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Comment by beerlord | Hacker News Reader

Chromebooks have one fatal flaw: Microsoft Office on them sucks. You're stuck with side-loading in the Android edition, which is an app with a simplified UI and requiring always-online connection.

All of this might be OK for a schoolkid, but for anyone else you might as well stick with a Windows laptop for real work, or an iPad for real consumption.

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I don't get the insistence upon Microsoft word as a killer app personally. It seems to be the suit and tie of software - more expensive than the alternatives and cumbersome but hidebound ones insist it is a prerequisite to be taken seriously.

I can't believe entire businesses I worked for rely on Microsoft Word for documentation. Heavy, slow, expensive, closed source, not searchable, with ugly output.

Well kids [think they] need it often because schools demand it as the only option for homework submissions -- specifically Word document format.

Teachers will provide files in .doc[x] format too.

LibreOffice copes mainly but schools don't seem to know that; and teachers of course get deals to lock them in to MS.

I haven't used Office since I was a schoolkid, and I do real work. Not everyone has the same needs as you.

LOL I agree it's a great short-term strategic move from Microsoft to make sure Android Office is a piece of trash. I can't believe how awful it is every time I need to use it, it can't even properly keep track of what text is highlighted when you make font changes.

Side-loading is no longer necessary. Since last November Microsoft Office is available on all Chromebooks with Android app support: https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/27/16703952/microsoft-offic...

There's even an Office support page: https://support.office.com/article/how-to-install-and-run-mi...

Also, the Office apps do work offline.

Chromebook is appealing for enterprise for its cheaper price and low support maintenance. There are many enterprises already running Citrix or AWS Workplace remote desktop to run enterprise app, I don't see how MS Office can not be run this way.

Chromebooks aren't intended to be all things to all people. They're really a way to provide a browser and little else to people who don't need much other than that. I wouldn't think it's appropriate for someone doing a lot of Microsoft documents, but for someone who ocassiaonally needs to write something nice or crunch a spreadsheet Google docs is an option, and newish chromebooks have access to the Android Google play store, are the Microsoft office apps specifically delisted? If you deal with documents only a few times a year, you can probably make it work.

Plenty of people get by without native Office apps. The majority of Linux users for one. And aren’t some of the Mac Office apps basically crippled compared to the Windows versions?

G-Suite is a thing, and so is office 365

Goodle Docs is a great product, but for serious uses, it's sorely lacking in the features department.

It's odd, because even features from the 90's like mail merge are missing. Mail merge as a feature is something most coders could automate in a few hours. Why isn't it in the product so the rest of the world can use it?

How about footnotes? References? Multi-column layouts? A mixture of portrait and landscape pages? Captions on tables? Flow text around a circular image?

The list of lacking or hobbled features is really long. The unmatched live collaboration features are really the only place it shines.

Yeah, but MS Office is missing transparent font embedding and cross OS file sharing (even between different versions of windows or office).

The upshot is the giving PowerPoint presentations is hit or miss / embarrassing, but gsuite presentations usually just work.

The same can be said for sharing spreadsheets, etc. Writing documents is fundamentally a form of communication, and MS Office is built with the fundamental assumption that you will share your work by printing it out. The retrofit PDF export works OK, but sharing editable documents does not, and I think they need to from-scratch rewrite the core document engine to fix the problem.

> Mail Merge

I haven't needed that in over 15 years, but if you need this, install this add-on for free [1].

> footnotes

Insert > Footnote

> References

Tools > Research, Cite as Footnote

> Multi-column layouts

Format > Columns

> A mixture of portrait and landscape pages?

This is hard to do in Word too. If you really need this, make two Google docs (landscape, portrait, and then a Word Doc that integrates the two that you keep in Read-Only mode).

But really, why is this needed for serious uses and considered "seriously lacking?"

> Captions on tables

This could be done by just inserting text and formatting the way you want. I don't think you can generate a table of tables though. Do you have a list of commonly used "hobbled" features? None of these are something I've had a need to do for decades.

[1] - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mail-merge/lclhkda...

I'm not sure the average user needs mail merge anymore? These days there are specialized web sites for things like emailing party invites to your friends and keeping track of responses.

Similarly, multicolumn layouts are an annoyance to read online, so perhaps not as popular with people who don't print things out. There are website-building web apps these days that do basic sidebars.

I don't appear to ever use those features.

Footnotes work in Google docs

Or the web version, or just use any number of alternatives, not like a word processor is a unique product

There are times when you want to use a laptop without an internet connection.

GSuite is not comparable because it is not a standalone, 'desktop' application. I don't want to have to use a version stuffed into a browser.

So use libreoffice.

https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/3214688?hl=en-G... says gmail, calendar, keep, docs, sheets, slides and drive work offline, plus there's a filter for offline apps.

However I was referring to MS Office Online

And Adobe Suite.

That's a flaw of Office, not Chromebooks.

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