A Tale of Two Office Suites

users
#1

I may be way out of line here, but I’m sending this post to the user lists for both LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice. I have both programs on my computer and regularly use both. Like many of you out there, I have subscribed to both user lists.

I don’t know the full history behind the Libre/Oracle split, but from what I have read on various forums and lists, there is considerable emotional pain resulting from the split. The result is two different FOSS office suites.

Some have pleaded for the two to combine forces. Others have noted that the competition is good for the end user as it results in more rapid development of improvements to both suites.

I see both sides, but I’d like to point out one thing I have noticed in my own use of the two programs. Some computer programs are what I would call “load and use.” Programs like web browsers and mail clients, etc., require little to no configuration or customization. One can simply do productive use without much thought. I can easily bounce back and forth between Internet Explorer and Firefox, Live Mail and Thunderbird.

Not so with office suites. To get the most out of my office suites, I create and edit templates, page, character and paragraph styles. I have to set the autocorrect functions of each program to my liking to prevent a (c) from turning into a ©. While it’s not essential, I tend to customize my toolbars and have created helpful macros. Effectively using an office suite requires a commitment akin to a marriage.

For this reason, bouncing back and forth between two suites is counterproductive. I find myself importing and exporting settings, styles, and templates between the two programs rather than simply doing my work.

Why do I put up with this inconvenience? Because each program has essential virtues over the other.

For example, if I need to properly hyphenate my US English, I use LibreOffice as (to date), OpenOffice fails to properly hyphenate US English.

But, if I need to create mailing lists, as I just did for Christmas cards, I use OpenOffice as its Avery 5160 template is more properly aligned than that found in LibreOffice.

LibreOffice remembers my hierarchical stylelist setting, whereas OpenOffice does not, but OpenOffice more effectively supports the advanced Graphite features of the Linux Libertine font.

So, depending on my specific needs, I bounce back and forth. I’m sure many would suggest that I help out by reporting bugs. I have done so, but even I get lost keeping track of the bugs of each program that I am most interested in following.

I suspect this situation will only get worse as each program develops features that will be lacking in the other. And, while I’m not a developer, my guess is that both programs are so complex that keeping up with each other will become an increasingly elusive effort. And, the time will come when decisions will be made NOT to implement features found in the other program.

I truly like the motivation generated with competition, and sometimes having multiple programs on my computer to meet specialized needs can be helpful. But, in the world of office suites, where user commitment is essential to effective use, it would be very helpful to us end users if TDF and Apache could somehow overcome their differences and join forces to give us one glorious office suites rather than two almost glorious office suites.

These are just my thoughts.

I’d be curious as to how many others are using both programs because of advantages of each over the other.

Virgil

#2

+1 agree

#3

Not really.

In my mail client I have only four accounts, one of which is for mailing
lists. So I have these four account and around 20 filters to put incoming mails
into different folders. Not much, and yet migrating to any other mail client
would require substantial amount of work. I wonder how people subscribed to
few dozens of mailing lists handle that...

In my web browser I have customized context menus, bunch of keyboard shortcuts
that I like, some user CSS and plenty of UserJS snippets, not to mention
bookmarks and RSS feeds (with one custom script that uses this certain RSS
feeds list format as input). I am afraid that migrating to any other web
browser would require me to take few days off.

I think that your conclusion that customization (which is prerequisite for
really efficient work) is commitment that kind of tight you with certain
application is generally true. It is true for my desktop environment, my text
editor, my web browser, mail client and office suite. Changing any of these
would require a lot of work or serious loss of work efficiency.

As side note: this is user-support LO mailing list. Most of us are not
developers. Perhaps some of us use both LO and AOO and try to help users of
both these suites. These people are part of both communities, so there is no
point in talking of "joining forces". Perhaps you would like to rise this
issue on developers mailing list.

#4

Hi Virgil,

The default label templates in LibreOffice and OpenOffice are frame based. About 4 years ago I ran across table style label templates that someone developed for OpenOffiice. The have worked great for me in both LibreOffice and OpenOffice without the problems of the frame based template labels not aligning properly as you get towards the bottom of the sheet. They table style are now available from http://www.worldlabel.com/Pages/openoffice-template.htm . Here is a link that should give you information about using them in a downloadable pdf file:
http://libreoffice-na.us/English-3.6-installs/add-ons-templates/OOoBlankLabels-Making%20Labels.pdf

For my Christmas mailing list, I have a database using Base, and then simply pull the addresses from there for my labels. Alignment on the labels is perfect with the table style templates.

Don

#5

Hi :slight_smile:
Perhaps try this in either Office Suite

Tools - Options - Paths

and set them both to read the same folders.  That way all your settings should be the same regardless of which program you happen to have open at the time.  I'm considering using that sort of approach to make the Gnu&Linux side of dual boots read the same settings as the WIndows side but i have a lot of other things to figure out first.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#6

Tom,

Thanks for the tip.

But, don't I run the risk of having one or both programs corrupting my user configuration?

Virgil

#7

Hi :slight_smile:
It might be easier to keep track of your back-ups if you are only backing up 1 folder rather than 2.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#8

Tom,

I absolutely agree. It never occurred to me to use the Paths function to point both programs to the same template folder. It’s a great idea.

I was only concerned about corruption as I’ve seen that issue come up so many times on both LO and AOO user lists, although I’ve never had the problem with mine before.

Virgil

#9

I prefer to keep the folders for package separate, just in case there is a problem with one and I would have the other to use.

I just make sure I backup all the major "dot" folders on my Linux systems every few days and not worry about the others except monthly.

do not use both LO and AOO on the same system.

#10

"do not use both LO and AOO on the same system."

Why not?

Virgil

#11

1 - I do not use AOO [or OOo before AOO came out] since I started using LO almost 2 years ago.

2 - I do not think it is wise to use two packages that are both forks from the original OOo code base, on the same system. Yes there are procedures you can do to have both packages installed on the same system, just like you can have two versions of LO installed on the same system. Just because you can do something does not mean it is something that you should do.

3 - 1 and 2 are reasons enough. Whether or not there are people who do not believe the same way that I do, this is what I believe.

#12

...

Not so with office suites. To get the most out of my office suites, I create
and edit templates, page, character and paragraph styles. I have to set the
autocorrect functions of each program to my liking to prevent a (c) from
turning into a ©. ...

...

I wonder what "office suites" you are using. Neither LO or AOO default
to turning a (c) into a © - (C) does.

But guess what? Microft Word does it for both... (c) and (C).

Next...

#13

NoOp wrote

I wonder what "office suites" you are using. Neither LO or AOO default
to turning a (c) into a © - (C) does.

But guess what? Microft Word does it for both... (c) and (C).

Next...

So, based on this small detail you insinuate that the user is lying and
ignore all the rest of the message...

That is exactly the kind of support that people need on a User mailing list!

Please think about this: "Don't say/write everything that you think, but
think everything that you say/write"

#14

My LibreOffice does this by default.

LibreOffice 3.5.4.2
Build-ID: 350m1(Build:2)
delivered with Ubuntu 12.04

Stefan

-- LibreOffice - Die Freiheit nehm' ich mir!

#15

Mine does _NOT_ - LO 3.6.2.2 on PCLinuxOS 2012.

IanW
Pretoria RSA

#16

I'm sorry, but I still don't understand.

What harm can it do to my system? Right now, I have LO 3.5.7, AOO 3.4.1 and the LO 4 Beta. I have seen no problems at all. All you've told me is that it shouldn't be done and that you don't do it. Forgive me for being dense, but I still don't know why?

Virgil

#17

Hi :slight_smile:
Part of the purpose of a list is that many different view-points can be expressed by individuals.  As you point out many of us may well not agree with the wisdom of many of the posts but hopefully by gathering different points-of-view people can assess and perhaps change their own points-of-view and hopefully solve whatever problems are being faced.

Many languages have a phrase for it, i think the French say something like "Vive la difference" but in England we don't like having choices and prefer just being given orders.  I've been trying to create a chant or something for OpenSource here.  Something like "Diversity breeds serendipity" but it's not very catchy nor easy to shout out.

Personally i think regardless of what does or doesn't happen by default in different people's version is fairly irrelevant.  Most people like and expect these things to happen exactly as they work in Word and other appalling products but other people prefer to have a tough time of it.  All three ways and others are valid imo.  If someone could post a script as an Extension so that it's easy for people to strip out all the 'useful' 'helpful' automatic bits then we could satisfy people from both groups.  In much the same way as we have different languages we could allow people of different view-points to get some satisfaction without spoiling things for the majority.

Regards from

Tom :slight_smile:

#18

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I'm sorry, but I still don't understand.

What harm can it do to my system? Right now, I have LO 3.5.7, AOO

3.4.1 and the LO 4 Beta. I have seen no problems at all. All you've told
me is that it shouldn't be done and that you don't do it. Forgive me for
being dense, but I still don't know why?

Virgil

I think you should.

If you find a conflict between configuration profiles or during normal
usage that leads to a crash or data loss, it would be appreciated if you
can file a bug on the three versions you run so they can be adjusted to
better coexist.

Keep in mind your use case is specific enough that there may not be
significant effort to getting it fixed, though.

Cheers,

Fabian

#19

Don't misunderstand me.

I'm not upset about having to delete the "(c) to copyright symbol" option in my autocorrect feature. I appreciate that many people prefer this behavior. I get it that developers have to make choices and they make those choices on the basis of what a majority of users want. That much I get.

What I don't like is having to do it twice because neither AOO nor LO has all the features I need to get my work done, and that is because, for whatever reasons, the developers of the two office suites either can't or won't combine their efforts.

Virgil

#20

I'm obviously not communicating very well.

I haven't had any "conflict between configuration profiles or during normal usage that leads to a crash or data loss" from running all three programs, so I currently have no reason to file any bug reports.

So, again, my question.

Why is it not advisable to run LO and AOO on the same system? What harm does it do to my system?

Virgil