LibreOffice?
Posted: April 16th, 2023, 7:52 pm
GOD! I hate LibreOffice. I hate it with a spite and a venom that cannot possibly be overestimated.
I used to use OpenOffice, that was a computer program. Sure it has become 'obsolete', nobody who is anybody works on its development. It wasn't up to speed with all the latest whiz bangs, it was a bit buggy, it was supposed to be unsecure. OK, but it worked! That is, when I wanted to do those very simple things that I wanted to do it simply did them - that's what I need!
LibreOffice? Everybody who is anybody is in the development team, it has a wonderful, knock out, fully professional looking promotional website. But every time I use it it is like going to a knife-fight. It's LO or me, one of us is going to die tonight. Better bring a baseball bat to the fight. Better still, bring a loaded Magnum 45 - it ain't going to be me if I can help it!
I have ALWAYS found it a pain - right from the off it would not even install on my spanking new (slightly used Dell) PC. Not until I had installed this and that updates. Then I was surprised to find it was all in one big lump, not modular with install options like OO.
Then it turned it's nose up at my favourite font (for financial reports) Line Printer Gothic - One size only 8.5pt, one typeface only; as it comes. No bold, no italic, no underlining. LO accepts it exists by name, but will not display it or print it directly on the HP laser printer. Not "good enough" for it, no doubt.
Then whenever you do anything in the spreadsheet it surrounds the cell with an annoying dotty line that you have to hit Esc to get rid of before it makes you dizzy - no apparent option to turn this 'feature' off. But don't talk to me about "display" in LO! e.g. It has a signifier for a comment in a cell - just like OO did - but, unlike OO and it's discrete yellow triangle in the top right of the cell OO puts a red square in the top right of the cell. Which, with the small cells and fonts that I like, means that's the end of seeing the least significant digit of any numeric values.
But then, why does LO's default cell positioning try to chop the top off all the digits in the first place? Sure, I just have to format every important cell to 'Middle' positioning. But why is that not the default?
The simplest, most reliable way of moving stuff from Cell A to Cell B in LO seems to be to just retype the whole thing in Cell B. "Copy & Paste, Cut & Paste" I hear you say? Have you ever tried it - never mind that dizzying dottiness - try that sort of malarkey in LO and there is no knowing what will happen. Will it be a spell check? Not now! If I touch anything will it convert some cell's intricate formula into: "K9", "XQ666* - #func Error!" all in black? Who knows...
Why does it do that? BECAUSE IT CAN!! Much as it insists on capitalising the first letter of any text I put in the sheet, like eps or dps. Sorry! I mean Eps, Dps. Why does it do that? BECAUSE IT CAN!! LibreOffice and me have frequent knife-fights over spelling.
You can tell I've just been working on a spreadsheet using LibreOffice, can't you? Yes, I have. I have been converting some cells to Named Cells, to make life easier (Should have gone to OpenOffice?) and one cell was empty, lacking data, through me not knowing the dollar eps for Verizon. Off to the web to find out: Ah! There it is, in dollars too. Pick it up, see I have heard of "Copy & Paste", and plop it into LO's vacant cell. OK. But it doesn't look quite right... OK, it's the wrong size font, correct it to be the same as all the others. Still doesn't look quite right. Oh, its Liberation Sans or something, rather than Albany as all the others are, courtesy of LO, of course. That's easy just find Albany on LO's Font List - it's LO's chosen default for the whole sheet, after all. "Albany, Albany, Agency, Aharoni...? It isn't there!" How can this be? It was LO that chose this damn font in the first place.
I have no choice - remember, this is an LO spreadsheet - I cut and park the dollar value to another cell, I'll type it back in when the time comes (this is LO). The blank cell has already, remarkably, reverted to Albany all by itself. That is, the very font LO denied knowing anything about only a moment ago, the one it chose for the whole spreadsheet. So I type in the value - don't want to chance it, do we? OK. Ah. I have to format it as a dollar value, of course. No problem, just format the cell as Currency, Dollar, Dollar, Dollar... What happened to the Dollar? FFS!
It's always on here, along with the UK pound and the Euro; until LO says it isn't. I see another option, select, select US Dollar (UK) Uh? Never had to do that before. At last. Done!
Not quite. As I Cut & Pasted that wonky dollar value I've now wiped out that cells Name, so now I just have to...
If I ever have to write a letter I think I'll stick with WordPad, probably safer.
Does anyone here feel the same as I do about LibreOffice?
I used to use OpenOffice, that was a computer program. Sure it has become 'obsolete', nobody who is anybody works on its development. It wasn't up to speed with all the latest whiz bangs, it was a bit buggy, it was supposed to be unsecure. OK, but it worked! That is, when I wanted to do those very simple things that I wanted to do it simply did them - that's what I need!
LibreOffice? Everybody who is anybody is in the development team, it has a wonderful, knock out, fully professional looking promotional website. But every time I use it it is like going to a knife-fight. It's LO or me, one of us is going to die tonight. Better bring a baseball bat to the fight. Better still, bring a loaded Magnum 45 - it ain't going to be me if I can help it!
I have ALWAYS found it a pain - right from the off it would not even install on my spanking new (slightly used Dell) PC. Not until I had installed this and that updates. Then I was surprised to find it was all in one big lump, not modular with install options like OO.
Then it turned it's nose up at my favourite font (for financial reports) Line Printer Gothic - One size only 8.5pt, one typeface only; as it comes. No bold, no italic, no underlining. LO accepts it exists by name, but will not display it or print it directly on the HP laser printer. Not "good enough" for it, no doubt.
Then whenever you do anything in the spreadsheet it surrounds the cell with an annoying dotty line that you have to hit Esc to get rid of before it makes you dizzy - no apparent option to turn this 'feature' off. But don't talk to me about "display" in LO! e.g. It has a signifier for a comment in a cell - just like OO did - but, unlike OO and it's discrete yellow triangle in the top right of the cell OO puts a red square in the top right of the cell. Which, with the small cells and fonts that I like, means that's the end of seeing the least significant digit of any numeric values.
But then, why does LO's default cell positioning try to chop the top off all the digits in the first place? Sure, I just have to format every important cell to 'Middle' positioning. But why is that not the default?
The simplest, most reliable way of moving stuff from Cell A to Cell B in LO seems to be to just retype the whole thing in Cell B. "Copy & Paste, Cut & Paste" I hear you say? Have you ever tried it - never mind that dizzying dottiness - try that sort of malarkey in LO and there is no knowing what will happen. Will it be a spell check? Not now! If I touch anything will it convert some cell's intricate formula into: "K9", "XQ666* - #func Error!" all in black? Who knows...
Why does it do that? BECAUSE IT CAN!! Much as it insists on capitalising the first letter of any text I put in the sheet, like eps or dps. Sorry! I mean Eps, Dps. Why does it do that? BECAUSE IT CAN!! LibreOffice and me have frequent knife-fights over spelling.
You can tell I've just been working on a spreadsheet using LibreOffice, can't you? Yes, I have. I have been converting some cells to Named Cells, to make life easier (Should have gone to OpenOffice?) and one cell was empty, lacking data, through me not knowing the dollar eps for Verizon. Off to the web to find out: Ah! There it is, in dollars too. Pick it up, see I have heard of "Copy & Paste", and plop it into LO's vacant cell. OK. But it doesn't look quite right... OK, it's the wrong size font, correct it to be the same as all the others. Still doesn't look quite right. Oh, its Liberation Sans or something, rather than Albany as all the others are, courtesy of LO, of course. That's easy just find Albany on LO's Font List - it's LO's chosen default for the whole sheet, after all. "Albany, Albany, Agency, Aharoni...? It isn't there!" How can this be? It was LO that chose this damn font in the first place.
I have no choice - remember, this is an LO spreadsheet - I cut and park the dollar value to another cell, I'll type it back in when the time comes (this is LO). The blank cell has already, remarkably, reverted to Albany all by itself. That is, the very font LO denied knowing anything about only a moment ago, the one it chose for the whole spreadsheet. So I type in the value - don't want to chance it, do we? OK. Ah. I have to format it as a dollar value, of course. No problem, just format the cell as Currency, Dollar, Dollar, Dollar... What happened to the Dollar? FFS!
It's always on here, along with the UK pound and the Euro; until LO says it isn't. I see another option, select, select US Dollar (UK) Uh? Never had to do that before. At last. Done!
Not quite. As I Cut & Pasted that wonky dollar value I've now wiped out that cells Name, so now I just have to...
If I ever have to write a letter I think I'll stick with WordPad, probably safer.
Does anyone here feel the same as I do about LibreOffice?