this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
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cross-posted from: https://europe.pub/post/12592

Originally posted on Reddit

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 hours ago

I use libreoffice but man libreoffice writer is so finnicky. Formatting is all wonky. Definitely not a 1:1 replacement. It will format things differently than if you opened it in word

[–] [email protected] 13 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

No issues with Libre Office, but isn't the point of this scene that homelander really is a downgrade?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

He isn't a downgrade, he is stronger using the other guys DNA. He is mentally effed though, as a result of being brought up in a lab and tested on to see his limits.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 hours ago

Thanks, I wasn't sure cause in that season they seemed to be somewhat evenly matched in their confrontations.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

I just wish it wasnt so ugly.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

I think the look depends a lot on the icon set in use, which can be changed in the settings. Personally I use the Elementary SVG version on my Plasma Desktops, I find those icons to be clearer and neater than the ones in the Breeze pack. Also the default Font Liberation Sans, while a fine font, has a certain look that looks slightly dated somehow. If you change the default style for all documents to some other font, it looks a lot fresher :-)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 hours ago

I prefer LibreOffice's ugliness to Microsoft's strange menus. Anyway they're also available in LibreOffice, in the view menu.

For the rest of the interface you could look into GTK themes, I think LO's looks depend a lot of the theme you use. The interface is pretty customizable, I think.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 20 hours ago (3 children)

So... we supposed to be rooting for Homelander now?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 14 hours ago

For real. I really hate how all the internet has just decided to meme with homelander like he is a good guy. Any meme I see with him I just assume some sort of malevolence behind it because he is so fucking evil.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

No it's just saying libre office kills babies

[–] [email protected] 8 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Is that how it loads so fast?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

No, the babies are necessary to parse the .doc format.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Thankfully nobody uses that anymore, praise be

[–] [email protected] 4 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

I have a coworker that regularly sends *.xls files. They always function fine, so I really have no reason to complain.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 15 hours ago

xls files are blocked in our company because they can contain potentially harmful macros

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 18 hours ago
[–] JackbyDev 4 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

It's not like Solider Boy is great either lol.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

No, certainly not. I'm just pointing out that with context this meme template means something very different to what it says on the surface.

Unless OP's point is that LibreOffice is more functional but much, much worse for society while there are better options just off-screen, in which case fair enough and well played.

[–] JackbyDev 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I wouldn't over think it. It's just about the line used. The same way people use the Spider-Man template where he sees clearly with his glasses even though in the scene he sees better without them.

I feel like a meme academic lmao. "Well, yes, but the colloquial usage of templates often aren't a one-to-one with what's being shown, in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man,"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I'd hoped my last line would convey I was being more light-hearted than pedantic.

[–] JackbyDev 1 points 12 hours ago

I'd hoped my last paragraph would convey the same back.

[–] [email protected] 107 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (3 children)

I'm not a fan of people applying nationalism to open source software. I get this is a reaction to another country's nationalism but it really undermines what open source software is all about.

Yea, The Document Foundation is based in Germany. But Libre Office is an international collaborative open source project, with contributors in many countries.

Open source projects dont have a nationality. Even the ones with organisations based in the USA. And if people really are concerned about US based legal orgs then we should be looking at forking the software.

Its already under open source licences and belongs to everyone regardless of nationality.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 15 hours ago

TBH, as a New Zealander, highlighting that it's not based or of the US is a huge win.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

I'll say, I feel this. I love FOSS, and I love the BuyEuropean movement as well, but I'm also always scared this will turn nationalistic, which I'm not a big fan of...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

How would that work though? Nationalistic people tend to be anti-EU, no?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

You're taking it too literally. I don't know if nationalists tend to be anti-EU, though you're right that a lot of them are, but I was using nationalistic there very loosely to refer to the negative aspects of nationalistic ideology as applied to Europe


and the EU, in particular.

That being said, it's very easy to get hooked into a Buy European craze and then shift into Buy YourNation, which can quickly turn into "We're better than everyone else and if you don't think that you're a traitor" and so on and so on...

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

Eh I just don't see it.. There are just too many ideological conflicts between being nationalist/myNation and being motivated in participating in the avoid USA movement in the first place. The way I see it, they are direct opposite crowds.

For example, do you think Canadians are in danger of going full nationalist because they are avoiding usa products now because Trump wants to make them 51st state?

If anything, it's mostly a liberal movement.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

The way I see it, they are direct opposite crowds.

I think that's very naïve, to be honest. Ideological conflicts? I think conservatism is hypocrisy, and nationalism is inherently contradicting and artificial. "No hate like Christian love" is a saying for a reason. Those "crowds," as you put it


and by the way, it's very easy for anyone to be roped in to any ideology, so I don't think it's really a kind of person that believes any given thing, more so a person that happened to have been exposed to this and that at some point or another


are hypocritical, contradicting, and malleable. Well, that's my take, anyway.

For example, do you think Canadians are in danger of going full nationalist because they are avoiding usa products now because Trump wants to make them 51st state?

Yes!

If anything, it’s mostly a liberal movement.

Do you mean liberal as in American liberal, progressives? That does seem to be the case, for now. I'm not saying the movement is nationalist yet, I'm saying I think the rhetoric is a little iffy, and I'd rather avoid going down those routes!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 40 minutes ago

I think conservatism is hypocrisy, and nationalism is inherently contradicting and artificial. I mean sure, but I'm saying these tend to not be the kind of people who want to avoid USA products. Like, afd members are probably not boycotting Teslas or twitter etc right now, if you know what I mean.

No I don't mean american liberals, i mean its more liberals in general (canada, EU..) supporting this kind of movement, american liberal leaning people seem to be supportive of it too as far as I can tell.

I can't speak for others, but at least I am trying to avoid USA products, not because suddenly I feel like local products are superior (in many cases they are not, often there is no alternative at all), I just don't want to support this corporate capture bullshit in USA. That's it. There's nothing conservative about it. I really don't know why they called it buyfromEU or buyeuropean or whatever, but what i'm noticing is that if you want to avoid USA products, almost every alternative is from EU (as long as you want to avoid China too). And it's not really about EU anyway, people promote Canada or UK stuff all the time.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 21 hours ago

Precisely my feelings. I hope it doesn't turn out to in the negative way, but I'm afraid of some of the vitriol I'm seeing already

[–] [email protected] 28 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Uuuh this is about closed source Microsoft Office Vs open source Libre Office which just happen to be from Germany and thus is the reason why this is posted in this community.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 22 hours ago

They're replying because of OP's comment "based in Germany"

[–] [email protected] 20 points 18 hours ago

Good marketing point: LibreOffice has NO ENSHITTIFICATION! Great!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

libreoffice is great! onlyoffice is good too if you like more compatability with office and docx, but it's more geared toward online services and subscriptions.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

cryptpad.fr if you need a google docs alternative. DONATE BTW; they are not a megacorp.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 22 hours ago

Libreoffice is amazing. I had dismissed it ages ago back when I had no reason to boycott the US, but now I tried it again after switching to Linux and it works amazingly good.

There’s no need for MS Office for personal use, though unfortunately for my large corporate employer it probably isn’t going to realistically be considered.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 21 hours ago (10 children)

I like using OnlyOffice, too, which is based in Latvia.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

I'm never quite sure if a document will translate 100% to Word or Excel, but otherwise I've been very happy.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

To ensure better compatibility, do a fresh save-as to another format if possible on MS side (docx-doc, doc-docx, -docm, whatever). It forces Office to rebuild the file, i believe, and usually it fixes some display mistakes coming from excessive formatting, trashes the leftovers of previous edits, etc, and the file itself becomes lighter. Some other tricks:

  1. Have strict formatting rules and only select amount of styles. If you see them mutating, choose to select everything with a style-bastard applied, and then reapply their parent to all affected paragraphs (after what it should disappear);
  2. Don't use rare fonts as long as possible, and if you do, on different machines too, copy them from Windows fonts folder in advance;
  3. Overwhelmingly long and complex tables in Word usually break. The most dire offender is how you unite cells and move separate cells' borders, because it breaks their structure. Google has workarounds iand limitations on that in their products. To ensure your table translates right, copy it into Excel and then back after setting all cells in Excel to text data, as it likes to reformat e.g. 18.03.2025 into date format and such.

Some of these problems occured to me between different installations of MS products themselves, and with LO I had it the other way: Excel had a bugged file that wasn't adjustable in how to print it. One column wasn't fitting on the page one, but once I move the guideline over that column, Excel cuts this table into 70+ pages, one cell on each. The only thing that helped is opening this exact file in LO Calc where this problem just can't be reproduced. Since that I use Calc first, and then Google Sheets as I haven't found a fitting online sharing solution for myself and get invited tonedit it by others, and Excel is not an option at all anymore.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 22 hours ago

LO is good software.

It replaced MSOffice Word for me (and I had been using Word since the early 90s). It also has a few extensions one may want to consider adding. Stuff like extra dictionaries for example, or better (than the default provided) ePub/HTML export tools.

https://extensions.libreoffice.org/

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