7 Best Alternatives To Microsoft Office Suite — 2019 Edition

In article , Ken Springer
wrote:

| I'll admit, it was a single thing I saw with the iMac that sold me. The
| quality of the display. The image was astounding, far better than
| anything I'd seen with a Windows system.

Yes. The attention to detail is a delight. I'm not
wild about hiring a 12-year-old girl to design cutesy,
Looney Tunes icons, but aside from that it's almost
astonishingly tasteful.

Imo, the quality of the icon design has gone downhill over the last few
years. Not just Apple, but every where. They are no longer visually
intuitive.

icons are *much* better than they've ever been, both larger and clearer.

the original icons were monochrome 32x32 pixels, later 8 bit colour,
and now they are 1024x1024 32 bit full colour pixels.

however, it's still up to the artist who designs them. some icons are a
work of art and others look like ****. most are somewhere in between.

The current iMac, and device screens are the retina design. I don't
know what that means at the techno level, other than it's proprietary
tech at some level.

retina is apple's term for a hi-dpi display and there's nothing
proprietary about it. individual pixels are smaller than what the human
eye can resolve so everything looks incredibly sharp.




There's a story about the display. I think it was in Wired
that I read it. Bill Gates was visiting Apple. He was in
a room with Jobs and a number of other people. Jobs
had a tantrum, blaming Gates for stealing Apple's ideas
in terms of GUI. Gates calmly responded that he saw it
differently: He and Jobs had a rich neighbor with a big
TV set, named Xerox. They both plotted to break in and
steal the TV. Jobs just happened to break in before
Gates got there. According to the article, the other
people in the room knew that Gates was right.

I've heard a similar story, but Jobs sued MS over stealing his UI
design. But someone pointed out that Xerox had the design before Jobs.

apple did not steal anything from xerox. that is a myth.

xerox told apple that they were not going to productize their research,
so apple *bought* it via pre-ipo stock options and then improved upon
the ideas.

that's *not* what microsoft did.

In article , Char Jackson
wrote:

I'm trying to help a friend with her Android
phone. What a POS user interface. No logic to it at all.

I have a prediction. If you spend a few uninterrupted minutes with that
Android phone, or with an iPhone, you won't come away with that kind of
impression of the UI. I believe you're letting your attitude cloud your
vision.

It's not hard to tap, double tap, long tap, swipe up/down/left/right, and
those are just about all the things you need to master.

You'll ask, "yes but how did you learn all of that", and my answer would be
that it's a touch screen. So touch it. All will be revealed.

exactly.

In article , Ken Springer
wrote:

I'm trying to help a friend with her Android
phone. What a POS user interface. No logic to it at all.

I have a prediction. If you spend a few uninterrupted minutes with that
Android phone, or with an iPhone, you won't come away with that kind of
impression of the UI. I believe you're letting your attitude cloud your
vision.

I've already figured some of it out, and having the Nexus experience
helped. But, if you if you think I'm frustrated, best to not talk to
the owner. LOL You might not leave unscathed. G

if she's frustrated with android, she might find ios to be easier.

As for the phone physically, it does seem to be a POS. And there's a
number of negative comments on the web about this model. For instance,
if you just barely move it out of portrait orientation, and I mean
barely, it goes into landscape. And, then it takes the phone too long
to switch back, once you find that narrow range where it wants to be in
portrait.

that's a hardware problem with a phone that hasn't been made in many
years, not a 'pos user interface'.

On Sun, 08 Dec 2019 00:44:36 -0600, Char Jackson wrote:

I don't think I missed your point, but I think you may have missed
mine, and I think we're talking in circles.

Failure to snip earlier posts doesn't help.

"Ken Springer" wrote

| I don't think I missed your point, but I think you may have missed mine,
| and I think we're talking in circles.
|
| We could be, it happens. Should we give it up? :-)
|

If I may venture.... Char is focused on the idea of a
free country. To him the main point is that people have
a right to mow their damn lawn with a damn pair of
scissors if that's what they want. And your position
seems to be that 1) they should know better and 2)
opportunities should have been created for them to
know better (such a a readable help manual that explains
basic ideas like the windowing principle that Windows
is name after and the file cabinet metaphor for disk
storage).
And you're further saying that if they're odd or dumb
enough to still mow their lawn with scissors then that's
OK, but they haven't been given a proper chance to
learn better. And Char is responding, "But it's a damn
free country and you have no business butting into
someone else's business!"

Does that mean he's a Libertarian and you're a Liberal?

"Rene Lamontagne" wrote

| nonsense.
|
| Nonsense is a communication, via speech, writing, or any other symbolic
| system, that lacks any coherent meaning.
|

If you don't know nospam then you need to. He's
either a compulsive arguer or a discussion bot
designed by researchers to study social patterns.
If you look at his posts you'll see that he never fails
to have the last word, appears to be knowledgeable,
yet rarely actually says anything. (Though he's very
consistent in his AppleSeed devotional wrath.)

It's an interesting behavior. The so-called Turing
test, as I understand it, states that we'll know we've
created true AI when a computer can convince a
person that it's a person. But that theory fails to
take into account that 1) humans are arguably not
conscious of their behavior and 2) we don't generally
listen to each other. We only scan for aspects that
we can agree with (friends) or disagree with (enemies).
So actually it's not so hard for AI to emulate human
intelligence. So nospam could very well be a bot
designed to elicit responses from humans. I've seen
his arguments go into hundreds of posts when he gets
hold of an argumentative opponent.

On 05/12/2019 15.44, Ken Springer wrote:


Calligra is also an offshoot of Open Office/Libre Office.Â* I didn't care
for the UI, but that's no reason not to check it out, as that's a
personal prefernce.

No, Calligra derivates from KOffice, a KDE product.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calligra#History

«Calligra was created after disagreements within the KOffice community
in 2010 – between KWord maintainer Thomas Zander and the other core
developers.[23][24][25] Following arbitration with the community
members, several applications were renamed by both parties.[26] Most
developers, and all but KWord maintainer Thomas Zander,[23] of
particular applications joined the Calligra project. Three applications,
Kexi, Krita and KPlato and the user interfaces for mobile devices have
been completely moved out of KOffice and are only available within
Calligra. A new application called Braindump has been added to Calligra
after the split and KWord was replaced by the new word processor
Calligra Words.[27]»

Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KOffice#History



«Calligra's main platform is desktop PCs running Linux, FreeBSD, macOS,
and Windows,[10] of which Linux is the best supported system.[11]»

There are also versions for tablets and phones.



--
Cheers, Carlos.

"Ken Springer" wrote

| Yes. The attention to detail is a delight. I'm not
| wild about hiring a 12-year-old girl to design cutesy,
| Looney Tunes icons, but aside from that it's almost
| astonishingly tasteful.
|
| Imo, the quality of the icon design has gone downhill over the last few
| years. Not just Apple, but every where. They are no longer visually
| intuitive.
|

That's odd, isn't it, given that they're often bigger and
could have more detail. I saw a Microsoft icon recently
that was something like a blue oval topped by a blue disk.
It's supposed to represent "people". Maybe that's an
internationalization thing. If they got any more specific
someone might complain about sexism, racism, hair-colorism,
fattism, thinnism, or some new ism. So icons are becoming
like symbols on car dashboards. They're a great equalizer
because no one understands them.

| A few years ago I tried Suse and noticed that was
| also much better looking on the same hardware as
| Windows. I don't know why Windows graphics are not
| better. But it does seem that with Mac you get better
| display and better design. Maybe MS make a point of
| making it look generic. Like a pickup truck or sedan.
| The design says, "get something done".
|
| Since the hardware was the same, isn't that an indication the answer is
| in the quality of the driver's code?
|
Certainly seems that way. But Microsofties seem to
write brilliant code, from what I can see. So it doesn't
seem to make sense.

| The current iMac, and device screens are the retina design. I don't
| know what that means at the techno level, other than it's proprietary
| tech at some level.
|
It seems to refer to any screen that has the blessing
of Saint Jobs. There are different versions. From what
I can gather they're calculating how many ppi a device
should have based on size. Again, wonderful attention
to detail. Thus the extremely crisp display even on a
small phone.

| I've heard a similar story, but Jobs sued MS over stealing his UI
| design. But someone pointed out that Xerox had the design before Jobs.
|
That could be. Lawsuits have always been an Apple
business strategy. They sued Samsung over slide to unlock
and round corners. I once saw a photo online of an
old, wrought iron slide bolt on a door. The caption read,
"Apple so invented slide to unlock."

** I may be reaching the limit on my posting ability.
Everyone will make fun of me, of course, but I'm using
OE6 and at some point it just rejects the header length
if a thread goes too deep. I've never found a way to
fix it. But I love OE for most things and don't much like
TBird, so I put up with it.

On 06/12/2019 15.57, nospam wrote:
In article , Ken Springer
wrote:


What else would you prefer?

a folder of pdfs from various seminars/classes/etc. rather than a stack
of paper, making it trivial to search for a specific event or a slide
within a presentation.

"class notes that are passed out" can certainly be via pdf. I'm fine with
that. I was just commenting on the fact that the thing that gets passed
out
is essentially the presentation slides, whether they be in paper or
electronic form. Personally, I greatly prefer electronic form. I see that
my previous reply wasn't clear in that regard.

For many, or at least some, paper provides more options for
reading/reviewing than an electronic file.

except that it doesn't.

electronic files can *easily* be searched in a fraction of second and
can also be read on a phone or tablet just about anywhere, which can
hold and/or access an unlimited amount of presentations and other
reference material.

files can also support audio and video as well as hyperlinks to jump to
additional information.

Provide both. :-)

print it yourself if you want paper.

I just cannot believe how clueless you are, sometimes.

resorting to ad hominem attacks, again.


When one is on a seminar, thus not at home, one can not print the
presentation. Having it on paper is useful to write with a pen notes on
it. Yes, PDF files can also be annotated, but I had not yet the chance
to try this at an actual event.

Some offer the PDF at some download site, or send them by email. But all
places I have been at hand out the papers.

Having said that, I prefer epub over pdf. Not presentations.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 12/8/19 6:26 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"Ken Springer" wrote

| I don't think I missed your point, but I think you may have missed mine,
| and I think we're talking in circles.
|
| We could be, it happens. Should we give it up? :-)
|

If I may venture.... Char is focused on the idea of a
free country. To him the main point is that people have
a right to mow their damn lawn with a damn pair of
scissors if that's what they want. And your position
seems to be that 1) they should know better and 2)
opportunities should have been created for them to
know better (such a a readable help manual that explains
basic ideas like the windowing principle that Windows
is name after and the file cabinet metaphor for disk
storage).
And you're further saying that if they're odd or dumb
enough to still mow their lawn with scissors then that's
OK, but they haven't been given a proper chance to
learn better. And Char is responding, "But it's a damn
free country and you have no business butting into
someone else's business!"

Damn, it's an interesting way to state it, but I think you've nailed it.
G

Does that mean he's a Libertarian and you're a Liberal?

Char will have to speak for himself as to being a Libertarian, but I'm
an Independent. Liberal on some subjects, Conservative on others.


--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.6
Firefox 70.0.1
Thunderbird 60.9
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

On 2019-12-08, Ken Springer wrote:
"flat and minimalism" = bo-o-o-o-o-oring

We went down that road for corporate logos in the 1970s. Everything
old is new again.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roger Blake (Posts from Google Groups killfiled due to excess spam.)

NSA sedition and treason -- http://www.DeathToNSAthugs.com
Don't talk to cops! -- http://www.DontTalkToCops.com
Badges don't grant extra rights -- http://www.CopBlock.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On 12/8/19 6:35 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"Rene Lamontagne" wrote

| nonsense.
|
| Nonsense is a communication, via speech, writing, or any other symbolic
| system, that lacks any coherent meaning.
|

If you don't know nospam then you need to. He's
either a compulsive arguer or a discussion bot
designed by researchers to study social patterns.
If you look at his posts you'll see that he never fails
to have the last word, appears to be knowledgeable,
yet rarely actually says anything. (Though he's very
consistent in his AppleSeed devotional wrath.)

He and his type are the reason I don't read the Mac newsgroups anymore.

snip


--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.6
Firefox 70.0.1
Thunderbird 60.9
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

On 2019-12-08, Char Jackson wrote:
It's not hard to tap, double tap, long tap, swipe up/down/left/right, and
those are just about all the things you need to master.

I don't have time for that crap. I loathe touch screens.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roger Blake (Posts from Google Groups killfiled due to excess spam.)

NSA sedition and treason -- http://www.DeathToNSAthugs.com
Don't talk to cops! -- http://www.DontTalkToCops.com
Badges don't grant extra rights -- http://www.CopBlock.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On 05/12/2019 14.32, Dan Purgert wrote:
Ken Blake wrote:
On 12/4/2019 2:50 PM, David wrote:
According to the article .....

Here are the MS Office alternatives at a glance:

Google Docs
LibreOffice
Office Online
Apple iWork
WPS Office
Calligra Office
DropBox Paper

Details he https://fossbytes.com/best-alternati...rosoft-office/

Would you recommend one of the above for use with Windows 10 or would
you suggest Open Office? https://www.openoffice.org


Several points:

1. I have only very little experience with LibreOffice or OpenOffice,
but they are fairly similar. And as I understand it, LibreOffice is the
best of the Microsoft Office compatible suites.

Yeah, LO was forked off of OO when (IIRC) Oracle got their hands on it
(possibly by purchasing whoever owned it beforehand -- Sun maybe?).
Changed the licensing, and a lot of the "community devs" didn't like
that.

It is a bit more complex :-)

Life started with "StarOffice" on 1985. There is a graph at wikipedia
with the derivatives and the connections:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice#/media/File:StarOffice_major_derivatives.svg

Read here for the history of LO, OOo, and others like NeoOffice or IBM
Symphony:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice#History



--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 12/8/19 6:45 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 05/12/2019 15.44, Ken Springer wrote:


Calligra is also an offshoot of Open Office/Libre Office.Â* I didn't care
for the UI, but that's no reason not to check it out, as that's a
personal prefernce.

No, Calligra derivates from KOffice, a KDE product.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calligra#History

«Calligra was created after disagreements within the KOffice community
in 2010 – between KWord maintainer Thomas Zander and the other core
developers.[23][24][25] Following arbitration with the community
members, several applications were renamed by both parties.[26] Most
developers, and all but KWord maintainer Thomas Zander,[23] of
particular applications joined the Calligra project. Three applications,
Kexi, Krita and KPlato and the user interfaces for mobile devices have
been completely moved out of KOffice and are only available within
Calligra. A new application called Braindump has been added to Calligra
after the split and KWord was replaced by the new word processor
Calligra Words.[27]»

Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KOffice#History



«Calligra's main platform is desktop PCs running Linux, FreeBSD, macOS,
and Windows,[10] of which Linux is the best supported system.[11]»

There are also versions for tablets and phones.

I stand corrected. Thanks. :-)


--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.6
Firefox 70.0.1
Thunderbird 60.9
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"