Nor has succumbed to replacing menus and toolbars with a ribbon interface like the one that MSO users are still complaining about several years after it was introduced.Įven more importantly, advanced use of depends on the use of styles to a degree that MSO does not. A handful of its spreadsheet functions have no equivalent in Excel. Although always concerned with MSO compatibility, has never simply imitated MSO. Whichever path of development it chooses, can't win.Īt any rate, the myth just isn't true. Yet, when tries to retain compatibility, it is dismissed as a clone. MSO is, after all, the world's most popular office suite. If does not offer features comparable to MSO, or include features that MSO can easily import, then it cannot offer an alternative. Its problems are not adding features, but dealing with legacy code while adding new features and trying to minimize code bloat. But, if anything, 's coding challenges are exactly the opposite of what most people assume. Within another four years, the word processor had been joined by the rest of the suite.Īlmost certainly, none of this original code remains in current versions. StarDivision, the office suite that is 's ultimate answer, released its first component - the word processor - twenty-five years ago. If I used Windows or proprietary software, I wouldn't be using MSO.īut, my initial reaction aside, this rationale irks me, because the idea that code is new simply isn't true. And this reaction isn't anti-Windows or anti-proprietary prejudice the information is widely known among power users. To anyone like me, who can quote chapter and verse about the instability of MSO, or point out what has been broken for over a decade in it, this comment makes me burst out in a fit of giggles. "I'd like to use ," I often hear, "But I need software I can rely on, so I have to stick with with Microsoft Office." Once I learned the software, I never had any difficulties. I know, because - unlike most of 's detractors - I've used it professionally, even when I was a lone user interacting with an office full of MSO users. Overall, in almost every instance where you would use MSO for professional purposes, you can easily substitute. Other software does not come bundled with, but often you can download free software to make up the difference - for instance, you can use Mozilla Thunderbird rather than Outlook. In the main office applications, the only place where lags behind MSO is in the presentation software Impress remains less able to handle should than PowerPoint. And, to be honest, sometimes it's true, in that some free software compares unfavorably with its proprietary counterparts.īut in 's case, the myth is far too sweeping. Most free software has faced this myth at one time or other. Here are the top five that I have kept stumbling across in eight years of advocacy: Most people only know about it second hand (if at all), but few are slowed by the fact that they don't know what they are talking about.Īs a large desktop application that is also cross-platform, (or should I say LibreOffice?) seems to have attracted more myths than most.
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