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[B00nie]

The Open Office XML is an open and free to use standard for anyone, that's not the problem these days. You still have to implement features in software. As I've mentioned before, LibreOffice is totally unaware of ink in Office documents. But the data for the ink is clearly available in the XML, LibreOffice simply doesn't do anything with it, it has nothing to do with proprietary files and formats.

And you might say "So what, nobody uses ink." Until somebody does. Capturing signatures digitally isn't uncommon these days. There have been a number of occasions that I've received a Word document over the years that needed to be signed and I just signed it on my tablet and emailed it back. Had they been using LibreWrite, the time wasted on dealing with something just this simple would pay for Office for the month easily.

Lol! Again, if you need to sign an office document - you're doing it wrong. That shows that you're working in an extremely undeveloped way, substituting paper with an office file and probably storing the files to some shared location just like they did in filing cabinets of old. Any developed organizations should have a proper app to do the job instead.

I also can't find any reason why I would need some customers 'ink' signature on a file as I handle the data inside the file. I simply have no use for such a thing. The only part of the whole project when you even need office files is the definition stage before a proper integration is built that takes care of data synchronization.

 

[heatlesssun]

Lol! Again, if you need to sign an office document - you're doing it wrong. That shows that you're working in an extremely undeveloped way, substituting paper with an office file and probably storing the files to some shared location just like they did in filing cabinets of old. Any developed organizations should have a proper app to do the job instead.

I also can't find any reason why I would need some customers 'ink' signature on a file as I handle the data inside the file. I simply have no use for such a thing. The only part of the whole project when you even need office files is the definition stage before a proper integration is built that takes care of data synchronization.

You can't always use the answer "you're doing it wrong" because you have no need. Your needs can't possibly cover but a small fraction of the needs of all users of Microsoft Office. Have you ever heard of content and document management systems? And there's nothing necessarily wrong with storing files on a file system if that's all that's needed. You get redundancy and search capability that can't be achieved easily with paper by simply having the content digital. Sometimes the simplest solution is best.

 

[Unknown-One]

No, a paid office suit is not required to handle the files. And if it is, it's because of Microsoft isusing unfair business practices with proprietary file formats.

That's what I've been saying this whole time. The freely-provided web-apps can open Office documents just fine.

No need to pay for (or install) any kind of Office suite.

As you can see that in order to be even able to use these web apps, users need to be logged in, know exactly to which folder to store their files (and be limited to only that location) and also use a Microsoft OS newer than Windows 7.

This isn't all that different from a local app, which also requires the user to be logged-on and that they remember where they stored their files.

If the user were to stick strictly to local office apps and local file storage, they would also be required to know how to transfer files over the network (or bucket them around on removable media) to move between computers. This isn't a problem with the web apps. Much less for the user to worry about.

And I already explained how users of older versions of Windows can have access to local OneDrive file syncing. If you're using a version of Windows that's 6 years old, it's going to be missing a few things

A casual user will not even realize what the function of onedrive is, they just expect to be able to double click on a file on their desktop _like they always used to do for years before this_.

Files created by the Office web-apps are automatically stored in the correct location. Nothing for the user to worry about or manage.

To me that makes the web apps a curiosity for the random geek.

To me they seem like a very handy tool for the casual user. Pretty much everything about using them is simple and easy, the user NEVER has to worry about updates, Office exploits become a non-issue, file-syncing across devices in inherent, and it's FREE!

Seriously, what's not to like here? What benefit does OpenOffice have for the casual user over just using the Office web-apps?

Besides, most users that I know will respectfully decline logging in with a Microsoft account for obvious privacy and security reasons - and avoid using Microsoft cloud services for obvious privacy and security reasons.

Obvious? You still have yet to actually provide any information, let-alone credible information. You keep saying "zomg insecure!" without actually posting proof...

It's a horrible idea to publish your files online just waiting to be mass hacked in some server breach. It only competes with the general idea of using windows in the first place for your main OS lol.

The files are not published unless you intentionally make them public. Otherwise, only the account owner has access to them.

If the servers were to experience downtime for any reason, files are synced to your local machine(s), so you're never locked out.

Ok I just noticed the onedrive link in the network and decided to try to test it (on Win10). To be honest I never before even noticed Onedrive there. It's glaringly missing from every place where a user might want to put his files for easy access for a casual use (desktop, anyone?)

Glaringly missing? It's in the left-hand pane in every single File Explorer window you open. How is that "missing"?

I downloaded a small sample excel to the virtual drive and saved it to the onedrive documents.
I then opened the online excel which required another login (how convenient). I attempted to open the very small sample excel and was greeted with a 'document needs conversion so you can open it' that lasted several seconds. Then the file finally opens for viewing.

Sounds like you tried to open an old XLS file. Both the desktop version and the web version of Excel will want you to convert that to the newer XLSX format for editing.

The new XML-based formats have been the standard for Office documents since 2007. This would not be an issue for a new document at all, but at least they were nice enough to offer automatic conversion for older files.

I attempt to multiply the Excel contents to test the sync transparency. Ooops can't drag and select with the mouse because the online Excel does not have edge detection based scroll lol. How convenient. Ok, select the area using the alternative way worked. Attempt to copypaste some 100 rows to the Excel resulted in the sheet going gray. The whole sheet was and still is unresponsive as I type this.

Ok now after a considerable period of waiting an error message pops up stating that the browser does not support the use of clipboard, use short keys instead (which I originally did).

Yep, works like a charm for a casual user I have to agree.

What browser was this in (I'm assuming you were using some 3rd party browser rather than Internet Explorer)? I've NEVER seen that clipboard error before, either.

Also never had any of the described issues with the Excel web-app. Can you post more-detailed steps on how to reproduce the problem? I honestly can't make ANY of the above issues happen on my end.

This and extremely laggy function even with a small file convinced me that I should immediately abandon the snappy and easy to use libreoffice and start lagging with the online excel instead. I was definitely wrong on my prior assessment </sarcasm>.

You have some other issue going on. The web-apps are fast and snappy on my machine.

The strange issues you've manufactured on your machine have done nothing to dissuade me from recommending the web-apps for casual users.

 

[SuperSubZero]

And there's plenty of times where cloud accounts DID get hacked and no one ever knew and it was never reported. I reckon that's the bulk of the occurrences.

So if you want to roll the dice, nevermind on sensitive corporate data, then by all means. Enjoy.

You make it sound like prior to "the Cloud" that servers absolutely never EVER got hacked.

 

[B00nie]

.. rant removed.

As I showed you the web apps are extremely clumsy to use, actually clumsy enough that a casual non-savvy computer user will never manage to open a single document with them. They would need to understand that they need to log in and store files to a specific location just to view and open them.

Most will try to click the file directly on the computer and if it fails, they install or ask their kid to install software to open it. A casual user wants to be able to open the document where _ever_ on the computer it resides by clicking it. HDD, SSD, CD-DVD, USB, SD, network share... Nobody wants to start moving files to OD, wait for them to upload and then use a web browser to edit the files. That's just ass backwards function there.

Web office was a great idea up to the second it was limited to documents on onedrive.

So you actually think there are no privacy issues uploading your sensitive files to some corporates server? Just about 10 000 workers can get access to your files after that and a gazillion hackers potentially gain access to them. Cloud accounts have showed their dangerousness through the celeb nude leaks and those were just the ones that went public. How many insider trade crimes have been achieved by accessing someones corporate files on a cloud account without them knowing? Nobody knows because nobody can find out lol.

Nobody I know wants to create a Microsoft account to brand your off and online activities. In fact most I know would do anything possible to prevent it. Most people pirate stuff so the last thing they want to do is to be identifiable online. The last thing.

The only reason I used a Microsoft account even for the virtual Win10 was because I had a fake credential hotmail spam account that I use whenever some site or game wants to use email for registration. Would I store personal files on that account? I laught just at the thought.

 

[rudy]

For over a decade the mass of computing has been moving to eliminate paper because it is inefficient, it sucks, it is expensive and it destroys the environment. But not Boonie, if you aren't using paper you aren't doing it right.

Boonie apparently also has no clue that most documents he signs in person will simply be scanned into a computer at the destination.

 

[B00nie]

For over a decade the mass of computing has been moving to eliminate paper because it is inefficient, it sucks, it is expensive and it destroys the environment. But not Boonie, if you aren't using paper you aren't doing it right.

Boonie apparently also has no clue that most documents he signs in person will simply be scanned into a computer at the destination.

Learn to read. I said you're supposed to use computers more sophistically than replacing paper with a word file. A proper workflow/ERP system will remove the need for any kind of office documents.

But keep on living in 80s for all I care

 

[heatlesssun]

Learn to read. I said you're supposed to use computers more sophistically than replacing paper with a word file. A proper workflow/ERP system will remove the need for any kind of office documents.

But keep on living in 80s for all I care

Forms with signatures are common and there's no reason why such documents can't be used as artifacts in a workflow system.

 

[B00nie]

Forms with signatures are common and there's no reason why such documents can't be used as artifacts in a workflow system.

Why would you bother when you can just authorize it directly through the system, authenticated.

The use of office documents and having to sign them for storing is just antiquated. I've seen large corporations dig themselves into a huge ditch by letting people create their own solutions based on office. It ain't pretty let me tell you!

 

[heatlesssun]

Why would you bother when you can just authorize it directly through the system, authenticated.

The use of office documents and having to sign them for storing is just antiquated. I've seen large corporations dig themselves into a huge ditch by letting people create their own solutions based on office. It ain't pretty let me tell you!

You're just rationalizing the lack of a feature in LibreOffice. "You don't need that." or "You're doing it wrong." simply can't be the answer every single time.

 

[B00nie]

You're just rationalizing the lack of a feature in LibreOffice. "You don't need that." or "You're doing it wrong." simply can't be the answer every single time.

Nope, a casual user never needs to sign a document. That's only for corporate use and even then, horribly inefficient way to work.

 

[rudy]

Why would you bother when you can just authorize it directly through the system, authenticated.

The use of office documents and having to sign them for storing is just antiquated. I've seen large corporations dig themselves into a huge ditch by letting people create their own solutions based on office. It ain't pretty let me tell you!

Lots of companies and conditions do not offer or have the time to build such a back end. What is so hard for you to understand about how MS office saves people time. Keep trying to troll and justify till you are blue in the face at the end of the day the reality will still be MS office complete and total domination. Why? Because a bunch of libre office devs think just as irrationally as you which means they always have excuses for why people are doing it wrong and that's why they aren't using the software which means they will not address the issues and people will keep not using the software.

BTW the vast majority of people have not really figured out they can use office web free. Once they do I suspect libre office will be even less relevant. The only scenario where anyone uses libre office is in the off chance that google brings a Linux based OS to the masses and is successful and at the very same time Google really drops the ball on google docs.

 

[B00nie]

Lots of companies and conditions do not offer or have the time to build such a back end. What is so hard for you to understand about how MS office saves people time.

Let me rephrase that for you: It gives you the illusion of time save if you're short sighted enough to start building homebrew monstrosities on Office instead of getting a professional system for the job.

The few minutes saved will add up to days, weeks and months of lost work time due to inefficiency of operation, searching the documents, handling them, possibly having multiple copies and versions of same documents spread all over etc. typical madness.

And the worst thing is that you can't handle a project without manually updating some excel/word for something that you signed manually on another excel/word that you made manually, stored it manually, found it manually later and possibly corrupted the file integrity by saving it locally lol.

Trust me, using Office for work orders, project management etc. in a corporation larger than 5 people is short sightedness and little short of stupidity.

 

[MrCrispy]

B00nie, you are not making sense or you are deliberately arguing - is it really so hard to understand that there's a need to sign electronic documents the same way you do physical ones?

You don't need a workflow system, ok? Many businesses just need to sign a few documents as needed. There is a huge business in online document processors and signatories exactly for this need.

Trust me, using Office for work orders, project management etc. in a corporation larger than 5 people is short sightedness and little short of stupidity.

And this quite possibly the most short sighted statement you've made. Why limit to work orders? Do you realize MS Project is designed for project management and is very popular? You do realize there are many huge companies that use Office docs exactly like this, right?

Office is a standard in both corporate and personal world. Nothing you or I can say or do will ever change this. Just accept it. Whenever 2 people or 2 companies want to exchange information, it will be in an Office format. There's a reason the first thing any software or website that deals with documents has to implement is Office compatibility.

BTW the vast majority of people have not really figured out they can use office web free. Once they do I suspect libre office will be even less relevant. The only scenario where anyone uses libre office is in the off chance that google brings a Linux based OS to the masses and is successful and at the very same time Google really drops the ball on google docs.

It's not very well known, and also due to the extreme MS hate online fueled by various blogs/websites.

btw Google docs is a joke, its only good for quick and dirty notes. There is absolutely zero reason to use GDocs over OfficeWeb, unless you are just a MS hater.

 

[munkle]

I'll give my experience. I will gladly pay for office so I don't have to use libreoffice. My needs aren't huge I just have to make a lot of graphs and charts for school and lirbreoffice was a total pain in the butt. I would select the data I want to use for x axis and then I would try to select the y axis and it would then reselect different data for the x axis, it was basically impossible to select both data sets because it would always reselect one axis if I set the other. Or I had issues with it just plain not graphing anything or deselecting all data.

This was about 2 years go so maybe libreoffice has gotten better but it's not worth the hassle of spending 4 or 5 times as long to make a chart as it takes in excel. For the $100 or what ever I paid for the 2010 student version straight from MS it was well worth it to save me from the terrible experience I had with libreoffice. Again things may have improved but not worth it to me to try libreoffice again.

That and I like the ribbon ui, I think its nice.

 

[heatlesssun]

You don't need a workflow system, ok? Many businesses just need to sign a few documents as needed. There is a huge business in online document processors and signatories exactly for this need.

Document artifacts are indeed a large part of many workflow systems. Text, images, audio, video, they are all artifacts used in workflow systems. I've worked on developing a few.

 

[B00nie]

You don't need a workflow system, ok?

Famous last words.

And this quite possibly the most short sighted statement you've made. Why limit to work orders? Do you realize MS Project is designed for project management and is very popular? You do realize there are many huge companies that use Office docs exactly like this, right?

You just showed that you don't even know what a proper workflow management is. MS Project is totally gimped in functionality compared to a true management suite. It's again just an electrical replacement for a paper project chart.

Office is a standard in both corporate and personal world. Nothing you or I can say or do will ever change this. Just accept it. Whenever 2 people or 2 companies want to exchange information, it will be in an Office format. There's a reason the first thing any software or website that deals with documents has to implement is Office compatibility.

There's absolutely no reason that same exchange couldn't be made in the number of other document formats available today for free. People like you are the reason why MS can keep charging money for something that's available scott free. Kinda sad.

It's not very well known, and also due to the extreme MS hate online fueled by various blogs/websites.

btw Google docs is a joke, its only good for quick and dirty notes. There is absolutely zero reason to use GDocs over OfficeWeb, unless you are just a MS hater.

I just gave you multiple reasons why officeweb is an idea born dead. An average user has no concept of cloud storage and would be totally angered by the requirement of saving documents to a certain location and then be forced to use the internet browser to log in to an app for editing. Users expect to be able to double click a file on their computer and for it to open - like they've been doing for decades.

If you have no office suite installed and you have only blank fileplacers for icons the user thinks the computer is broken and probably sends it back to whoever maintains it lol.

 

[heatlesssun]

I just gave you multiple reasons why officeweb is an idea born dead. An average user has no concept of cloud storage and would be totally angered by the requirement of saving documents to a certain location and then be forced to use the internet browser to log in to an app for editing. Users expect to be able to double click a file on their computer and for it to open - like they've been doing for decades.

Tens if not hundreds of millions of people daily use cloud storage on phones, tablets, desktops and laptops. Putting files in the cloud so that they can be accessed from anywhere on any device is certainly a concept that many average people understand and utilize daily.

 

[B00nie]

Tens if not hundreds of millions of people daily use cloud storage on phones, tablets, desktops and laptops. Putting files in the cloud so that they can be accessed from anywhere on any device is certainly a concept that many average people understand and utilize daily.

LOL dream on. It's totally different when a phone syncs to cloud without the user even realizing it and when you have an OS that no longer supports the working method the user has been used to, the OS literally doesn't work as expected anymore when a user double clicks the file - and where the storage area is also hidden behind the file explorer.

There's no transparency whatsoever, the user will need to know exactly where, how and why before the office web works. There's simply no way this will get any sort of popularity for obvious reasons. And to tell otherwise is simply lame trolling, really.

 

[Nenu]

Tens if not hundreds of millions of people daily use cloud storage on phones, tablets, desktops and laptops. Putting files in the cloud so that they can be accessed from anywhere on any device is certainly a concept that many average people understand and utilize daily.

That doesnt make it a good idea.
A friend told me he received a notification that his icloud email address had received an email but he couldnt see it.
It took a few days before he got the email from me, and that he even knew it was from me.

Putting more steps in the way of doing simple tasks is stupid.
Much more to go wrong.
Then there is the safety aspect.

 

[B00nie]

Then there is the safety aspect.

Yep ask 100 people would they trust their personal information to a Microsoft online server and you'd get 101 HELL NO! 's.