[emayljames]

LTS (Long Term Service) versions of Linux OS' are now breaking even, or even sometimes ahead, of Windows. Office is easily on par (actually better IMO). You can have the UI exactly as you want it to be. You have GIMP. The home of Apache/PHP, and many other improvements!.

[winrid]

Word is light-years ahead of any open source alternative. Gimp is not a photoshop replacement. These guys don't care about Apache on their desktops. :)

[vetinari]

Most people do not use any advanced features, neither in Writer nor in Word. You can congratulate yourself, if your colleagues know what are styles, most just hard-code the formatting.

[thepp1983]

The problem is not whether YOU use the advanced features. It is whether someone else does.

I generally don't require any better than Markdown and for larger documents I just LaTeX.

However I am normally sent work documents with all sorts of macros from other companies (embedded forms) to fill out for things like payments, right to work etc. These require Microsoft Office. Originally when I started I thought I could get away with Libre Office. It worked at best 50% and these weren't complex macros (I inspected them myself).

None of these forms are outside the norm of what a HR department, University faculty office or most medium to large companies use.

[vetinari]

It's mostly _ME_ who uses the advanced features, not people around me. In cca last 10 years, I've seen exactly one Excel with macros that someone wanted other people to use. (No, you can't use VBA with LibreOffice, just like you cannot use Python UNO scripts with MS Office).

The reason is mostly security: nobody wants to run random macros on their machines (where nobody means their IT departments, the users wouldn't care) and for the uses that you mention, for random forms, web-based forms are used and links to them are getting send.

At least in my corner of woods.

[Klover]

If this “normal users are stupid” thing is supposed to be in favour of Linux then it’s a stale argument.

[vetinari]

Normal users are not stupid. They just don't care.

[brokenmachine]

How can you tell when the end result is identical? /s

[hyperman1]

Unfortunately, Word is light-years behind any alternative, open source or not. Styling is a half-assed inconsistent mess. Bullet indentation jumps around like crazy. Changing your default printer might cause reformatting. There is no decent separation between content and formatting. The menu ^h^h^h^h^h^h ribbon is such a mess you need a search function. Word is the kind of product that should be taken out and shot. I speak as someone who used word competitors back in the days when there were some left.

Now if you say Excel, however, we might start to agree.

BTW, while Gimp is not a photoshop replacement (please fix the window behaviour, guys) but krita is getting really nice, and plenty good enough for your average corporate user.

[Sylos]

> BTW, while Gimp is not a photoshop replacement (please fix the window behaviour, guys)

If you mean the multi-window behaviour, as of 2.10 the default is now set to single-window.

If you don't have 2.10 in your distro yet, you can toggle that on in the menubar: Windows -> Single-Window Mode

[SmellyGeekBoy]

Lucky you can use Word in a browser these days, then.

I'm not sure which government departments are using Photoshop but the few that do could just as easily use Macs.