News: 1589270411

It's 2020 for Pete's sake, and there is still no guarantee that a word processed file will display and print properly across different machines. In thirty years of office and home computers being mainstream this shit us stil

This is why PDF is still so popular as Postscript describes exactly how things should look.

"there is still no guarantee that a word processed file will display and print properly across different machines"

Yes, and it's exactly that reason why companies "trust Office" and therefore buy it - and nothing else. It's not an accident.

Even the place I work at which is pretty forward-thinking has Office in case any clients send us files and we have trouble opening them. We ourselves don't particularly use it. But if you're a business there's a notion that you "need" it, for this exact reason.

Nobody wants to be the one making a phone call "sorry, I couldn't open your file because (insert anti-Microsoft rant arguments) we run LibreOffice and, well, it just won't convert your file. Hello? Hello??"

I think that's not a compatibility argument but rather a "No-one got fired for buying IBM" argument. People accept the incompatibility because it's a Microsoft product.

When it comes to compatibility with Docx files it's usually Microsoft's own products that fare the worst. It's quite common for the same Word document to look different or have other issues between various versions of Word or between Word for Mac, Word for Windows and Office 365.

It's no surprise that, after the dust had settled somewhat after format standardisation wars between ODF and OOXML, Microsoft had to admit that creating an open standard (as in documenting a standard that someone else must be able to implement) was much harder than they thought. There are plenty of examples where MS developers seem unable (or unwilling) to follow the OOXML standard. So even if other developers stick to Microsoft standards the documents still have issues in Word because MS developers don't stick to MS standards.

Before I send anything for publishing I first have to load it into Word and check the formatting and then save it in a years old Word version format. This is not even unusual, it's hard to find any other way unless you pay more.

I should just use Word in the first place so that I can save that time consuming step, but I'm steadfastly refusing.

If you're doing anything for publishing you'd be better using PDF.

Indeed. But it doesn't help with the "fill in this word-doc form, and send it back" scenario.

(Although I recall PDF forms being a thing, they never seem to be used...)

@ Len : " It's quite common for the same Word document to look different or have other issues between various versions of Word or between Word for Mac, Word for Windows and Office 365. "

I wouldn't call it common, but the rule. And you haven't even touched the subject of Office in German, English, French, and having to exchange files between these MS-Word versions: tables in German are called "Tabelle" and when you open such a Word file on an English speaking MS-WORD and add another "Table" it will not increment correctly the reference number. Same if you have paragraphs and copy-paste across documents with different header settings: you'll have mixed layout for identical headers. And the next header might or might-not increment correctly.

And we haven't talked about the ugly kerning, meaning that you can immediately recognise research thesis written in LaTeX or in Word.

That a multi-billion company is not able, after 30 years of their top-selling flagship product, to produce a marginally usable Word processor speaks volumes about its overall capabilities.

Andy, an employer I used to work for liked to use the ruse of "Our IT folks say your file is triggering virus warnings for some odd reason. Is there any way you can save it as something else like PDF & resend it? Thanks, we really appreciate it."

The other person would save it as something else, resend it, & the productivity suite he used would then happily open the file.

No anti-MS rant required, just use MS' security against itself! =-D

It's 2020 for Pete's sake, and despite word processed documents being mainstream in the home and office for thirty years we still have no guarantee that a document will display and print properly. What the hell humanity?

It's more the case that after 30 years, people have still to realise that WYSIWIG is only true under a very limited number of circumstances.

Word processors are not page-layout designers. They record the text and metadata (such as typeface, spacing, emphasis, etc), not the exact position of glyphs on virtual paper. It's more akin to HTML than SVG. You can only reproduce the document exactly if the printer supports exactly the same imaging area, the fonts are identical, kerning is handled in the same way, etc. Producing decent typography is very hard, particularly if you want to do it for a wide variety of languages. It's extremely unlikely you are ever going to get identical results on different platforms.

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First of all, Libreoffice has the same option to use Microsoft XML or Opendocument XML, so I can't see what the big play is surrounding file formats.

But moving on, we've had several clients where we've tried to help them save money by using LibreOffice. The best I can say is that some of them 'put up with it'. Every single end user has complained about documents either not formatting correctly, or when they send them to MS Office-using recipients, that they can't open documents properly (if at all). Our clients have tried, and are happy to pay a sub to Microsoft rather than struggle with the likes of LibreOffice.

It's a great idea, but unless it's just for one person, and they never need to exchange documents with anyone, using alternatives to MS Office just isn't a viable option any more.

And the prices that Softmaker charge are around the same as a personal MS Office subscription, so I can't see the advantage.

I would love to be able to say to end users that they have an alternative (in a business setting), but there's an elephant in the room - Outlook. We have tried this time and time again, and practically nobody likes to use alternatives (e.g. Thunderbird). People like Outlook because it's virtually ubiquitous. No matter how similar to Outlook an alternative looks (e.g. eMclient), people just don't get on with it. This new Softmaker package doesn't include an Outlook replacement and people are going to wonder what the point of it is.

Much as I hate the fact that Microsoft have a virtually total monopoly on Office apps, it is the first choice for the vast majority of business users.

Some of LO's problems with OOXML (Office OpenXML) are self-inflicted because it consistently produces files that do not comply with the specification. There is no need for this as the specification is freely available. It's inconsistent and often unclear but there is an ISO working group which maintains it and they are responsive to feedback.

As the specification doesn't cover visual represenation itself directly there are always going to be differences, not least because the file format does not equal the object representation within the applications.

It's a great idea, but unless it's just for one person, and they never need to exchange documents with anyone, using alternatives to MS Office just isn't a viable option any more.

For someone who doesn't exclusively produce documents (not documentation, you'd be crazy to use M$ word for that) the Google offerings work pretty well.

If, as a company, you subscribe to that ecosystem then Outlook and the rest of Office can mostly die off. Import/export is generally ok.

Of course you'll still have accountants/management consultants who can't operate outside Excel, but remind them that they used to Lotus 123 and their eyes will light up in fond memories. They can learn a new system if they need to.

Myself, I'll use google docs and google sheets within my company because... it works. It does most of what I want most of the time, and I never need to share documents with other companies without converting them to PDF first anyway.

But there's no way I could persuade any of our business customers to use it. They just want to use Word and Excel because they always have.

My kids on the other hand, have been using Google Docs from school right through to university. They can't understand why anyone would try and write a thesis in Word.

"A permanent licence costs £44.90 per year" is that a contradiction?

I came here to say just that. Ah, I remember the days when you could pay for software just once. But hey, I guess [1]all software is really software as a service ...

[1] https://xkcd.com/2224/

software as a sieve?

We copied the torture-test document to an Ubuntu system and tried opening it in both LibreOffice and TextMaker.

Why? Much better to round trip the documents and compare the markup with something like the OOXML Productivity Tool.

Not for me. Being tied to a subscription model is just like the M$ Office trap road map. Does your access to the software stop if you do not renew the subscription?

"These experiments show that getting perfect reproduction of Office document formats on Linux is still not easy."

"It is worth noting too that there is an interaction with the printer driver in word processor documents, so you will not necessarily get exactly the same appearance on different computers even with Word."

Quite. And who really needs another proprietary document format?

I have used SoftMaker Office on Windows and Linux for the past 10 years. I have had great luck with importing files in Word or Excel formats. I also love the fact that you can still have the traditional toolbar or classic menus style which I find more productive. There is also a tabbed interface you can use if you desire. The price of their products is reasonable and the the tech support is good. You are also not tied to the monthly or yearly subscription model like Microsoft Office is pushing. A good office suite.

The disadvantages are that there is no cloud version. I also do not like the auto-hyphenation. This can be shut off though. Not a bad Office suite and one I am happy to use daily.

one of a few occasions where the product feels dated

given some of the websites that have recently gone all 'ribbony' which can take up 1/3rd of the screen then feeling dated is no bad thing.

the real questions should be...

- Does it work?

- Am I productive with it? (or does it get in the way of me doing my job?)

> A permanent annual licence costs £44.90 per year

... is software subscriptions. Essentially holding your content to ransom.

Software security is intended to stop outside agents from doing this without the user's consent. But people are forced to do this by legitimate companies.

...and therefore not a solution at all. People won't use things that aren't MS branded and that extends from the senior executive level right down to the bottom. I've run into this every place I've worked - even one that was actually under a policy to *only* use foss software at the time. The policy was simply ignored for the office staff because they would without exception simply down tools and refuse to work with anything that wasn't Word / Excel / Outlook. Outlook particularly. You'll prise outlook from an office drone's cold, dead hands.

It literally does not matter how good an alternative is or isn't. There are office managers, and PA's and accountants and all other kinds of back-office staff who have been using MS office for their entire 20 year careers now, and they will not change unless absolutely forced to, and that's not going to happen because their managers are in exactly the same position.

I have a single Office Microsoft 365 subscription, and somehow my documents still display and print differently on my laptop and my desktop. If they can't get it right between two installs of the same version of the same software on the same licence on the same OS in the same house, what hope has anyone else got.

LibreOffice does have a ribbon UI if you really want it, and offers alternatives too. Personally I hate ribbon interfaces and much prefer a 'proper' menu system, so have no idea if they are any good or not.

The compatibility issues aren't helped when the source document was poorly constructed in the first place. Back when I was playing bridge with regular partners, I spent some considerable effort on cleaning up the document so that I could reliably work on it with less of the sort of nonsense you've encountered. And that was just in Word itself.

Don't forget that a big problem was Microsoft moving to the proprietary C fonts in Office necessitating other office suites to either license or substitute. (and yes, the default LO Liberation fonts are a bit ugly...)

But moving on, we've had several clients where we've tried to help them save money by using LibreOffice. The best I can say is that some of them 'put up with it'. Every single end user has complained about documents either not formatting correctly, or when they send them to MS Office-using recipients, that they can't open documents properly (if at all). Our clients have tried, and are happy to pay a sub to Microsoft rather than struggle with the likes of LibreOffice.

Unfortunately that pretty much describes my experience with directing folks to the free-office route. First is the learning curve since most were schooled on MS Office when they were introduced to personal computers. The largest obstacle is always the interchanging of documents with MS Office users. Eventually they end up paying the Redmond tax