Creating Documents With Linux
As I mentioned in my last Linux post, I’ve been using Linux since late 1999. Obviously, a lot has changed since then. To this day I still come across FOSS that I love adding to my Linux powered machines. I use Linux Mint as my daily driver but test many distros inside virtual machines. One of the more recent software I’ve decided to test, and what I’m using to type this post, is ONLYOFFICE. Usually I use LibreOffice, and before that, OpenOffice. Although ONLYOFFICE is company driven instead of community driven, it is still a very nice office suite. I much prefer the cleaner interface. I’m still testing it so I can’t say for sure right now if it will replace LibreOffice for me or not but I can say that I’m really liking it so far. I don’t really have a pressing need for Microsoft formatting by default but I also don’t have a problem with it either because most of the people I need to send documents to use Microsoft. I know that LibreOffice is capable of saving documents in Microsoft’s formats but it doesn’t seem to be as capable of that as ONLYOFFICE.
Another thing I like about ONLYOFFICE is that it seems more uniform across distros than LibreOffice. I’ve included screenshots of the wild variations of LibreOffice’s interface across some distros. I am aware you can customize it to fit your own needs but I don’t want to have to do that and I don’t want to have to search for things. I much prefer something that is pretty universal, looking the same no matter what distro you use. Since I test different distros in virtual machines, and also have two distros that I use regularly in a virtual machine, I want things to be as “normal” as possible. I know not everyone uses virtual machines so they have no need of “same-ness” in applications across distros. But for my daily needs, I don’t need or want to waste time searching for something that, in my opinion, should just “be there”.
Below you will see screenshots I took of LibreOffice across Linux Mint (my daily driver), MX Linux, and Parrot OS. I know Parrot OS is a tool, and not really a daily driver (except for their “home” edition) but since it’s a regular in my virtual machines and I use it as a tool, I used a screenshot of LibreOffice running in it as an example comparison. If ONLYOFFICE ever becomes not FOSS I won’t use it anymore. But for now It’s really nice. Have you ever tried ONLYOFFICE? If so, I’d love to hear from you and get your opinion on it.
Thanks for reading!
