Should I still use apache openoffice?

Barbiefan1475

So yea i know libreoffice is a better alternative to Microsoft office and a fork of openoffice but my mom is very used to it and teached me about it (thxs to her for all the teaching about Linux etc to me ) . I also tried wps office , onlyoffice but openoffice is what I use on my main workstation (my gaming msi laptop ) and I quite like it . Btw I use an unoffical appimage version on solus and the official rpm on my other laptop running Rocky Linux . To be honest I dont know if I should switch to another office suite since I like using openoffice . What do you thinks and your opinion on this

LarryNG

Barbiefan1475 In my opinion, I say to use what a person is most comfortable with. I choose Word 2003 for my XP pc, Word 2010 for all other Windows pcs (2010 has the 'find column' that I need for large documents), and on Solus I prefer LibreOffice. A couple days ago I looked into testing OpenOffice in Solus, but at the moment I am too lazy to do the installation. 😉

As a background, my first word processor was on a Commodore 64 (around 1985), then WordPerfect 5 in DOS, then to Word in Windows 3.1, then Star Office, then OpenOffice, and on up through all other versions of Word to 2013 (including testing all known brands and versions of word processors). I myself will never use Office 2013 nor anything newer from Microsoft (the whites are excessively uncomfortable). LibreOffice and OpenOffice will likely never be as good as early Word versions, but still I choose LibreOffice in Solus because it is comfortable to use. 'Comfort' is the key word, and is what I told all of my customers; to use what they liked best.

stalebrim

Staudey

There's almost no development behind OpenOffice these days. The final release was in 2011.
If it still works for your purposes I don't see the harm in using it (unless you want to open untrusted files from the internet, in which case I'd stay away from something that old). But e.g. interoperability with MS Office will suffer greatly. Even LibreOffice still struggles with that, even though it's actively developed.

Barbiefan1475

Staudey doesn't apache still release updates to openoffice ? I think the last update was like 8 months I think im not sure .

Staudey

Barbiefan1475 My bad, I was thinking about the original OpenOffice. Still, much less momentum than LibreOffice. But at least they take care of security issues, true.

edit: Seems like they've had some issues in dealing with such issues in a timely manner though (stemming from the lack of (development) resources)

Barbiefan1475

Staudey its alright no worries . People make mistakes all the time . I do agree , Apache openoffice updates are just slow and kinda getting old in my opinion . LibreOffice is great from what I heard but its something that im not used to and plus the school compatibility with Microsoft office is not on par in my opinion

tomscharbach

OpenOffice and LibreOffice are similar. Chances are that if you are comfortable with OpenOffice, a switch to LibreOffice would not be a big deal -- the commands and menu structures are similar.

However, one thing you should check is whether or not OpenOffice is able to save to DOCX and XLSX formats. The last time I used OpenOffice (several years ago) OpenOffice could not save to either DOCX or XLSX. That might have changed. If your school requires you to submit documents in either DOCX or XLSX formats, being able to save to those formats would be important, so make sure.

Barbiefan1475

tomscharbach are those format closed source since im not sure if libreoffice supports it ?

infinitymdm

I've recently switched to OnlyOffice, available on Solus via flatpak. It does all the docx/pptx/xlsx editing I need, and IMO has a much nicer UI than most of the FOSS office suites out there.

brent

infinitymdm Heard nothing but good things about OO but haven't tried it.
imho--
apache open: brilliant, responsive. uncluttered, my favorite but havent used it in years (not maintained well)
ms word: not about efficiency, just massive bloat, gets in its own way constantly, sometimes barely functional depending on how much insane stuff it has to tell you in the course of a session...
libre office: overkill, don't even know what 3/4s of the buttons do nor do I care..but completely functional.

where does OpenOffice fall on my defamation spectrum here?

elfprince

brent don't even know what 3/4s of the buttons do nor do I care

Exactly. Way too much confusion, as to what is where. Don't want to spend tons of time trying to find a function thingy. Too much.

brent

brent where does OpenOffice fall on my defamation spectrum here?

edit: _Only_Office

elfprince Exactly. Way too much confusion, as to what is where. Don't want to spend tons of time trying to find a function thingy. Too much.

yep. it's a word processor so I use it like a word processor. anything more advanced than that (desktop publishing etc) I will use desktop publishing software.

stalebrim

brent Use the tabbed layout, which is more on par with modern Office apps

EbonJaeger

Barbiefan1475 The newer formats (the ones ending in x) are open, but are so hard to implement and convoluted (some say intentionally) that it's very hard for anyone but Microsoft to do it correctly.

tomscharbach

Barbiefan1475 are those format closed source since im not sure if libreoffice supports it

DOCX/XLSX/PPTX is an open format (not open source) XML-based format. The format is complicated and governed by the Office Open XML standard, which is published. Because Office Open XML is open format, rather than open source, the the standard must be reverse-engineered to some degree, with varying degrees of success by different application developers.

The bottom line is, as I understand it, that OpenOffice can read and modify DOCX/XLSX/PPTX formats, but not write to those formats, but LibreOffice can read, modify and write to DOCX/XLSX/PPTX formats. Depending on your school's requirements, that might be something you should consider when making a choice.

For what it is worth, I've had no difficulty reading, modifying and writing DOCX and XLSX documents using LibreOffice, but I understand that complex, heavily formatted documents/spreadsheets can cause difficulties because of the complexity of the DOCX/XLSX/PPTX standard.

infinitymdm

brent where does OnlyOffice fall on my defamation spectrum here?

I'd describe OnlyOffice in a lot like you describe Apache OpenOffice: responsive and uncluttered. I have yet to find a feature that isn't where I expect, or that I don't intuitively know how to use based on experience from other document editors.

An aside on the docx/xlsx/pptx formats: my understanding is that they are implemented as zipped xml documents with some extra metadata tacked on. It seems very unnecessarily confusing.

tomscharbach

infinitymdm I understand that OnlyOffice is online office suite, and requires connectivity in order to work properly. Is that right?

brent

tomscharbach last time I used Apache I could save as a .docx (even .doc, that's how long!)--at least that's what I'm recalling.

Barbiefan1475

tomscharbach very interesting. i thought open format and open source was the same . so im also confused that means there is no gpl mit apache licence to these formats ? .

infinitymdm

tomscharbach OnlyOffice has online features and offers cloud storage (much like the MS products do), but I just use it for offline editing. It doesn't require a connection.

tomscharbach

brent ast time I used Apache I could save as a .docx (even .doc, that's how long!)--at least that's what I'm recalling.

The official OpenOffice documentation suggests otherwise:

I briefly gave some thought to installing OpenOffice on my Latitude 11-3120 (it doesn't currently have an office suite installed) but decided against it because OpenOffice is 32-bit and requires 32-bit Java run time for full functionality. I've had issues with the 32-bit Java RTE in the past and don't want to deal with it.

LibreOffice does allow "Save As" to docx:

brent

tomscharbach If my memory was half-right (doc) I'll take it. It was long enough ago where doc/docx were apples/apples; tomato, to-ma-to.
You'll get warnings about cross-pollinating by Word and even Libre but hooey I say. What's the format difference? 1/1000th of a pica or something? Open the doc in Word I can't tell the difference....sometimes format loss for bullet points and listing but I've never seen the cataclysmic shifts they always promise when you Save As then Open... I'd still vouch for OpenOffice for word-processing and writing...except for that sluggish update thing...

The crux of the matter is Apache refuses to bow down to the OOXML (whatever that is) standard and is succintly stated in 2020 by an apache openoffice mod in their official blog:

"Apart from the technical stuff, OOXML has been bribed through the standardization boards in order to fight the ODF standard. Following another old Microsoft tradition, MS Office itself uses an "extended" version of its own standard, so the OOXML files produced by MS Office do not follow their own certified standard. How can anything be compatible with something that does not want to be compatible?
If you want to avoid file format trouble, use ODF.
If you want to produce Microsoft documents, install MS Office."

A turf battle I neither care about nor will get anywhere near. I can roll with Libre Office.
edit/shortened, actually🙂