Subscriptions should be useful. Not gatekeepers. This little rant is courtesy of Microslop Office and Apple Creator Studio.
Both of those companies should do so much better. They’re trying to increase their profits while shoving ‘features’ down the consumer’s throats that nobody wants. I’ve been over Word, Excel and Powerpoint for years. Pages, Numbers, and Keynote have always been lacking in a lot of ways, but I could use them for free so I used them. Now the new versions are bundled and I’m out on that too.
So I’m giving LibreOffice go. So far I’ve enjoyed using it. It’s open source which is always a plus. I can export to any file format, even to docx which most people in business insist on since all they’ve known is Office and can’t adapt.
Upon opening their spreadsheet format I’m crazy impressed with how feature rich it is. It does all of the heavy lifting anyone using it for finance needs. It also does all the fun statistic crap I enjoy. Whats most important is that it does not piss me off the same way excel does. I hate excel and I hate how people use excel even more.
I gave the presentation format a quick spin and was pleased with the result. It sticks to the ‘keep it simple stupid’ motto. I recommend it.
What is the best thing about LibreOffice you may ask? It doesn’t have LLMs masquerading as AI helpers (I’m looking at you marketing departments trying to sell shoe wax as liquid silver). Don’t get me wrong. An LLM is useful to a point. Don’t trust them to do the heavy lifting though. They hallucinate more than a hippy at Woodstock and not in a fun way.
If you want to try it out it’s free. The project runs off of donations if you want to throw them a few bucks. I have yet to find something about it I don’t like. Just my two cents.
/end trans
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