[Flavius]

The 'fake open-source' debate is interesting, but OnlyOffice is still the best free alternative for anyone coming from MS Office. LibreOffice has a great mission, but their UI feels dated and the formatting issues with DOCX/XLSX files are still a deal-breaker for me.

[2b3a51]

"...their UI feels dated"

How do you define dated in this context?

Personally, I quite like being able to use the CUA keyboard shortcuts to access menu items. I like consistency over decades but I appreciate that there are other ways of looking at this.

[Flavius]

Take a look at these screenshots: https://libreoffice.en.uptodown.com/mac

It looks ancient, worse than office apps from 20 years ago.

[yason]

That looks exactly like an office app should look like. Basic interface patterns, clear distinctive visual areas and borders, all in the tradition of a classical graphical user interface. And yes, classical GUI more or less peaked in the early 2000's and it has generally been a downhill from there because the irresistible need of the industry for offering "something new" every few years.

[taspeotis]

Excuse me word processors are meant to have a ribbon, backstage view and where in LibreOffice is a sidepanel for me to talk to LibreLM to do agentic editing?

Plus if it runs on Android it must support snackbars.

[doubled112]

What is a snackbar?!

[gerdesj]

"You are running version 7.0" - why not try some screenshots from this decade?

I have version 25.8.4.2 running here. It looks rather better and most importantly offers me the choice of a ribbon or not and many other choices rather than enforcing a single "opinionated" interface.

[Flavius]

What do you mean by version 7.0? I'm running Version: 26.2.0.3 and it still looks dated after I did my best to configure the interface.

[tialaramex]

The screenshot you linked literally says that "You are running version 7.0 of LibreOffice for the first time"

[gerdesj]

You say dated and I say useful. Who is "right"?

Me: I started off with the likes of Wordperfect and Wordstar, Lotus 123 and Quatro Pro, Harvard Graphics, and rather a lot more and that's just on MS's efforts. I've also taught PageMaker, CorelDraw and a lot more stuff that I have forgotten.

I am (probably) rather older than you and that does not make either of us "right" or "wrong".

However, I have been an IT trainer on and off for 30 odd years and I have seen how all the differing design paradigms and UI efforts have scarred end users.

Have you ever noted how awful all and I mean ALL UIs are generally awful? I'll give you two examples - Apple and KDE, that came up for me recently:

Apple tablet or phone: Print something. This is from memory but the UI is so shit it doesn't matter if I get it wrong. Press the rectangle with an up arrow, select a printer, press the word Print (next to the other icon that might do something)

KDE: I can't be arsed at this point to bother. There are things that are not intuitive.

If LO doesn't work for you then that's fine - buy something that does. For me, I create some horrendously complicated documents and it does work OK and believe me - I know how to stress an application - its my job and has been for some years. I also find it easier to teach people how to use LO as opposed to MSO.

That's just me. I'm sure you have some anecdotes of your own.

[barnabee]

Office apps from 20 years ago looked better than office apps now.

[blackhaz]

And from 32 years ago as well - MS Office 4.0 as an example.

[jamesnorden]

Maybe try installing a current version and seeing for yourself, there's multiple UI styles to chose from now, even one that is meant to mimic the MS "ribbon".

[slyfox125]

It looks great using Plasma. If the comparison and "problem" is the lack of a "ribbon" menu, etc., then you are missing the whole point of Office alternatives: they are free, open source, but most importantly, they are usable. That is, they do not eschew usability and function for the sake of change, pure aesthetics, or a company's latest foray into some new gimmick.

Ultimately, the "classic" approach taken is because many users feel that the classic style is more usable and makes them more productive irrespective of their learned habits of the past 20-30 years.

[keyringlight]

LibreOffice also has a ribbon toolbars mode, it's 5 seconds to switch if you prefer it under View > User interface.

[gzread]

Microsoft did usability studies on real people to determine the ribbon interface is better. This is back in the days when software companies cared about objectively verifiable results.

[abanana]

No, they did not (or if they did, they didn't publish it). If I'm wrong, please give me some links because I'd genuinely love to see it.

Microsoft did those usability studies on the versions of Office that were current before the ribbon. The ribbon followed those studies as their attempt at a solution.

A few times over the years I've tried to search for usability studies of the ribbon interface because I've never got on with it myself. I find plenty of others asking the same thing online, and everybody points them to those same earlier studies from before the ribbon, while wrongly telling them it's a study of the ribbon.

Those studies are unable to tell us whether or not MS's attempt at a solution actually fixed the problems.

I believe the ribbon was a downgrade in usability terms (but people expect it in office suites, purely because it's seen as looking more modern). And I'd love to see real intensive research to tell me whether my belief is right or wrong.

[oblio]

The studies I can't point you to, but there were lots of blogs by the lead Office UX person at the time, Jensen Harris.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/jensenh/

Unfortunately those blog entries have been destroyed because the images are no longer there.

I read all of them, they were at least 6-7 and quite detailed and I remember thinking that the thought process behind the ribbon was very solid.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/jensenh/the-...

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/jensenh/ye-o...

etc - you can find all of them there plus many other related blog entries.

[loloquwowndueo]

Only no, it’s not and everyone reviled it when it came out but we’ve been stuck with it ever since.

MS may have done usability studies earlier (say, when they cared about dethroning Lotus 123 and WordPerfect) but that war was long won when the ribbon UI came out, by then they only cared about milking the cash cow.

[mft_]

It looks awful and undiscoverable on a standard Mint/Cinnamon install.

Anyway, the point is surely that if LibreOffice really wants to attract users from Microsoft Office, then it should do everything possible to optimise that transition?

Offering the option of a UI mimicking the familiar MS Office layout is not a difficult engineering problem. And if it makes users significantly more likely to switch, it should be a high priority to implement.

Honestly, at this stage, thinking of Gimp, FreeCAD, LibreOffice, and Blender, it’s as though there’s a weird group psychology deliberately against offering even decent (let along best-in-class) UIs in the open source world. These are all apps with excellent fundamental underlying engines/tech which are handicapped hugely by their UI/UX. (Yes I know some of these have improved in recent years, but only after far longer without improvements.)

[jamesnorden]

>Offering the option of a UI mimicking the familiar MS Office layout is not a difficult engineering problem. And if it makes users significantly more likely to switch, it should be a high priority to implement.

It's already there. It really feels like such criticisms are from people who haven't used it in 10+ years.

[mft_]

Well, if that's the case, I take (that part of) it back and I'll fire up Mint later to explore. Thanks. It wasn't an obvious option when I tried LibreOffice a few weeks ago, but maybe I should have explored further.

[AnonymousPlanet]

My experience is less than two years old. I have the impression that those who defend it have a UI taste that is stuck in the 2000s. The same people who also point at UIs that are barely usable and ugly from a modern perspective like Windows 2000 and say "this was the pinnacle of UI".

[2b3a51]

Well 'ancient' to me in the context of computer interaction means punched cards (mechanical punches!) and a card reader, upper case only, so these terms are relative I suppose.

I think this is a matter of choice and it is nice that there are choices. As other posters in this little sub-tree have suggested, there are people who value continuity over a period of time.

[7bit]

> are relative I suppose. > A matter of choice

Congratulations on figuring this out. It's not like the commenter you replied to said, it "feels dated" ... Oh no wait, he did.

[mikkupikku]

Looks like a completely normal office application to me. Do you have an example of what you think they should look like?

[maxloh]

LibreOffice on Windows still uses native Win32 controls. While you could call that a stylistic choice, even Microsoft has abandoned it for new apps.

This kind of UI is a dealbreaker for many new users, especially Gen Zers. How could open source conquer the world without attracting our youngest generations?

They should have bundled GTK like GIMP does. That would make the experience feel much less like it is from the XP era.

(I know these types of comments often get downvoted, but I challenge you to explain why you disagree.)

[dijit]

> even Microsoft has abandoned it for new apps.

Ok, all other things being equal: Microsoft is no longer a good arbiter of UI/UX design.

This is extremely well documented.

Old doesn't automatically mean worse, though I understand that people feel that way on an emotional level when they see old "ugly" UI.

[GoblinSlayer]

Microsoft is doing cloud services, not apps. Old apps are the only decent thing left in windows.

[Mikhail_K]

> their UI feels dated

A big selling point for me. Needless reworking of familiar interfaces plagues MS Windows ecosystem and I'm glad LibreOffice is displaying healthy conservatism by not fixing what isn't broken.

[xvilka]

LibreOffice constantly works on improving the import of the DOC/DOCX/XLS/XLSX/etc formats, thus if something doesn't work for you, it's better to file a bug in their bugtracker[1].

[1] https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/enter_bug.cgi?format=gui...

[cyber_kinetist]

The site is making ordinary users (other than developers) shy away from submitting bug reports. Come on, you need to make a whole account in Bugzilla for you to report bugs? The best thing would be to have a "Report bug" window directly in the program that lets the user send complaints without hazzle!

[lmz]

The best thing for users maybe. A special kind of hell for the people investigating. And since there are numerous non paying users vs only so many people who have the skills to fix things...

[nickserv]

It's incredibly useful to know what problems your users are facing. It doesn't necessarily mean fixing any one particular bug, rather should help prioritize future work.

[mikkupikku]

Of course the developers only want to interact with other developers, never those stinky users who don't even know the proper technical jargon for the bugs they're finding. But that doesn't mean we should pander to developer wishes.

[lmz]

I'm sure if the "stinky users" have a support contract then someone will be happy to look at any kind of report and try to triage or reproduce. Otherwise the least they can do is figure out Bugzilla signup.

[mikkupikku]

> I'm sure if the "stinky users" have a support contract then someone will be happy to look at any kind of report

I'm sure you know that's not true. I'm sure you know that developers hate taking bug reports from users even when those users have support contracts.

[user205738]

Creating an account on bugzilla is much easier than on the same github, and it is also used in many projects, so registration makes sense.

[braiamp]

Interesting that this is a take, because MS Office (and all MS products) don't include such button.

[jodrellblank]

a) Yes they do:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/how-do-i-give-fee...

https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-use-the-feedback-tool-in-micr...

b) they have automated crash report and usage telemetry to tell them what isn’t working

[throwaway270925]

Also free and great at MSOffice file compatibility is FreeOffice from SoftMaker:

https://www.freeoffice.com/

[petepete]

Does Microsoft Office exist now? Looked like they've entirely rebranded it to Microsoft 365 Copilot App (according to office.com)

[stop50]

Openoffice had afaik not an big change in years and Libreoffice had quite a lot of changes that improved Msoffice support.

[ZiiS]

I also missread Only as Open