this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
161 points (92.6% liked)
Linux
48335 readers
433 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
No, it is why Linux becomes an unviable alternative - you can't open and edit a document and be sure it won't get messed up in some way.
It's not messed up, though. It's just set to a different value.
If the exact amount of paragraph spacing is important to you, you can either set it before you print, share the file as PDF or use a proper layouting software. This isn't a Linux issue, you should do the same when sharing a file with someone using MS Office.
Because opening a Word document in a different MS Office version than the one it was created with can also mess it up, but somehow businesses deal with that.
Your yardstick for a usable desktop system is "every detail and default setting in all software needs to be exactly the same as on the Windows equivalent".
So by definition only Windows can ever be a usable desktop system. No matter how good anything else may be.
The amount of times I've had this argument in the office is untrue. I think the default values aren't stored in the docx file or something like that, but when you manually set a value it does store it in the docx.
Then you have the whole proprietary blobs in a "open" standard to deal with.
The worst offenders are people who format with tabs and spaces and wonder why it's all messed up.
You're missing the point, if you get a document from a MS Office user you can't simply view it or print it and assume the result will be what the user intended it to be. Same applies in reverse if you make changes to the document. This makes LibreOffice unsuitable and not a real alternative.
No, the problem is that most people on this post want it both ways, want to say that LibreOffice is 100% perfect and can fit 100% of uses cases and be used for collaboration and at the same time say stuff like you said "It’s not messed up, though. It’s just set to a different value.". Its one thing or the other, not both.
And for what's worth is shouldn't be "set to a different value" because it breaks compatibility and LibreOffice say it does the best they can to ensure compatibility with MS Office formats.
You're missing the point. You can't assume that even if both use MS Office, either. Cause one of the users could have changed a setting, or use Office Online, or Office for OSX, or an older version, all of which aren't fully compatible.
MS breaks these things all the time between versions too, without even telling you they've updated your Office.
Again, if layout of your end product is important, don't share .docx files.
I know a LOT of people who've been doing this since Office 97 and formatting holds across computers. And to be fair it seems to hold a lot better between older and newer versions of MS Office than with LibeOffice.
And I've had better results opening Office files with LibreOffice than with MS Online Office.
You guys want to have it both ways, first you'll say that Office online is the ultimate solution for every Linux user that needs to collaborate with MS Office users and now this. lol
Every single docx file that I opened in a recent LibreOffice version looked exactly as intended. What features specifically are you talking about that dont work?
Look at my screenshot above. Do you call that "looked exactly as intended"?