cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/210902
ONLYOFFICE is one of two options that comes to mind when I think of a solid Microsoft Office alternative on Linux, the other being LibreOffice. Both offer a range of useful features and support a wide range of document formats.
What sets ONLYOFFICE apart, though, is its focus on collaboration and generally reliable compatibility with Microsoft Office files. With the launch of ONLYOFFICE Docs 9.0, the office suite now introduces a number of new features.
π ONLYOFFICE Docs 9.0: What's New?
At first glance, you will notice that for all the editors, the interface has been redesigned to provide a more intuitive and accessible experience. For taking advantage of this, you have to either enable the "Modern Light" or the "Modern Dark" theme from View βΎ Interface Theme.
The PDF Editor sees major upgrades aimed at improving productivity. You can now co-edit PDF forms in real time, drag-and-drop pages in the thumbnails panel to quickly reorder a document, and duplicate pages effortlessly with Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V.
AI-powered enhancements also make an appearance with this release, bringing automatic text extraction for PDF files, and smarter automation for macros and formulas in Spreadsheets.
Similarly, the Document Editor gets a few practical upgrades, including a quick-access button for paragraph borders and enhanced Content Controls with improved change tracking and support for custom buttons via plugins.
Automate repetitive tasks β macro creation and VBA conversion β with AI to save time and avoid errors
On the localization front, thereβs enhanced support for right-to-left languages, new additions like Urdu language support and an Arabic spellcheck dictionary, plus several tweaks to make language settings more intuitive and user-friendly.
File compatibility has been extended too, now including support for Markdown (.md), Visio (.vsd/.vsdx), OpenDocument Graphics (.odg), and direct editing of Excel Binary (.xlsb) files.
During the launch, Galina Goduhina, Sales Director at ONLYOFFICE, stated that:
With Docs 9.0, our goal was to bring greater ease and functionality to all users, regardless of how or where they work.
π₯ Download ONLYOFFICE Docs 9.0
If you are self-hosting, then you can grab the necessary packages from the official website. For regular users, the desktop editors for this release will go live shortly.
You can read the release blog and changelog to learn more about this release.
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From their new page on AI. God, who asked for this? How much time and money did they waste integrating these useless AI tools? I was optimistic that they mentioned OCR but the more I look into it the worse it gets, nobody wants to generate AI images in their text editor. I don't want a chatbot to tell me facts about butterflies in my presentation tool. Wtf? I'm not usually this upset about random AI integrations but this is the exact thing Microsoft would do and why people would choose onlyoffice instead.
Edit: Well, the good news is that this AI garbage seems to be a plugin that's not included by default, so they at least have some sense in them.
I don't understand why everything gets AI these days when literally no users are asking for it. Nobody wants it. Nobody who is somewhat smart, at least, who can produce their own shit.
I've also noticed at my workplace, even smart people who have decades of experience in programming and writing documentation. I'll ask them a question about something they might know, and sometimes they don't. So then I'll say, I'll just try and dig into the docs π. And they'll go, nah man just ask [Bing AI, whatever it's called], or ChatGPT. I'm like π€¦ββοΈ I'm 15 years your junior and I'm not afraid to look things up and search for things, and write my own texts. FFS.
It's dumbing people down when they get access to it.
I refuse it. I don't want to use AI when searching, when writing, when coding, when finding info. Never.
I wouldn't be surprised if they integrated it into the software itself. I'm good with LibreOffice.
Because they're not Microsoft? And they're not malicious liars?