LibreOffice says Microsoft Office exploits you, offers free ODF migration guide

[kwanbix]

The problem with LibreOffice is that interface is so ugly. And no, I am NOT asking for the ribbon, which I think is a horrible idea.

[abhiyerra]

I think LibreOffice needs a general refresh of marketing and product for simplicity. The LibreOffice website, you have to dig in to see what features are provided. The product itself has a lot of bells and whistles but as you mentioned it is hard to discover.

A feature that isn’t noted but is quite cool is LibreOffice Base’s ability to connect to remote databases and create forms on top of those. Basically a better Access.

[franga2000]

Genuinely, have you looked at modern screenshots? When in ribbon mode, it's basically the same as MS Office.

LO Writer: https://i.redd.it/0ps5cvvffdf21.png MS Word: https://erinwrightwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Wor...

Got any other "ugly" spots? All the "old" menus (like editing a paragraph style or list style) look kind of bad on both, but at least MS Word's print preview got a facelift (used to be even worse than LO, now it's quite a bit better).

[tryptophan]

Its also slow and laggy compared to office products somehow. Has that classic open source jank.

[poisonwomb]

You know, I did kind of think that until I sat down to use it and realised compared to MS office it’s like a glass of ice water in hell.

I do actually think on Mac if you just use the minimal toolbar buttons and the menu bar buttons it looks pretty presentable. Not good but not the worst. And on Linux/GTK it actually looks super nice

[bundie]

> so ugly

I think this is a common issue with open source software, except when it comes to GNOME/GTK/Libadwaita apps. For some reason, GNOME apps almost always manage to look good.

[greazy]

Libreoffice comes with a few different themes and icon sets. Have you tried them out?

[tiahura]

Its reminiscent of Wordperfect 6 for Windows.

[kristopolous]

Are people still using single user desktop office suites?

It makes me wonder if there's some kind of light decentralized thing that can be used with a convention oauth style front end

[glimshe]

I do. Although I have no love for Office, it allows me to keep all of my data locally seamlessly.

With online-only tools, I'm one unfair ban away from losing all my data.

[pragmatic]

Excel on the desktop isn’t going any where.

[contextfree]

MS Office isn't single user? It supports real-time collaboration, including in the desktop apps. Though that does require you to keep the files in onedrive or sharepoint.

[poisonwomb]

Bro I just wanna write my CV and do my dad’s taxes I don’t wanna collaborate with 100s of my favourite redditors while leveraging AI

[ChrisArchitect]

Source: https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2025/08/15/guide-to...

[jdalgetty]

I've been using LibreOffice for many years at this point and it's been just fine.

[abirch]

One of the biggest dangers you have with Microsoft if you're not in the USA, the US government can turn off your access for shiggles.

[cyanydeez]

AT THE current rate of things, its probably more dangerous they'll install fancy keyloggers.