This is about the most recent version of LibreOffice on Windows 10. I can’t speak for other versions.
My daughter worked hard on her social studies essay. I type things in for her because she’s a really bad typist, but she tells me what to write… but I didn’t remember to manually save her social studies essay yesterday, and for some reason the ThinkPad rebooted, LibreOffice crashed and we lost the whole thing… because autosave was not automatically on when I installed it.
No, recovery didn’t work. We just got a blank file.
I rewrote it for her based on the information we had and what I remembered and tried to make it sound like what a 13-year-old would write because it was basically my fault and she did do the work. I did have her sit with me as I wrote it in case she didn’t like something I wrote, but it was sort of cheating. I’m okay with that cheating since I know she worked hard on it.
First, though, I went into the settings and turned on autosave.
I like LibreOffice, but why the hell is that not on automatically? Honestly, I don’t really understand why someone wouldn’t want their documents autosaved, but I’m pretty sure most people would want that.
This isn’t fucking 1993. I shouldn’t have to remember to save a document anymore and it shouldn’t be lost forever because of it.
Like I said, I like LibreOffice. I don’t really want to trust documents to Microsoft or Google. But this was really annoying.
First of all, as a time honored tradition it is customary to say this: Never, ever trust an autosave. Manual saves and backup, always.
With that out of the way, yeah, libre office is kinda bad at the regular user stuff. If you aren’t a fiddler who goes through options first and sets their own personal preferences, a bad time will be had.
Also, apparently crashes might reset the auto save tick depending on the version used, so check twice if it happens again just to make sure.
Ps: Never had an issue with it personally, but it’s hit or miss with its users.
Oh just fucking great. Thanks for telling me that. I think I might just try a different office suite.
You can always try OpenOffice if libre office isn’t working out for you. It has all the same suite options as libre office. I think it has auto save by default. I haven’t used it in a while though.
Unpopular opinion: Word, Excel, and Powerpoint are free on the web. Yes, you need a Microsoft account. Would it be ideal to use a FOSS product? Maybe. But schools and workplaces have a preference for Microsoft Office, so the specific skills in that office suite are going to more easily translate to real world situations, and there will be a lower chance of compatibility issues when sharing documents with other people or organizations, in either direction.
i wouldnt push excel hard here on the web. its still pretty fragile/full of incompatibilities to the point i cant use it in my day to day, i have to open the local application.
That’s fair, but it stands to reason that if a Microsoft web product isn’t super compatible with its own desktop product, a third party would be less so.
They’re free on desktop as well. Microsoft would so much rather you learn and love their tools that they’re happy to let you use them for free because it means you’re going to keep using them as an adult / professional / senior. My parents will never leave Excel / Word / Outlook because it’s what they know and love and they’re happy to pay for it in perpetuity.
https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts
Newer versions don’t have the issue.
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For smaller docs try Abiword. If you are a KDE user, Calligra is nice.
Abiword is okay for now, I guess, but it’s basically a zombie, waiting for dependencies to break:
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=412196
Maybe we’ll see orgmode format take the place in the sun it deserves
I’ve worked in IT and software development for 25 years, and this is literally the first time I hear someone say this, never mind call it a ‘tradition’ to say it.
You worked in IT, not with IT. You made the bugs, but didn’t experience them.
Your tradition is having users calling you for the dumbest of things and everyone you know calling you to fix their electronics.
We are not the same.
I don’t know what you’re driving at, but whatever you think you know about what I’ve done and what I’ve seen, it’s not nearly as much as you think you know. I work with IT, with software as much as I work in those fields. I experience bugs as much as anyone. I’ve seen the contempt many software devs and professionals have for regular, non-technical users so many times, it manifests in their attitudes, their documentation, their responses to GitHub tickets, their UX decisions.
I don’t care if we are the same or not. Don’t make assumptions you can’t corroborate.
You are correct. And yet, I feel I must send a “whatever you think you know about what I’ve done and what I’ve seen, it’s not nearly as much as you think you know” right back at you, random internet acquaintance.
I didn’t make any assumptions about what you know or do, aside from what you think you know about me.