LibreOffice hits back at critics, says its UI is better than Microsoft Office's

Vibeguy900

It's just as good

ocdtrekkie

The irony is I remember the ribbon interface was universally hated on launch. It buried a ton of previously single click options behind tabs and dropdown menus.

ggm

Having discussed this with people who use MS Office, I can say the key point is this: Libreoffices UI is DIFFERENT to Microsoft Office. Thats the real impediment. I have applied "make it more like that" changes including font uploads. It's good. But it doesn't get over the user "principle of least astonishment" which is what drives the resistance. There is a similar problem with the UI differences on OSX. otherwise rational people find the experience of moving to Office on OSX too hard. (happy MS Office user on OSX, tolerably happy Libreoffice user on OSX and other platforms)

linguae

I prefer the classic Microsoft Office toolbar/menu interface to the ribbon, but I grew up on Office 97. A thought that dawned on me is that the ribbon has existed for nearly 20 years; it debuted in Microsoft Office 2007. There is now an entire generation of computer users who have never used pre-ribbon versions of Microsoft Office. I don't know what it's like using modern Microsoft Office with no experience using toolbars and menus and then switching to LibreOffice, which still uses traditional toolbars and menus. I prefer traditional toolbars and menus, but I remember Microsoft doing user studies when developing the original Office 2007 ribbon. It showed that the ribbon was more productive for beginners and casual users. Given that many office suite users are casual users who use word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation tools, Microsoft Office may be more productive for them than LibreOffice. It would be good if LibreOffice did user studies.

crossroadsguy

I tried OnlyOffice once (because I was trying MS Office alts) and I really liked it. That's what I've been using it for the last 3-4 years. Although I don't use these tools a lot.

altitudinous

Arrogant. End users decide by deciding what they want to use. Thats all there is to it.