Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by greggman2 | Hacker News Reader

Full thread

greggman2

Bye Bye LibreOffice. Hello Google Docs (or some other online service).

(1) Auto backup

(2) Accessible from all my devices with zero work.

(3) Can share with anyone with just a link

(4) Can allow anyone to edit with just a link

I'm sure HN will be "evil google" and you might be right. I don't believe they "spy" on google docs and I'm a paying g-suite customer.

I get different people have different needs. Google Docs meets mine. Been using it since soon after it shipped. Haven't looked back. I might be able to be convinced to move to another online service but I could never go back to a native app for documents or spreadsheets

View on HN

I don't see how one can recommend Google Office if they'd read the article.

The author is _deeply_ distrusting of SaaS, and for good reasons.

Not criticizing your personal choice.

For me however it is thanks, but no thanks. Google and any other SAAS can go eff themselves. Do not like the way it works and not letting somebody else manage my data.

(5) slow af

Sometimes i copy and paste from LibreOffice into some other app, and it locks up for tens of seconds. Google doesn't have a monpoly on slowness.

Office 365 is embarassingly better in every way

Is there a way to restore the classic UI and ditch the ribbon?

Cost, certainly, is not better with Office 365. And LibreOffice has versions for Linux. It's also much easier to drag and drop cells in Calc than Excel (small advantage, but with my eyes, Excel is tricky) Excel has far fewer file types it can handle (ClarisWorks, QuarkXPress anyone? Export as EPUB, and so on.) LibreOffice has a much better configurable spellchecker, six different ribbon-like interfaces, can exports bits of your spreadsheet as a JPEG file, and is free. And cost. Did I mention that? Why rent something that can be got for free?

(OK, if all you get is MS file formats, than O365 is fine, if expensive. I've been using LO for years at work in a MS shop, and had no issues for a couple of years.)

You can still do a one time purchase of Office Home & Student 2019 for $149 and it's yours forever.

is there a self-hosted alternative to google docs?

Yes. OnlyOffice. There's a community edition. https://www.onlyoffice.com/download.aspx

LibreOffice Online / CODE.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com