Free Office Software article discussion

Stompa

Rosie1980 wrote: »

I've tried Libre Office but it loses some of my formulas in Excel...

Yes, I've found that LibreOffice spreadsheet compatibility with Excel is not great (and it's significantly slower), though it's better than OpenOffice. Personally I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get MS Office 2013.

cairndog

A couple of questions about LO as I'm not a techie. From reviews on Cnet it seems you can get unwittingly lumbered with stuff you don't want (adware ) when you download it. How can I avoid this? Also the review mentions that LO has "no integrated email client such as Outlook " What would this stop me from doing, as I am using Outlook for email on my Windows 8 laptop.

MS1950

cairndog wrote: »

A couple of questions about LO as I'm not a techie. From reviews on Cnet it seems you can get unwittingly lumbered with stuff you don't want (adware ) when you download it. How can I avoid this? Also the review mentions that LO has "no integrated email client such as Outlook " What would this stop me from doing, as I am using Outlook for email on my Windows 8 laptop.

I think the danger of being unwittingly lumbered with adware etc arises if you download LO from a 3rd party site rather than the developers 'The Document Foundation':

https://www.libreoffice.org/

and although LO doesn't have it's own built in email client Mozilla Thunderbird is probably the most used freeware alternative to MS Outlook or Live Mail:

http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/

orrery

MS1950 wrote: »

I think the danger of being unwittingly lumbered with adware etc arises if you download LO from a 3rd party site rather than the developers 'The Document Foundation':

https://www.libreoffice.org/

and although LO doesn't have it's own built in email client Mozilla Thunderbird is probably the most used freeware alternative to MS Outlook or Live Mail:

http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/

I agree - I use LibreOffice, have downloaded it and updates loads of times and I've never seen any adware or unwanted programs bundled.

I'd also add that Thunderbird (IMHO) is a much better piece of software that Outlook, by a country mile.

kingmonkey

You don't mention linux distros as a free OS e.g. for older computers with OS that are no longer supported or for computers that don't come with an OS?

orrery

kingmonkey wrote: »

You don't mention linux distros as a free OS e.g. for older computers with OS that are no longer supported or for computers that don't come with an OS?

I wouldn't mention it - full stop. As an IT professional I can see what a pain Linux is - designed by techies for techies. I could never recommend it for the average individual reading this forum.

They say Linux is very user friendly - it's just fussy about who it's friends are. :rotfl:

Of course, if you have a distro that really has addressed that then I'm up for trying it.

bod1467

Mint is quite mainstream-friendly.

mdomds

Search for MoneyLine personal finance software and NCH Software is the one to click on.
I've just started using this and so far so good. There seem to be add-ons that cost money but the basic version is free.

G6JPG

Former_MSE_Penelope wrote: »

[]

This is the place to discuss the free office software offers, as seen in the guide:
[]
This guide is full of alternatives to Word, Excel, PowerPoint.

If you've got any suggestions or questions about free office software, please join in the discussion []

I see it also has other sections, such as "Power up your PC/Mac", "Utilities", "Image & Photo editing", "audio and video", and "communication" - maybe it's time to change the name of the forum to just "free software" or something similar?

Anyway, for image and photo editing, I'd like to recommend IrfanView: like AVG ("Plays EVERYTHING" as you say), IrfanView started out as just a viewer, which now views everything image-wise (it also plays some sound and video, but that's by the by!); a few versions ago someone added a Paint-like toolbox to it, and even without using that, it's very easy to crop and do most other image manipulations to all or part of an image. And it's free, of course (for home use), and also very small and thus very quick. Oh, and works on everything from Windows '9x on ...

kingmonkey

orrery wrote: »

I wouldn't mention it - full stop. As an IT professional I can see what a pain Linux is - designed by techies for techies. I could never recommend it for the average individual reading this forum.

They say Linux is very user friendly - it's just fussy about who it's friends are. :rotfl:

Of course, if you have a distro that really has addressed that then I'm up for trying it.

Ubuntu is said to be user friendly and 'just works'.

There are a few distros designed to be windows clones for the windows users. Not used it myself but http://www.zorin-os.com/ seems popular at the moment.

I don't really see it as any different as people using android or chromeOS or whatever for the first time tbh.

Biggest problem is gaming (an improving situation with Steam) and document compatibility (which you would get on windows using libreoffice anyway).