Survey: Usage of LibreOffice components

users
#1

I'd like to know which components are most used and maybe why others are not. If you used OpenOffice before you can include your usage data as well.

Do you use the quick starter?

This is more or less private. There's no goal (other than to satisfy my curiosity) of this survey, but someone might use it for it's own purposes. e.g. discussing about changing installer defaults, creating a light installer... and so on.

I start (OpenOffice usage included):

Writer = 90%
Calc = 09%
Impress = 01%
Draw = 00%
Base = 00%
Math = 00%

I don't use the quick starter.

Writer: to write private letters
Calc: to create some listings and calculations
Impress: to watch presentations from others (Just created one on my own for fun)
Draw: I just don't draw anything. If I did in the past there was paint (gulp). Inkscape works pretty good for me and it's a multi-platform tool. (Just for used for testing purpose)
Base: I don't create any databases.
Math: I don't needed that in the past.

Regards,
bastik

28 Nov 2010, 19:09 (+0100)

#2

No!

I always turn the damn thing off, and it annoys me that the "quick starter" (aka needlessly-slow-down-my-PC-startup-time) is still ON by default. No application should be so arrogant as to start-up with the OS per default. You don't know what apps the users *typically* uses (I browse and play RAM-hungry games). I can't (well, it's OSS, so I can) believe this dreaded default hasn't been turned off by now.

Mozilla/Firefox also experimented with a quick starter for a while, and fortunately abolished the horrid idea.

It seems OO (and LO even more so) still hasn't understood the REAL reason why people overwhelmingly choose non-OSS software (Firefox being the *exception*): Usability, and a rational understanding what a regular user *really* is (clue: it's not you).

#3

I use Writer and Calc all day long at work and for personal use. Probably split pretty evenly between the two.

Impress may get used a little bit now and then, usually viewing presentations made by others using MSO. I generally avoid creating presentations myself, though I am currently working on one, so learning my way around Impress (if that gives you a clue as to how little it is used).

Draw - nope, do all my work in GIMP

Base - no, not enough time to figure out databases myself

Math - no, no need

I disable the QuickStarter after installation.

Jeff Causey

#4

[Survey responses sent privately.]

I'd like to know which components are most used and maybe why others are not. If you used OpenOffice before you can include your usage data as well.

<snip>

#5

I'd like to know which components are most used and maybe why others are not. If you used OpenOffice before you can include your usage data as well. Do you use the quick starter?

I'm retired, so I use LO (and earlier OOo) for domestic usage (mail, documentation, different follow up, finance, etc) and also for several associations I am involved in.
Then for myself:
Writer = 40%
Calc = 30%
Impress = 5%
Draw = 0% (I use Scribus preferably for brochures, leaflets,...)
Base = 25% (I appreciate very much this module, very helpful for managing associations)
Math = 0%
I'm not aware of a quick starter within Linux/Debian environment (?) (even though I could remember such a feature with some earlier OOo version)
Hope this may help in some way.
Francois

#6

The quick starter is there by default, so I use it, but LO and Ooo take forever to start vs. the other suite in Windows. One thing I like about the quick starter is that it gives me one button to have on my desktop and it's a good as a jumping off point for non-application-centric documents which, I think, is one of the LO goals.

I find LO and OOO just fine for my one-person business and my associations work. Its interchangeability with MSWord is fine for simple things, but not great for complex documents. I do have the home/student version of Word 2010 which saved the day for something my son had done in Word 2003 that wouldn't open any more and wouldn't open in LO either. It was too complex with text boxes, etc.

Writer - 40%
Calc - 40%
Impress - 13 %
Base - 3 %
Math - 2 %
Draw - 2 %

I am used to Visio and will continue to use an aging version of it, but I don't find Draw an easy substitute for quick drawing as compared with the Visio stencils.

I am trying to live in an open source environment and feel that LO/OOO certainly meet my needs for business work. Thunderbird is working well for email, and Firefox is working well as a browser (except for the websites that require Internet Explorer, but that's now part of the OS <sigh>).

I am heavily invested in Samplitude Pro for audio and PhotoShop CS5 and PhotoShop Lightroom and don't see moving any of those to Open Source anytime soon.

I am enjoying Carte du ciel as a replacement on the Win 7 machine for the aging SkyMap that I bought back in Win3.1 days. Stellarium has some good features for showing the sky to my family, but Cdc is a much much better mapping program.

That's it for my open source transition--more or less. LO is a key component.

Cheers,

Richard

#7

No, there is no such thing on Linux. However, I usually have at least
one LO window open, partly because I journal there and partly because
the startup from scratch is slower, though much better in beta3 than
ever before.

I use the writer about 95% of the time, with calc for about 4.9% of
the rest and impress least. The others generally don't come into play
at all for me.

Thanks for asking.

#8

I write for a living and use OO Writer (I'll switch to LO obviously once my
distro packages it, but I'd rather not use a Beta release for work). My stats
would be Writer 99%, everything else occasionally mostly to view stuff people
send me. Maybe 3-4 times a year I use Calc to make a table to accompany an
article. Sometmes Draw is handy to convert vector formats, but I use Inkscape
for illustrations.

I haven't disabled the QuickStarter but I haven't noticed it recently. But one
reason I like KDE is the 'save session' default. I shut down with all my apps
open, and when I reboot they open again. That usually included a couple of OO
documents so QS is irrelevant.

#9

Like Phil I write a lot, though not for a living unfortunately, so Writer accounts probably for over 90% of my usage, with Calc accounting for most of the rest. Very occasionally I receive a Powerpoint presentation, and I think once I have tried to use Draw for something.

Calc is mostly used now for membership lists and accounting in our local Gardening club, and I have been thinking about Base for the membership bit. After reading in Francois' email that he finds it easy to use, I'll probably give it a go.

Like Jeff I have LibO on my computer and fire it up to test things, but I have to have OOo installed also until LibO is released, since I don't want to use beta apps for live work.

There is as far as I know no quick starter on the Mac, but I have placed OOo in the Mac equivalent of the Startup folder on Windows, so that it opens a default document on boot in the morning, which I immediately close, and then I have OOo "open" so that future documents start up much quicker.

//James

#10

Hi Sebastian,

these are my numbers:

I'd like to know which components are most used and maybe why others are
not. If you used OpenOffice before you can include your usage data as well.

I start (OpenOffice usage included)
Writer = 90%
Calc = 08%
Impress = 01%
Draw = 00%
Base = 00%
Math = 01%

Writer: mostly private letters or articles. I've used writer to write my
Diploma Thesis.
Calc: not used much now. During my studies for calculations needed in some
of my experiments.
Impress: Occasionally I give a talk about OOo, so I use Impress to create
the presentation needed for this.
Draw: not used
Base: not used
Math: not used much now. I needed it to write nice looking lab reports. :slight_smile:

Sigrid

#11

Years ago when OO BAse first came out I did a piece about it. I took my wife's
gardening club spreadsheet (Excel) opened it in OO Calc, exported as .csv.
Imported into Base, set up forms etc. I know SFA about databases but I made it
work OK.

Wife then went back to Excel for all the usual reasons:

She knows it
She uses it at work
When she stopped being club sec she had to hand on the membership list to the
next 'volunteer'.

#12

Perhaps should you better give a try to Dia (live.gnome.org/Dia/)?
(Sorry, probably not the best place for promoting such advice...)
Francois

#13

Interesting survey ... and interesting still some of the comments coming out of the woodwork.

FWIW, my usage is as follows:

Writer = 85%
Calc = 10%
Impress = 3%
Draw = 1%
Math = 1%
Base = 0% (altho' this is likely to change)

I would use Quickstarter if it worked on Debian testing (Gnome DE), but it doesn't, so I don't.

HTH

AG

#14

I'd like to know which components are most used and maybe why others are
not. If you used OpenOffice before you can include your usage data as well.

Like many others, I primarily use Writer. This would account for
likely 90% of my *office use.
I am a professional, freelance translator.
I use writer to proofread documents translated with OmegaT.
I have used Anaphraseus (http://anaphraseus.sourceforge.net/) to
translate documents, which is a plugin for OpenOffice,
but, have not yet tried it with LibreOffice. (I still have OOo 2.4,
since that is what is available in the Debian/Stable repos).
I have spreadsheets for accounting purposes, as well, which I treat with calc.

tony

Do you use the quick starter?

No.
I think somebody mentioned that it doesn't function in gnu/linux.
Even if it did, I keep my system as light and efficient as possible,
stripping as many elements as possible from automagically started apps,
running only what I need. This machine is a bit old.
It's only a 3.2g Celeron with 1.5g of ram.
I use debian/stable, with openbox, and no desktop environment, panels, etc.
to keep resource usage light and reserve system resources for the rather heavy
software I must use for my work (OmegaT, writer, a browser, etc.)
Even with this old, slow machine, I get excellent performance with my
system configured
as I have it.
I rarely use impress or the html component, never use draw or base.
I suppose learning how to use databases and base could be useful to
me, but haven't taken
the time to do so. I use GIMP for image manipulation, and write html
for my sites in a text editor
(tcltext, which is of my own creation,
http://baldwinsoftware.com/tcltext.html) primarily.
I wouldn't have the slightest idea what to do with math, since I'm a
linguist, and not a mathematician.

./tony

#15

Sebastian G. <bastik> schrieb:

I'd like to know which components are most used and maybe why others are
not. If you used OpenOffice before you can include your usage data as well.

Do you use the quick starter?

No.

This is more or less private. There's no goal (other than to satisfy my
curiosity) of this survey, but someone might use it for it's own
purposes. e.g. discussing about changing installer defaults, creating a
light installer... and so on.

Writer = 40%, most with Math-Objects
Calc = 25%, not counted tests for code developments
Draw = 30%, also including Math-Objects
Impress = 04%
Base = 01%
Math = 0%. I do not use it as separate module, but have a lot embedded formulas in Writer and Draw

Writer: Exercises and information texts for pupils
Calc: Managing lists. Matrix calculations.
Draw: Math illustrations and a lot of coordinate systems.
Impress: Watching presentation from others. Generating samples for pupils.
Base: Getting lists for mail merge.

Kind regards
Regina

#16

Writer = 01%
Calc = 99%
Impress = 00%
Draw = 00%
Base = 00%
Math = 00%

I don't use the quick starter.

Phil.

#17

No application should be so arrogant as to start-up with the OS
per default.

Then you will be delighted to hear that it has been effectively turned
off in Linux by default, if I overheard it correctly.

It seems OO (and LO even more so) still hasn't understood the REAL
reason why people overwhelmingly choose non-OSS software (Firefox being
the *exception*): Usability, and a rational understanding what a regular
user *really* is (clue: it's not you).

hey hey there, take a chill pill. There might be many reasons why people
choose MS Office, but the quickstarter itself will not be it. And as for
accusing LO to not understanding reasons BLABLA. LibO is now 1 months &
1 day old, sorry for not having saved the world and creating world piece
yet.

I am sure we will get to a sensible feature and default set, at least I
see that as one of the advantages of not being controlled by a single
corporate entity anymore. Previously, they could do whatever they (and
their marketing dep. wanted).

Sebastian

#18

Writer = 90%
Calc = 09%
Impress = 00%
Draw = 00%
Base = 01%
Math = 00%

#19

It's amazing to me how many are willing to respond to this "survey", especially since the original poster made it clear that "there is no goal". I guess it's the way many people "share" information about themselves and thus create interaction with other humans. I tend to point out what is wrong with the world and the ones I'm communicating with. I have a sneaking suspicion the former method is more effective at making friends... :wink:

Carry on.

#20

Dear libreoffice users,

I cannot insert image from network share connection, but i do can insert it from local drive. any idea why?

i use fedora 12

regards,
hendro wibowo