I wrote an Entire Book with Free and Open-Source Software

LibreOffice, an office suite from the Document Foundation contains all the features you'd expect in an office suite, including (but not limited to) the ability to create text, spreadsheet, and presentation documents. So why aren't more people using it? In this video, Jay discusses some of the unreasonable stigma LibreOffice suffers from. Is LibreOffice inferior to Microsoft Office? Well, Jay wrote an entire book with LibreOffice - and naturally, has some thoughts!

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*⏰ TIME CODES*
00:00 - Pre-intro
01:15 - Intro
01:41 - Get your very own cloud Linux server with Linode (sponsor)
03:23 - Not all open-source applications are created equally
05:22 - LibreOffice - A great alternative to proprietary software
06:20 - If LibreOffice is so great, why is there still stigma?
07:32 - How Linux distributions actually create stigma around LibreOffice
10:51 - What's my preferred source to obtain the latest LibreOffice?
12:17 - Some people just hate change, and dislike things by default*🎓 FULL LINUX COURSES FROM LEARN LINUX TV*

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#LibreOffice #opensource #linuxdesktop

[GCTWorks]

When my in-laws and grandfather got new laptops, I installed LibreOffice for them. Put shortcuts on their desktop like they were used to seeing, Renamed them to Word, Excel, etc, and changed the icons to the MS ones. It launches the corresponding Libreoffice application of course. Only my grandfather noticed that something was different. However, he just said, "I like the new version of Microsoft Word. It is much more straight forward."

[chozendroid]

It's unfortunate that Libreoffice has to be compared to Microsoft Office all the time, because it's simply excellent when judged solely on it's own merits. That being said, this video is spot on. I actually used WPS office for a long time due to compatibility with MS Word and Excel for a while, until earlier this year when I realized that newer versions of Libreoffice actually have better compatibility than WPS for everything I use daily with the rare exception of some niche borders and WordArt. All in all, Libreoffice deserves much more love and keeps getting better with every update.

[averagemamil]

Very good points Jay. I use a Linux laptop and LibreOffice in a corporate Microsoft 365 Environment and nobody has cottoned on yet 😉 Personally, I would love to see a video about how you used the FOSS tools to put together your book - from planning to drafting to any images/ covers etc. However I suspect it may be a bit niche! 😊 Great vid as always 👏

[chaslinux]

It's funny you mentioned office workers. Our parent org bought MS Office for all the office staff. Some of our office staff are starting to warm up to LibreOffice (which we also install) because they've run into scenarios where Microsoft Office has failed them. In one case a document was sent to a worker in Apple's .pages format. The version of MS Office we have installed on most machines will not read .pages documents, but LibreOffice Writer will. Another time a worker was trying to copy and paste some directions from a web site into Microsoft Word, and MS Word was just creating a big mess. They were pleasantly surprised to find out that copying and pasting the same page into LibreOffice Writer resulted in a much cleaner page that they had to do a lot less work to clean up. A similar situation happened with a web site where the fields just didn't look good pasted into Microsoft Excel, but looked great in LibreOffice Calc. I have seen the inverse as well, (web sites formatting better in MS Office), but not very often. Normally, I find LibreOffice seems to work better for cutting and pasting things from the web. I also used LibreOffice, back in 2013, when I wrote a book for Packt, and no issues back then either.

[julian.morgan]

I've been using Libre Office for many years and I really hoped this video would help me make the case to other people - especially given that it runs perfectly well on Mac and Windows too, so you don't have to switch to Linux to switch to Libre Office, which can be too big a leap for some people.

What they need is a stepping stone and Libre Office is perfect for the job. Using Libre Office on Mac or Windows can give people confidence and gradually enables them to let go of a lot of assumptions and their reliance on proprietary software. This is the myth that needs to be busted in my opinion.

Helping people start to use FOSS applications that are also cross platform, such as Firefox, Thunderbird and GIMP means they quickly realise there's precious little day to day stuff they can't get done on Linux . . . the bridges and stepping stones are all there, we just have to help people find them!

[davidbenson]

So I realize it's not at all the same, but I write for a living, and I mostly rely on Markdown and Pandoc. That way I can write in my preferred text editor (Vim, of course). Markdown and Vim allow me to automate a lot of my writing, and write what I would never be able to write without it.

That said, if I need to create .docx documents, LibreOffice is my absolute go-to on my Linux computer. I also recommend it to anyone who needs a WYSIWYG word processor. My parents have used LibreOffice for years, all without paying Microsoft's exorbitant license fees. IMHO, the only reason someone should use MS Office is if their company requires (and pays for) it. In fact, mine does, and I still only use it when I absolutely have to.

[RichardEricCollins]

I spent the last ten years doing a degree in computing and IT and a masters in software engineering. I used Libre Office for all my assignments. Never had an issue.

[mlongval]

I appreciate the point that you are making. I often find that LibreOffice project does not get the respect it deserves. We take it too much for granted. It is a remarkable office suite and I think deserves more recognition. Thanks for making this video.

[egmviola]

Just a note... I use the current version of Linux Mint and Ubuntu Studio along with both Windows 10 and 11. LibreOffice automatically updates on the two Linux systems and it's a bit more manual in Windows. You're absolutely correct on the compatibility improvement. I was frustrated about a decade ago and didn't pick it up again until last year. What a difference! No issues thus far and, more importantly, I haven't had any of those frustrating corruptions! That is why I dropped it years ago. I still prefer Excel but I think it's the customization goodies that I use and don't care to learn the nuances of LibreOffice Calc. When my Office 2019 licence is no longer useful, I will not be purchasing another MS Office licence and run LibreOffice only (unless something new and better comes along}. I enjoy your videos. Thank you for producing them.

[yiannisspanos]

I am an economist (Msc student) and work as a research assistant part time. All of my colleagues use Windows and excel. There are things that only excel can do, but I don't care about those. I am supposed to be the tech expert in the group, but when people send me huge excel files and expect me to be able to open them, it is frustrating that Libreoffice can't handle the whole file. Other office suits on linux just crash and Libreoffice cuts of many of the columns of the dataset. I may want to do things in Libreoffice and might be able to do them, I can't convince everyone to use it, nor can I change all of the existing literature's replication material written with excel in mind. (even importing and exporting xlsx files from matlab requires some of the excel libraries)

[nielsroetert]

I do like Libre Office a lot, but if only it had a better Icon Set to use in dark mode, the standard ones aren't very legible. Maybe you can also create a video, on how you use Writer, showing some of the cool things you do while writing the book.

[XGP]

I'm using Linux Mint LMDE, and the first thing I did after watching this was to get the Flatpak version of LibreOffice. Thank you!

[TriLiCiT]

Been a sub to you since you only had roughly 8k subs. Glad to see your channel and works grow.

[vtheofilis]

I wrote my thesis with Libre Office. I used Writer for the text document, I did my calculations using Calc, and did the presentation with Impress. I also did some light "DTP" with Writer ( imported pictures, diagrams, calculation tables etc on the document ). It did the job just fine, and I continue to use it professionally in my work laptop.

[jamesbaxter]

So. If you see a program in xcel, will it work in Libre office Calc. Thanks

[barrycooke]

I love Libre Office, And I agree with everything you said. I even run it on my Mac, Pop, Mint

[AquariusTurtle]

I ***LOVE*** LibreOffice. It's to the point where I've transitioned 2 small businesses into it (freelancers). Technically, is it inferior to MS Office... well yes, but only at the 70% tile+ of high end capabilities (e.g. MS Office's vector drawing in Powerpoint is far superior to LO Impress). BUT, I was able to adapt my operations to work within its constraints and now I have complete privacy and true cross platform portability, at no cost. LibreOffice + Ubuntu/Mint/PopOS is a true replacement for Windows / MacOS for most people. Even though I can get M$ Office for $10, I'll not go back. Now if there were only open source software to let me create SCORM modules with LibreOffice

[Admiralfeb]

What's the item plugged into the USB-C port on the dev-one? some sort of magnetic cable port?

[castigo]

I appreciate your points, which are all quite sensible. There is an element that is holding back a nice slice of potential users in academia, and that's the integration with reference managers such as Endnote or others. If libreoffice made integration with cite-while-you-write databases or made an open source reference manager system on their on, I think a lot of the windows based academia would flock to linux. I know I would for my work laptop.

[rafaelpalmalima]

Thank you for this video. I use LibreOffice all the time for years and it's an awesome piece of software. It's so cool to see that other people have a great experience with LibreOffice as I do =)