Who knew being a monopoly and anti competitive would be so profitable.
So many open source options out there that if you think MS word is the only options out there then you’re not looking hard enough.
Editing PDFs is not a feature the format natively supports (or supported?).
To me the crappiest “feature” is that M$ intentionally disregards their own document standard to EEE the ecosystem and vendor-lock their consumers.To be fair PDFs are not meant to be edited (especially not by Word). PDFs are the product not the source. It’s like trying to “edit” the ingredients of a cake after it’s finished. You don’t edit the cake, you edit the recipe and make a new cake.
And yet… libreoffice does it pretty ok
I edit PDFs all the time for work. It’s a pain in the ass, but perfectly doable. Trying to prevent people from editing files by making it annoying is not in any way a sane strategy.
As said it’s possible to edit PDFs but of cause it’s a pain in the ass because that format doesn’t have a lot of semantics information about the original source. PDF doesn’t understand how to reflow text to the next line.
It’s a bit like having a Photoshop file with many layers, saving the image as PNG, sending that PNG to someone else, they open it in Photoshop and than complain about why Photoshop is trying to prevent the PNG from being edited.
You can edit the PNG but it’s a pain in the ass because the original layer information is lost. Same with PDF. Nobody ever tried to prevent anyone from trying to edit PDFs but of it’s more that fixing some minor typo is certainly is a pain in the ass because thats not what this format was designed to do.
Well yeah, because it’s not feasible to deconstruct a baked cake, not because “things that are made shouldn’t be edited”.
It’s also not feasible to deconstruct a PDF. It doesn’t have a concept of paragraphs and lines. Almost all semantic relations and information is lost while saving a PDF.
Except there are programs that can edit pdfs fine.
Once you’ve tried VIM, you’ll never go back.
Mostly because you won’t be able to exit VIM.
I would use word for this, but I can’t close vim. I guess I’m learning LaTeX.
Last night, I was talking to my brother - who’s a mathematician by trade - and learned the following from him:
LaTeX is Leslie Lamport’s (hence La) macro package on top of TeX.
I’ve never used it, but for around fifteen years I’ve been working around people who do … And yet I never knew that.
I used it a lot for university… and I did not know that.
I did migrate to pandoc and markdown for a lot of stuff, with custom template files.
An abyssal panda using pandoc. Who could have seen it coming.
Markdown is very useful, but I don’t think I’ve ever written enough to earn template files.
My brother is one of the two smartest people I know and knows a lot of things I didn’t know I didn’t know. He’s earned a lot of respect from me.
I wrote latex template files that the markdown rendered into, that way I could use my own macros and styles.
That is some professional grade typesetting there.
:termyour way to freedomSend help, I ran
:term vim, now I’m double stuck
:q (my face in reaction to this)
It’d be more impressive if you went
ZZ.You called?
:q!
What a strange emoticon…
:qa!
Ya, the first few times I used vim (well neovim) I exited by closing the terminal
My favourite feature is the insanely counter-intuitive indenting and bullet points.
Want to edit the header just on page 6? Or feel like being sexy and having a single page in landscape or a different size?
Easy! Just make a bunch of separate documents, export them as PDFs, and merge them in Adobe Acrobat.
I agree lots of things about word sucks. But FYI single page landscape is achieved by using two section breaks. It’s not ideal, but its somewhat understandable given how styles are prioritized. I’ve tried others that work well, but they also suffer on things that word does well that we take for granted.
The way it should be handled is to just let me rotate a single fucking page. It’s 2025 and there is zero excuse for that bullshit.
Like I said, I agree it sucks. I’ve had the exact same thought many times.
This why LibreOffice called out Microsoft for using “complex” file formats to lock in Office users
You using complex file formats for vendor lock in
Me using complex file formats because my code base is shite.
We are not the same
Use LibreOffice
I used LibreOffice Writer for my coursework the past semester, and when I used my spouse’s Windows computer to double check the images were correctly placed before submitting a paper they were on completely different pages. This was when I saved it as a .docx, because the only two options accepted were .docx or pdf. I wound up doing everything as a pdf if I needed images, but I think LibreOffice doesn’t have a save as pdf option? Or if it did I missed it, I just used Google Docs to save it as a pdf.
IIRC you have to use the “Export as” option instead of the “Save as” for a .pdf file.
Good to know, at the time my brain was absolutely fried so it doesn’t surprise me that I missed it, lol
PDF is one of those weird “not for editing” formats, like STL. Hence why it’s often in an Export As dialog rather than a Save As.
It used to be even hackier. You’d have to get some separate PDF authoring software which would present to applications like a printer driver, so to create a PDF version of your document you’d start with the Print command, not Save or Export, then instead of your printer you’d select your PDF authoring software, then when you clicked Print it would create a file on your hard drive instead of hosing data down a parallel or USB cable to one of Satan’s Own Favorite Contraptions.
LibreOffice has a native export to PDF. And, if you use (almost) any Linux, you have a PDF printer included.
Print to PDF is the way!
Even better, you can create a “Hybrid PDF” which embeds a second copy of the file in ODT format inside the PDF. This makes it re-editable.
Word supports ODT but it doesn’t support reading these ODT files embedded in PDFs though.
Hello! Thanks for the tip!
I am on Linux but haven’t needed to use office software in nearly 20 years, how do you access the pdf printer? Is that different from saving as a pdf through the menu?
Edit: thanks for the help everyone!
You literally ‘print’ to pdf. Instead of a physical page appearing from the demon box, it will give you a prompt of where to ‘print’ your file. Windows has it too, though I always use the pdf export and not the print. But in a pinch it’s good.
export is typically better as it preserve selectable text, if you print as pdf it will be as flat as a real paper (modern readers will still let you select text but you will be prone to any errors the text recognition can make)
You hit print and select the PDF output. It probably works everywhere you can select a printer.
Windows also has that, but you have to navigate your way out of OneDrive folders.
The PDF printer would be accessed via the Print functionality. It’s a virtual device that renders output to a file instead of a physical printer.
You can export to pdf and the hiccup you encountered is M$ intentionally not following their own format.
There’s a button in the toolbar to export to pdf
Only Office > Libre Office
LibreOffice is as good as Word. Which sadly means there are still no really good document editors out there.
Yeah but it’s free.
Also there may be no good document editors but there is a good typesetting language.
I’ve been enjoying OnlyOffice myself! (LibreOffice is fine, I just like the UI of OnlyOffice more.)
word documents are compatible with open office and I’ve been able to switch to open office at home with no impact on my ability to save them as .doc files and use them at work or school.
If you don’t use \LaTeX, that’s on you.
I felt so happy to remember this >20 year old image when I saw the title of this post. I remember finding it very funny back then. Anyway, what’s the appraisal? Daddy needs a new pair of shoes.
would you send that to my mom please?
People aren’t paying for Word, they’re paying for Excel and getting all the other goodies included.
Yeah, LibreOffice is fine for home use, maybe even really small businesses that don’t have to trade spread sheets with external customers, but Excel is the killer app.
Calc’s a fine spread sheet program, but it’s frustrating as hell after using Excel for 30+ years. You can’t trust that it will properly import an Excel sheet and it sure won’t do macros.
100% for real. I simply can’t do freelancing Excel work with LibreOffice because I know the 1:1 compatibility falls apart quickly. Basic formulas are about as far as I can trust it.
The main problem with LibreOffice as a whole is the vast install base of MS Office. If you can work from the beginning in LibreOffice and store things as ODTs and ODSs, you’ll have a fine time. The second you need to work with someone who uses MS Office or deal with legacy documents made in Office, it beats your chin on the floor.
LibreOffice Writer has eaten comments on documents several times for me. Word handles comments much better.
Is there a decent FOSS alternative to excel? Libre has been my goto for years because I never needed anything more, but just in the last week I have a new client with some more rigorous needs, and I REALLY dont want to bite the buellt on 365
Not that I know. Grist and Proton Sheets are worth checking out.
Depending on your exact needs a more specialized tool like SmartSheets or AirTable (browser based, subscription) can be good. WPS office is a little better than Calc in some ways, but no full replacement for Excel.
I will just leave this here in case you need to go the MS route.
I went over the powershell script out of boredom,
Found thistry { [void][System.AppDomain]::CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies(); [void][System.Math]::Sqrt(144) }Anyone knows why they are trying to do 2 tasks that actually do nothing?
A line immediately after that: “Windows Powershell failed to load .NET command. Aborting…”
So presumably some of those commands will fail if .NET is missing.
Beautiful. Thank you.
That’s fair. Imagine if people invested that much time into calc. A person can dream…
The problem is everyone expects Calc to be Excel, including full compatibility with reading and writing of Excel’s file formats. As Excel is a constantly moving target, following that path means you’ll forever be a second-rate Excel that’ll never quite be fully compatible.
I find Calc to be a fine spreadsheet program myself, though I’m hardly a power user. If you want to use Excel, then just go use Excel.
This is a valid point for sure. If I didn’t receive ms office for free I’d use LibreOffice. I do use it on a personal level though.
I straight up used draw.io to create a paper form. I needed high information density so I can’t waste space formatting stuff the normal way, I need something more graphical and publisher got axed.
Exactly. Excel is the workhorse. The combo between Exchange and Outlook is the other major major strength of MS Office.
The real miracle isn’t Word’s features, it’s how it’s still the default after decades of collective pain.
Same reason Windows is still the default on desktop: EEE and vendor-lock.
That’s how I feel about most Microsoft products actually.
I feel like Microsoft products steadily get worse over time. It’s like they spend money to have their programmers seen how bad a product gets before people will get fed up and dump it.
Microsoft products can be quite good, but you’re right that they are severely hampered by boneheaded decisions.
Microsoft Office is still very good overall. Definitely one of Microsoft’s better products. The ribbon UI was revolutionary and is still great.
The Mac version of Microsoft Office is also a good example of how good and bad versions alternate. Office for Mac 98 was terrible. Office for Mac 2004 was great and and in many ways better than the windows version. 2008 dropped support for Visual Basic. 2011 reintroduced it. Microsoft’s email client for the Mac changed between Outlook, Entourage, then Outlook again with various changes and supporting different features.
My favorite versions of Microsoft operating systems are: DOS 5, Windows 3.1, NT 4, 98, XP, 7, 10, Phone 8.
I’m still mad Microsoft canceled their fantastic flight simulator.
That was my first thought too. Somehow they seem to be able to make the shittiest possible version of everything they attempt, and yet it almost always becomes the standard that everyone uses.
Used Microsoft Works in the early 2000’s. Only discontinued in 2009 apparently.
At one point, Microsoft was maintaining three different word processors.
- Word, the top of the line component of the flagship Office product
- Works, their “for home and small business” product that was honestly good enough for basically everyone, to the point you have to ask why anyone would buy Office, which is almost certainly why Works got canned, and
- Wordpad, because a GUI OS is basically useless without a rich text editor.
Where does Microsoft Write enter the equation?
Let me Wikipedia that for you…It was rolled into Wordpad circa Windows 95, and that write.exe is present in newer versions of Windows but it’s basically just a link to Wordpad.
According to Wikipedia, MS Write uses .wri files, which can be opened by LibreOffice 5.1 and later but not by any Microsoft software from Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later.
I was just being silly.
Well tough shit, I learned something anyway.
We all did!
If my memory serves, Write supported full text justification, but Wordpad only supported left, center and right justification. So any easy win for Write imo.
