RFI: Microsoft Office Alternatives (for Individuals)

[Chance]

Pretty much the only reason I use Windows anymore is because Word, PowerPoint, and Excel are integral to my job. Long story short: I'm ready to move on from Office, but I still need that functionality for numerous things, so I'm looking at alternatives for the three aforementioned programs.

LibreOffice is packaged with a lot of Linux distros, so I'm inclined to start there, but I'd like to hear thoughts from folks who have gone this route. The main requirements are that it be able to open, modify, and save documents in Office formats (e.g., .docx, .pptx, .xlsx) and that it runs on both Linux and Windows. No telemetry and not updating itself once every-other-day are very high on the "nice to haves".

Thoughts?

[Spartan1980]

Following...


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[Greg]

I've used both OpenOffice and LibreOffice and I've been happy with both.

If you are a hardcore power user of Word, Excel - you might uncover some functions that don't translate well going back and forth.

If you need MS Access functionality you're probably hosed.

[Totem Polar]

My students turned me on to libreoffice, and it’s done what I need it to in terms of responding to/creating docs for academic work, etc. No complaints.

[whomever]

I've been happy with Open/LibreOffice, but I'm not a power user.

I think the compatibility varies. I know a fellow who used to use OpenOffice to 'translate' his co-worker's stuff between different versions of Msft Office, so it can be more compatible than office itself :-). Or not, I expect, for other combinations of versions.

[jh9]

I don't think it has complete support for VBA macros. So if that's a thing you need you might want to double check first.

[Clusterfrack]

The MacBook Pro I'm writing this on is 7 years old. I have had zero issues with it. In that time multiple Windows machines have come and gone at work, due to various issues. Windows can become so troublesome that it's easier and cheaper just to shitcan the computer and buy a new one. I fucking hate MS Office, and Outlook is among the worst software I've ever had the misfortune to use.

I will never own another Windows computer for home use. Linux is a giant pain in the ass, and I have no interest in investing time in that. Three good friends who have senior tech jobs and could easily run Linux for home use don't. They all have Macs.

I use the Google suite for various things, and it's fine.

The Apple apps are quite good--especially Keynote.

Unfortunately, I haven't found a good substitute for Excel for hardcore spreadsheet work.

[okie john]

I’m no fan of Office but I am a power user due to work requirements. Like it or not, Office has become the standard, so you need something compatible. The only thing I’ve found that has anywhere near the sheer horsepower and is compatible is GSuite.


Okie John

[trailrunner]

This is probably a long shot for your situation, but Apple includes their version of the Office apps for free with their OS. They're called Pages (Word), Numbers (Excel), and Keynote (PowerPoint). If you're only doing light editing of documents, they're probably pretty compatible, but if you're getting deep into advanced features, you will lose some compatibility.

Here's a chart summarizing compatibility across the three apps:

https://www.apple.com/lae/mac/numbers/compatibility/

[TheRoland]

I've spent much of my career in the glamorous world of tech middle management, where people make presentations, spec documents, and spreadsheets across platforms.
Here's what I've found:

1. On a Mac, Pages is a totally reasonable replacement for Word, except for things I don't do (and nobody does) like form-letters. Libre/Open Office Writer is also fine. Both occasionally malform loaded docx files but it's not horrible.
2. On a Mac, Keynote is better than Powerpoint. But it's not great at loading existing PPTs. Libre/Open Office's version, whatever they call it, is worthless.
3. There is no reasonably alternateive to Excel, period.

If you're in Google's ecosystem, the Google applications are all fine, and have the additional advantage of being a solid cloud-based solution.

[luckyman]

Any comments on specifically what you have found missing in the excel alternatives? Macro / vba capabilities? Function library? Something else?

[TheRoland]

Any comments on specifically what you have found missing in the excel alternatives? Macro / vba capabilities? Function library? Something else?

Ability to load an appropriate amount of data and not come screeching to a halt is #1. But there are deficits in pivot tables, graphing, and other analysis tools, too. I also think it's just less usable, but that's probably subjective.

[FNFAN]

Any comments on specifically what you have found missing in the excel alternatives? Macro / vba capabilities? Function library? Something else?

As much as I devoutly dislike Google as an organization, their version of Excel which is called "Sheets" is a viable replacement. Google Apps Script is a takeoff on JavaScript and for the most part anything you can do with VBA and Excel you can do with Sheets and GAS. I agree with that you need MS ACCESS you're pretty much hosed. Nothing else comes close for functionality and ease of programming and the ability to hook into a 'real' database with Access as the user interface.

[MickAK]

Sounds like LibreOffice is what you want. I have used it for years.


I will say that after fighting the good fight for many years last year I gave in and switched to MS Office for most things. It really doesn't take much time to make it work, but that time adds up and Microsoft is very good at making things difficult. That is pretty much their business plan. They've had a lot of practice.

Good on you, but you may regret it.

[luckyman]

Ability to load an appropriate amount of data and not come screeching to a halt is #1. But there are deficits in pivot tables, graphing, and other analysis tools, too. I also think it's just less usable, but that's probably subjective.

Ugh, that is discouraging but good to know. Thanks.

[RJ]

Been running an old Dell surplus machine I picked up at auction from work with a Linux distribution (Mint Tara) over a year now. LibreOffice works pretty much for all my home tasks, noting they are fairly light duty. I’ve been very happy with it.

[That Guy]

Long story short: I'm ready to move on from Office, but I still need that functionality for numerous things, so I'm looking at alternatives for the three aforementioned programs.


It depends on what you use Office for and how many of the more advanced features you use. The higher your Office skills are and the more advanced features you use, the harder it will be to make the transition. What I see a lot of people at work use Office for could almost be done with frigging Notepad, but I assume most people here have slightly higher requirements.

Download LibreOffice and play around with it a bit to see what it looks like? Or if you have a Google account do the same with Google's programs?

[RevolverRob]

Caveat: I have not owned a Windows computer in nearly 15 years.

I ran Open Office for years on a Linux Machine.

I now run Mac (Pages, Keynote, Numbers) full time.

If you are an Excel power user, stop the search and just go back to MS Office.

If you are not an Excel Power user read on:

Numbers has some limitations with pivot tables, database linking, and limited formula building. None of these are issues for me. I, personally, merely use Numbers as a basic spreadsheet/data entry point and CSV or TSV output source. I do all my analyses and figure making in R, ArcGIS, or MatLab. Since you did a STEM PhD in the last decade, I'd guess you probably do any markup type things in LaTeX and/or Mathematica, Python, or MatLab - assuming you need those things. As a result, I'd guess your needs are similar to mine, spreadsheets are basically for maintaining student grades. In which case Numbers does just fine.

In addition on Mac - Preview is a superior PDF editing software (more intuitive and faster) than Adobe. And if you do image editing/figure making Affinity Photo and Designer were created by former Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator engineers. The system carries familiar Adobe tools, comes with a lifetime, buy once, license for multiple machines, and is designed to take advantage of the MacOS/Unix architecture for smoother/better/faster rendering.

Between Pages, Keynote, Numbers, Preview (all native Mac Apps) and Affinity - the ONLY reason I ever use a windows box anymore is when I need to do certain types of 3D image processing where the application does not have a Mac-specific version available.

---

Like Clusterfrack - my current Macbook Pro is 7-years old. The one it 'replaced' is 13 years old and still running, attached to my home server. That device is still getting updates from Mac and runs fine. I did double the RAM and add a SSD about four years ago. My wife used it when her fourth Windows machine (in five years) bricked. She would go full Mac, but she is an Excel power user for work.

[VT1032]

She would go full Mac, but she is an Excel power user for work.

Can't you just install excel on a mac?

I've had good luck with the Google apps for a general office replacement for the most part but there is just a lot of little things you find they can't natively do, or require a third party plugin to do. Even something as simple as printing an address on an envelope, there is currently no functionality to do that in google docs. Same thing with mail merge.

I find I use Google apps more since they are simpler and more intuitive, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have office installed as well.


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[LtDave]

You could run windows natively on the mac or run Windows in a virtual machine like Parallels if you have to run the windows version of Excel. I run the mac version of office and have for at least 20 years. It has worked fine for my needs which are pretty basic. I also have libreoffice installed and occasionally play with it. IIRC it will convert a lot of older WP formats that Office doesn’t. WordPerfect comes to mind. My mac computers last a long time. One of my laptops is 7 years old and has worked perfectly since I bought it as refurbished.

[ford.304]

I'm not a real excel power user, but for a lot of of the work I have done in it I actually prefer Google Sheets. Every time I dig into pivot tables and analysis I find one feature I like better in Excel, one I like better in Sheets.

In general, for most users I think that G-Suite is a legitimate alternative to Word and Excel. And for collaborative editing for internal documents at a company it is light-years better.

For presentations, practically everything is better than powerpoint.