use it for a while. So they definitely didn't QA any of it.
