But I recommend you editors/openoffice-4
Yes, you right. My mistake!OpenOffice is pretty much dead since
I find that libreoffice is largely change for change's sake. There really isn't much to innovate in the office suite space that will drastically improve the work flow from even 20 years ago.Yes, I remember that many years ago I launched MS Office 2003 (I think) via emulators/wine.
And it worked fine.
But I recommend you editors/openoffice-4
Update:
But I recommend you editors/libreoffice
I think some basic features are available via Office365 if you try to use www/firefox to access your Microsoft account... Last time I tried this browser-based stuff, it left me frustrated with how basic and locked-down that experience was. And, to top it off, you do have to be careful to sign out from the Microsoft account when you're done. If you don't properly sign out, MS will actually track you and your computer, even in FreeBSD's www/firefox. Fortunately, MS does allow an easy way to just delete tracked devices from your account...Did you know that Office is available for free through outlook.com?
Is WPS still the most compatible with the MS suite?
I find OpenOffice so much faster these days than LibreOffice. I already maintain private copies of Gimp 2.4, Blender 2.49b and will almost certainly be picking up OpenOffice if it is dropped from ports.
I only use a fraction of features of OpenOffice so don't really care what new gimmicks LibreOffice might have introduced. Its overkill and slow. Did I mention its slow?![]()
Indeed. I actually maintain a personal port of Blender 2.49 because it was pretty much feature complete and the newer stuff is just unportable crap I was never going to use anyway. Over time I have fixed up a number of poorly engineered sections (the picking and backbuffer was terrible!) and added polish. In some ways it is sad that a lot of great software doesn't get this.I wonder if Gimp 2.4 could be forked as a simpler/lighter Gimp? I'm pretty fond of Abiword. Gnumeric is a really nice piece of software, too.
I used to run Firefox (I think version 3) with well under a gig of memory. Maybe 384MB? I had 150 tabs open, and it was responsive.
Total opposite to today. Heavier websites might also play a part.
A little bit OT, but DOS WordStar is now available too: https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/06/wordstar_7_the_last_ever/Office 4.3 running in DosBox was still more featureful and (ironically) lighter.
I've viewed a number of LibreOffice changes as downgrades; they literally broke things to try to be more like Microsoft Office and some changes are pushed through as non-optional because someone liked a cosmetic difference with worse function. There have been improvements too, particularly with compatibility to Micorsoft Office compared to what OpenOffice has. I normally keep both Open&Libre due to their differences has Libre causing bugs with certain complicated documents; I could make ugly+flaky+unreliable hacks to the document formatting but I opted to just use a working editor instead.I find that libreoffice is largely change for change's sake. There really isn't much to innovate in the office suite space that will drastically improve the work flow from even 20 years ago.
That being said, having used OOO, Libreoffice, and MS Office, when your job lives and dies with complex spreadsheets or text documents, MS Word and Excel are significantly superior products. A good documented process to run even a decently recent version (not necessarily the latest) on FreeBSD would be a tremendous boon.
Speak for yourself. When I was writing papers for my Masters course, all the proper formatting required could be done in open/libre office, Abiword, etc. However the manual formatting required on each page would take so much time and effort, when with MS Office It was just a few clicks to set up and apply to the whole document. To write up my papers without MS Word would have taken so much more effort I would never have gotten them done on time.I concur with USerID: Why would anyone in their right mind (≈ FreeBSD users) want to use M$ Office? What’s next? “How do I get Microsoft Internet Explorer to run on FreeBSD?”
With some effort, FreeBSD can do it all, like via GPIO. But putting it all together takes time, effort, and brains. Nobody's gonna do it for free, innit?You described a "comfort zone". FreeBSD is more of a "common sense". In the modern world, the percentage of FreeBSD use at home is very low. People need a unified approach: a COMBINE in the corner of your room that works with graphics, text, audio, video, makes coffee, monitors your children and dog in the garden through a camera, etc. But THIS is not enough. Progressive humanity needs the temperature and pressure to be delivered from your beloved dog's doghouse to the owner's smartphone... You can water the lawn through an iPhone, or better yet, hook up your house to a cloud smart program. There, in the cloud, for a monthly subscription fee, they will make you a "report on utilities" - a person needs to make 2-3 clicks, and everything will be resolved. This is where you are going. I resist. And I do not want the ideas of Jobs, Ballmer, Gates.
The good news is that you only need to write it once with FreeBSD. I have written an i2c and spi driver for it recently (contracting for a small startup to prototype an AirTag clone suitable for tracking down people in hospitals) and I am quite happy knowing that it will keep working for my lifespan. With Linux you have this random mess of pigpio, gpiozero and other vendor specific solutions (and prosumer Python crap).With some effort, FreeBSD can do it all, like via GPIO. But putting it all together takes time, effort, and brains. Nobody's gonna do it for free, innit?![]()
They *should* be submitting work as .pdfthey want the exact formatting of Microsoft Word for such as school papers.