this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
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cross-posted from: https://europe.pub/post/12592

Originally posted on Reddit

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[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 2 points 1 hour ago

I use libreoffice but man libreoffice writer is so finnicky. Formatting is all wonky. Definitely not a 1:1 replacement. It will format things differently than if you opened it in word

[–] jacksilver@lemmy.world 11 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

No issues with Libre Office, but isn't the point of this scene that homelander really is a downgrade?

[–] Maalus@lemmy.world 7 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

He isn't a downgrade, he is stronger using the other guys DNA. He is mentally effed though, as a result of being brought up in a lab and tested on to see his limits.

[–] jacksilver@lemmy.world 3 points 6 hours ago

Thanks, I wasn't sure cause in that season they seemed to be somewhat evenly matched in their confrontations.

[–] BrilliantantTurd4361@sh.itjust.works 12 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I just wish it wasnt so ugly.

[–] ewenak@jlai.lu 4 points 7 hours ago

I prefer LibreOffice's ugliness to Microsoft's strange menus. Anyway they're also available in LibreOffice, in the view menu.

For the rest of the interface you could look into GTK themes, I think LO's looks depend a lot of the theme you use. The interface is pretty customizable, I think.

[–] PDFuego@lemmy.world 44 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

So... we supposed to be rooting for Homelander now?

[–] Soapbox1858@lemm.ee 7 points 10 hours ago

For real. I really hate how all the internet has just decided to meme with homelander like he is a good guy. Any meme I see with him I just assume some sort of malevolence behind it because he is so fucking evil.

[–] easily3667@lemmus.org 24 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

No it's just saying libre office kills babies

[–] FinalRemix@lemmy.world 8 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

Is that how it loads so fast?

[–] underisk@lemmy.ml 9 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

No, the babies are necessary to parse the .doc format.

[–] easily3667@lemmus.org 4 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Thankfully nobody uses that anymore, praise be

[–] SatyrSack@feddit.org 4 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

I have a coworker that regularly sends *.xls files. They always function fine, so I really have no reason to complain.

[–] uniquethrowagay@feddit.org 2 points 10 hours ago

xls files are blocked in our company because they can contain potentially harmful macros

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[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 4 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

It's not like Solider Boy is great either lol.

[–] PDFuego@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

No, certainly not. I'm just pointing out that with context this meme template means something very different to what it says on the surface.

Unless OP's point is that LibreOffice is more functional but much, much worse for society while there are better options just off-screen, in which case fair enough and well played.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I wouldn't over think it. It's just about the line used. The same way people use the Spider-Man template where he sees clearly with his glasses even though in the scene he sees better without them.

I feel like a meme academic lmao. "Well, yes, but the colloquial usage of templates often aren't a one-to-one with what's being shown, in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man,"

[–] PDFuego@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I'd hoped my last line would convey I was being more light-hearted than pedantic.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 points 8 hours ago

I'd hoped my last paragraph would convey the same back.

[–] Floopquist@lemmy.org 19 points 14 hours ago

Good marketing point: LibreOffice has NO ENSHITTIFICATION! Great!

[–] BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world 97 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (3 children)

I'm not a fan of people applying nationalism to open source software. I get this is a reaction to another country's nationalism but it really undermines what open source software is all about.

Yea, The Document Foundation is based in Germany. But Libre Office is an international collaborative open source project, with contributors in many countries.

Open source projects dont have a nationality. Even the ones with organisations based in the USA. And if people really are concerned about US based legal orgs then we should be looking at forking the software.

Its already under open source licences and belongs to everyone regardless of nationality.

[–] ycnz@lemmy.nz 5 points 11 hours ago

TBH, as a New Zealander, highlighting that it's not based or of the US is a huge win.

[–] gon@lemm.ee 21 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

I'll say, I feel this. I love FOSS, and I love the BuyEuropean movement as well, but I'm also always scared this will turn nationalistic, which I'm not a big fan of...

[–] Comtief@lemm.ee 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

How would that work though? Nationalistic people tend to be anti-EU, no?

[–] gon@lemm.ee 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

You're taking it too literally. I don't know if nationalists tend to be anti-EU, though you're right that a lot of them are, but I was using nationalistic there very loosely to refer to the negative aspects of nationalistic ideology as applied to Europe


and the EU, in particular.

That being said, it's very easy to get hooked into a Buy European craze and then shift into Buy YourNation, which can quickly turn into "We're better than everyone else and if you don't think that you're a traitor" and so on and so on...

[–] Comtief@lemm.ee 0 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Eh I just don't see it.. There are just too many ideological conflicts between being nationalist/myNation and being motivated in participating in the avoid USA movement in the first place. The way I see it, they are direct opposite crowds.

For example, do you think Canadians are in danger of going full nationalist because they are avoiding usa products now because Trump wants to make them 51st state?

If anything, it's mostly a liberal movement.

[–] fossphi@lemm.ee 6 points 17 hours ago

Precisely my feelings. I hope it doesn't turn out to in the negative way, but I'm afraid of some of the vitriol I'm seeing already

[–] DmMacniel@feddit.org 23 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Uuuh this is about closed source Microsoft Office Vs open source Libre Office which just happen to be from Germany and thus is the reason why this is posted in this community.

[–] bloubz@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 18 hours ago

They're replying because of OP's comment "based in Germany"

[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

libreoffice is great! onlyoffice is good too if you like more compatability with office and docx, but it's more geared toward online services and subscriptions.

[–] melpomenesclevage@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

cryptpad.fr if you need a google docs alternative. DONATE BTW; they are not a megacorp.

[–] aldfin@lemm.ee 25 points 18 hours ago

Libreoffice is amazing. I had dismissed it ages ago back when I had no reason to boycott the US, but now I tried it again after switching to Linux and it works amazingly good.

There’s no need for MS Office for personal use, though unfortunately for my large corporate employer it probably isn’t going to realistically be considered.

[–] rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 12 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

I like using OnlyOffice, too, which is based in Latvia.

[–] cheprofumo@feddit.it 4 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

Im still not sure if this is true, but I’ve seen a couple people post that OnlyOffice may be Russian owned with a location in Latvia just to avoid association. I really hope not because I do like the UI more. I tried asking Le Chat about it and got this. I’d love to get someone else’s take on this though.

OnlyOffice is owned by Ascensio System SIA, a Latvian-based IT company with headquarters in Riga. The company was founded by Lev Bannov, who is also the CEO of OnlyOffice. The ownership structure has undergone significant changes, with the Singapore holding company ONLYOFFICE Capital Group Pte. Ltd. now being the ultimate owner of Ascensio System SIA through its UK subsidiary, Ascensio System Limited .

OnlyOffice has faced allegations and concerns regarding its ties to Russia. Some sources claim that OnlyOffice is a Russian company that has attempted to mask its origins by using a Latvian company as a front. These allegations suggest that the company has connections to the Russian government and military, and that it has set up shell companies to avoid being associated with Russia following the Russian invasion of Ukraine .

The company has been accused of using its Latvian headquarters as a way to enter the international market while continuing to operate and develop its products in Russia under the name R7 Office . These concerns have led some companies to sever ties with OnlyOffice due to its alleged support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its failure to condemn the conflict .

Despite these claims, it is important to note that OnlyOffice is officially headquartered in Riga, Latvia, and operates under Ascensio System SIA. The company has a complex ownership structure, with a Singapore holding company owning the UK branch, which in turn owns the Latvian branch .

source 1 source 2 source 3

[–] peppers_ghost@lemmy.ml 6 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

AI chatbots are not and probably never will be good tools to research information

[–] cheprofumo@feddit.it 1 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

But wouldn’t they be able to cover way more content (and if trained well) be able to filter out biases? I feel like most people are bad at this already. They either just believe whatever they hear without looking it up, or go to one source and take it as final. For the average person, wouldn’t aggregated results be better?

[–] OccultIconoclast@reddthat.com 9 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Oh no, people are using AI slop to generate Lemmy comments

[–] cheprofumo@feddit.it 2 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

Can you help me understand this better? The response didn’t sound biased and it was all supported with links that confirmed where it inferred that from. I also only asked about this after seeing two different mentions of this in other comments. I do not want to spread false information which is why I put all the sources I got this from and clearly stated where it came from.

Again, not trying to be rude at all, I am genuinely curious

[–] OccultIconoclast@reddthat.com 2 points 7 hours ago

I don't like LLMs. I don't like the power use, I don't like the question of suffering, I don't like the spam. It's slop because it comes from a genAI.

[–] madjo@feddit.nl 5 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Why are you using AI for research? It's a glorified predictive text.

[–] cheprofumo@feddit.it 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Maybe I’m not understanding how this works. I just started testing it, but it appears to be running a live web search (as it takes a while and adds a globe icon for each new source it’s reviewing) and summarizes for trends, which is exactly what I would do. If I was doing it myself, I would only skim a few articles anyways to find common themes. I’m not writing a research paper on this, I’m just looking to see if there is a notable trend in source articles.

Now, I have it start a summary and then I check the sources to see if it trust it. Overall, it seems like it reaches the same goal but quicker. Which also makes me more likely to look things up to see if they’re supported with facts or completely made up. I realize AI can also hallucinate and the sources are not comprehensive, but isn’t at least better than nothing?

[–] madjo@feddit.nl 4 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

Pretty much all of the ai tools available now have been shown to hallucinate, even if it started out with an internet search.

I've had ai tools spit out real looking URLs that led to 404 pages, because it had hallucinated those links. It's a place to start your research, to maybe refine your questions, but I wouldn't trust it much with the actual research.

An LLM, a large language model, that an ai tool like Mistral is, doesn't really use knowledge, it predicts what the next logical text is going to be based on information it has been trained on. It doesn't think, it doesn't reason, it just predicts what the next words are likely going to be.

It doesn't even understand text, that's why all of them claimed that there were just 2 Rs in strawberry. It doesn't treat text as text.

You can use it to rewrite a text for you, perhaps even summarize (though there's still the possibility of hallucinations there), but I wouldn't ask it to do research for you.

[–] cheprofumo@feddit.it 2 points 8 hours ago

This is really really helpful, thank you. I appreciate the explanation.

[–] clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 7 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

I'm never quite sure if a document will translate 100% to Word or Excel, but otherwise I've been very happy.

[–] altkey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

To ensure better compatibility, do a fresh save-as to another format if possible on MS side (docx-doc, doc-docx, -docm, whatever). It forces Office to rebuild the file, i believe, and usually it fixes some display mistakes coming from excessive formatting, trashes the leftovers of previous edits, etc, and the file itself becomes lighter. Some other tricks:

  1. Have strict formatting rules and only select amount of styles. If you see them mutating, choose to select everything with a style-bastard applied, and then reapply their parent to all affected paragraphs (after what it should disappear);
  2. Don't use rare fonts as long as possible, and if you do, on different machines too, copy them from Windows fonts folder in advance;
  3. Overwhelmingly long and complex tables in Word usually break. The most dire offender is how you unite cells and move separate cells' borders, because it breaks their structure. Google has workarounds iand limitations on that in their products. To ensure your table translates right, copy it into Excel and then back after setting all cells in Excel to text data, as it likes to reformat e.g. 18.03.2025 into date format and such.

Some of these problems occured to me between different installations of MS products themselves, and with LO I had it the other way: Excel had a bugged file that wasn't adjustable in how to print it. One column wasn't fitting on the page one, but once I move the guideline over that column, Excel cuts this table into 70+ pages, one cell on each. The only thing that helped is opening this exact file in LO Calc where this problem just can't be reproduced. Since that I use Calc first, and then Google Sheets as I haven't found a fitting online sharing solution for myself and get invited tonedit it by others, and Excel is not an option at all anymore.

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[–] Libb@jlai.lu 6 points 17 hours ago

LO is good software.

It replaced MSOffice Word for me (and I had been using Word since the early 90s). It also has a few extensions one may want to consider adding. Stuff like extra dictionaries for example, or better (than the default provided) ePub/HTML export tools.

https://extensions.libreoffice.org/

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