LibreOffice Says Its UI Is Way Better Than Microsoft Office's (neowin.net)
- Reference: 0180900892
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/03/03/1951222/libreoffice-says-its-ui-is-way-better-than-microsoft-offices
- Source link: https://www.neowin.net/news/libreoffice-hits-back-at-its-critics-says-its-ui-is-better-than-microsoft-offices/
> While many users choose Microsoft Office over LibreOffice because of its support for the proprietary formats (.docx, .xlsx, and .pptx), others prefer Office for its "better" ribbon interface. These users often criticize LibreOffice for having a "clunky" UI instead of the "standard" ribbon interface you would find in Word, Excel, and other Office apps.
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> Now, Neowin reports that LibreOffice is fighting back, [2]arguing that its UI is actually superior because it is customizable, with several modes such as the classic toolbar interface, an Office-inspired ribbon layout, a sidebar-focused design, and more. Furthermore, it argues that there is no evidence that the ribbon offers "superior usability" over other interface modes.
LibreOffice says in a [3]blog post :
> Incidentally, the characterization of ribbon-style interfaces as "modern" or "standard," used by several users, is not based on any objective usability parameter or design principle, but is the result of Microsoft's dominance in the market and the huge investments made when the ribbon was introduced in Office 2007 as a new paradigm for productivity software. The idea that "modern" equals "similar to a ribbon" is a normalization effect: the Microsoft interface has become a benchmark because of its ubiquity, not because of its proven advantages in terms of usability. Added to this is the fact that many users evaluate office software through the lens of familiarity with Microsoft Office and consider deviation from it as a problem rather than a design choice.
Before this, LibreOffice had also [4]criticized its competitor OnlyOffice , accusing it of being " [5]fake open source " because it believes OnlyOffice is working with Microsoft to lock users into the Office ecosystem by prioritizing the formats mentioned earlier instead of LibreOffice's own OpenDocument Format (ODF).
[1] https://slashdot.org/~darwinmac
[2] https://www.neowin.net/news/libreoffice-hits-back-at-its-critics-says-its-ui-is-better-than-microsoft-offices/
[3] https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/02/27/odf-is-just-the-first-of-lo-advantages/
[4] https://www.neowin.net/news/libreoffice-blasts-fake-open-source-onlyoffice-for-working-with-microsoft-to-lock-users-in/
[5] https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/02/16/why-odf-and-not-ooxml/
Ribbon, No. (Score:4, Insightful)
The ribbon format is just bad. There is no uniformity to the UI. You have to spend time learning the UI, rather than just using it.
This is definitely a situation where simpler is better, and it's very hard to beat the standard drop-down tree'd menu with modal dialogs at the leaves.
Re: (Score:2)
That's ridiculous. Everybody uses Google Docs/Sheets just fine, and it has a glorious ribbon. Oh wait.
Re: Ribbon, No. (Score:2)
I prefer the old fashioned text only menu at the top with the classic design, black text on grey interface "file, open, save, save as, close, exit, -- the old text menu took less space so more features can take less room on the application interface
Re: Ribbon, No. (Score:2)
Not better, not worse, just different, I hate it too when the application interface has major changes and I have to relearn the new menu scheme, that's the same with any app being used
Re: (Score:2)
Their UX paradigm is the game of hide and seek.
Re: (Score:2)
> The ribbon format is just bad. There is no uniformity to the UI. You have to spend time learning the UI, rather than just using it.
Lack of uniformity is the point. The UI is context sensitive which reduces the amount of cruft that is on display. You may not like it. Other people do. As the first post points out Pepsi tastes like shit even though Pepsi drinkers will insist it is superior.
The everything and the kitchen sink in your face approach is not good UI design either, yes it is uniform and static, but it fills the UI with greyed out unavailable options that really have no business being displayed at the time.
There is no right or w
True (Score:2)
I hated the ribbon when it came out, and still do. It's a stupid interface. Not having it is a definite advantage of LibreOffice.
The ribbon UI wasn't "better"; it just justified somebody's (or some team of somebodies's) job.
Re: all of their UIs suck (Score:2)
Shout out for Calamus. Fondly missed also, is Pagemaker.
The difference is night and day (Score:2)
Let's ignore the fact MS Office can't run on the vast majority of computers, since it only has Windows and Mac support. Which ends any possible argument that it's built for real-world work, or, professional work. It's out before it leaves the gate, if we consider that.
Microsoft Office is a nightmare of broken design concepts, clutter, confusion, disorganization, and latency that takes you back to 1200 baud dial up. I don't think it's possible to intentionally carry out work in MS Office, its confetti ca
Re: (Score:2)
I hate that I can't run MS Office on my cluster of headless Linux servers.
Context Matters (Score:2)
So, back in 2008, Microsoft UX designers [1]did a whole presentation [youtube.com] regarding how they came up with the Ribbon UI.
It's a really interesting watch, even if you don't agree with their conclusions - some of the early prototypes look awesome, even if they failed the functionality test. The relatively short summary is that most of the features end users were asking for, were already in the products, and there was a discovery problem. Menus had grown from 5-or-fewer entries to nearly two dozen per menu, including t
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl9kD693ie4
UI Design is an Art (Score:2)
I'm not sure what triggered the development of the "ribbon" interface, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was an example of that phenomenon you get in large companies, where you have to keep changing things (Let's charitably call it "innovation") in order to demonstrate your worth. When an important new manager assumes a new post, they will never say "Things are going well as they are now". They will need to make drastic changes. This "need" has precious little relation to the current quality of product, or
This just in... (Score:3, Insightful)
Pepsi says their cola is way better than Coke's
(That they prefer their own user interface is newsworthy?)