One deal breaker for me regarding OnlyOffice is that they have absolutely no support for RTL <a href="https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DocumentServer/issues/19" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DocumentServer/issues/19</a> . From what it looks like there is a 5 year opened issue requesting RTL support. Until they support RTL, I can't use them.<p>Softmaker on the other had does support RTL. They still have a long way to go to be at the level of Microsoft office, but they are the best Linux office suite that I found
Okay so, here we go again: An article which does not go into any detail about specifics, and makes a very bold claim (i.e. this product is better than this one because I said it's better).<p>Why is this on the front page ....
I gave LibreOffice a go, but quickly became frustrated with incompatibility issues and some of the other quirks in Calc.<p>So I've switched to using Google Docs, which is powerful enough for my modest needs and has so far been pretty frustration free. It also has the advantage of being easily accessible from my other non-Linux devices. The free browser-only versions of Microsoft Office also look good... but I just haven't had a reason to seriously evaluate them.<p>What are the benefits to going with something like OnlyOffice over Google's and Microsoft's offerings?
One thing that is overlooked by the authors, is that libreoffice now also has ribbon with icons similar to Word. I'm still pretty happy with libreoffice writer, however excel is still king, calc is just horrible. Try to make anything a bit more interesting than a line graph, 2 axis's you'll get stuck quickly
The author talks about "top notch Microsoft Office compatibility", including formatting. However, something relatively simple, such as "Center Accross Selection" cell formatting in Excel does not display correctly in OnlyOffice. Hmm...
> Now I know a lot of FOSS enthusiasts will be unhappy about the idealistic part of the recommendation<p>Why would we be unhappy with it? Seems like at least some version of it is FOSS (GNU GPL or AGPL on all the repos I'm seeing).<p>I ain't familiar with it, though. I've also been reasonably happy with LibreOffice, so I haven't been motivated to look all that hard for alternatives.
I’m rather curious about these claims. What specific formatting issues is he referring to, and what version was he using?<p>Also, they claim LibreOffice is not available on MacOS.<p>This article is quite light on detail.
All looks well and dandy until you need to integrate Zotero into the flow of your work. Unfortunately, OnlyOffice doesn't offer a Zotero integration tool. That's a huge deal breaker for any academic.
OpenOffice to LibreOffice to OnlyOffice...<p>Does Microsoft still have 95% market share?<p>Put your wood behind 1 arrow.<p><a href="https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/35197/meaning-of-more-wood-behind-fewer-arrows" rel="nofollow">https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/35197/meaning-of...</a>
There is also SoftMaker FreeOffice (the free version of SoftMaker Office):<p><a href="https://www.freeoffice.com/en/" rel="nofollow">https://www.freeoffice.com/en/</a><p>Unlike OnlyOffice, it's not open source, but it is an excellent product that I have used for some time now with no adverse results. Works well with HiDPI.<p>I have a deep respect for the people behind the LibreOffice project, but to me it still feels a lot like its predecessor: StarOffice from Sun Microsystems, a product that I did not like.<p>I have not tried Caligra Office or Abiword / Gnumeric lately, probably I should.
I remember using LibreOffice. It does the job, but with noticeable deficiencies. At this point Google Docs basically replaced the MS Office suite for me. Who even needs "powerpoint" anymore? All of the "character bullet sound animations" are like the 90s web of office software. I basically use Google Docs to look at shared notepads and CSVs, and that's about it.
At some point LibreOffice made super weird visual design choices, icons look like they were drawn by a 5-year old and they completely botched math formula editor. Compared to that even Star Office 5 (predecessor of OpenOffice) looked more professional. I am wondering what is going on?
The obvious solution is for Jatan to have his correspondents install a local copy of LibreOffice. There's even a Windows version.<p><a href="https://www.libreoffice.org/" rel="nofollow">https://www.libreoffice.org/</a><p>“I’m a science writer who uses Linux because it just functions better for me than Windows or macOS and because I’m an open source enthusiast. Given my profession, I have to frequently collaborate with people on other operating systems who almost always use either Microsoft Office or Google Docs.”<p>“After three years of trying, I can tell you that LibreOffice just doesn’t cut it. Either me or the other person will lose some formatting in the documents at some point. And as a document travels from one computer to another, things quickly become a mess.”
They crippled the open-source version in Nextcloud to only offer read-only access through mobile web<p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/NextCloud/comments/fktqug/onlyoffice_fcked_us/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/NextCloud/comments/fktqug/onlyoffic...</a><p>Collabora is the way to go if you plan on using it with Nextcloud.<p><a href="https://nextcloud.com/collaboraonline/" rel="nofollow">https://nextcloud.com/collaboraonline/</a>
Maybe libreoffice needs a more strict word online compatibility mode that compromises UI and functionality for as perfect as possible compatibility.<p>For instance a user in the thread mentioned all background colors can be applied in libreoffice, but in word online some are restricted.<p>Ux having those restricted colors grayed out by default with a hover note why seems perfect to keep compatibility and show where word online is wonky.<p>Hope this makes sense, will have to pay or in a better format to the issue tracker tomorrow.
It comes with Nextcloud, you can install it with a click of a button: <a href="https://nextcloud.com/onlyoffice/" rel="nofollow">https://nextcloud.com/onlyoffice/</a>
tl;dr according to the author:<p>- MS office compatibility<p>- tabs<p>- cloud support<p>- ribbon UI<p>Personally, none of those are even remotely relevant (and MSO compatibility is a given, which suite doesn't support docx etc these days?).<p>The only times I still reach for MS Office is when I need its million times faster speed compared to OpenOffice and friends (libre office, etc), for things like "sorting 20,000 lines of CSV in Excel using multiple column constraints because I need the first 100 entries after sorting" or "writing out some maths that doesn't justify using full-blown XeLaTeX", so... this just reads like a blog-shaped ad.<p>I'm curious to learn how much the author got paid to post this, given how little what-I-use-it-for-information there is in this post.