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LibreOffice allows for quicker table modification than Word

Posted on by timcdana in LibreOffice, Microsoft Office, Tables

Tables are one of the most integral parts of a document. Common advice is to plan a table, so you know how many columns and rows you need.

However, many times you receive more data and need to add rows. Data parameters also change, so you need to add columns and create new categories.

Documents are also designed with tables. When designs need to change columns and rows in those tables also will need to change.

Most word processors offer easy ways to add columns and rows to tables.This article will examine how to add columns and rows in LibreOffice Writer and Microsoft Word 2016 for Windows are inserted or deleted.

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Word gives table designers many more options than LibreOffice

Posted on by timcdana in LibreOffice, Microsoft Office

word processor

word processor

Tables have been part of word processors for decades. They are useful for breaking up a wall of text with a graphic element. They are good for taking data from a report or another document and making it easy to find.

They are also used for document design. You can make a complex layout for a page by creating a table. However, most word processors have other tools, such as text boxes, for laying out a page and document.

Two of the most robust word processors are Microsoft Word and LibreOffice Writer. Both allow for the creation of complex tables.

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LibreOffice makes it easy for programmers by allowing macros to be written in four languages

Posted on by timcdana in LibreOffice, Microsoft Office, Office for Mac

The best macros are not recorded through the user interface of an application. They are hard coded through the application’s coding interface.

In the last blog, I compared recording macros in LibreOffice to doing the same in Microsoft Office. In this article we will compare how each one handles macros in general.

Most Microsoft power users are familiar with macros in Office. The famous office suite uses Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). It has been part of it for two decades, being based on Visual Basic 6.0.

LibreOffice, by default, uses LibreOffice Basic, an open-source scripting language that was taken from OpenOffice.org. Most programmers are not familiar with this language, so LibreOffice uses other languages that are familiar to many programmers.

The open-source suite uses JavaScript, Python, and BeanShell to create macros in addition to LibreOffice Basic.

This article will focus on creating new macros in LibreOffice and the Windows and Mac versions of Microsoft Office.

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LibreOffice more flexible than Microsoft Office for macros

Posted on by timcdana in LibreOffice, Microsoft Office, Office for Mac

A macro is an instruction into a set of instructions to perform a particular task. There are actually two ways to create macros in both office suites.

Macros allow you to perform and automate various functions in a document. Those functions can either be natively performed through a feature built into the application or they can introduce a new feature.

The simple way is to record a macro with an icon in the ribbon or by clicking the record item in one of the menus. The more complex way is to write code.

Many Microsoft Office power users are familiar with Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). This is the language Office records macros in. VBA is also the only language you can use to manually write macros with.

LibreOffice supports LibreOffice Basic, JavaScript, BeanShell and Python for creating macros. When you click the record button, LibreOffice writes the macro in LibreOffice Basic. To use the other languages, you need to write the code yourself.

This article compares recording macros in Microsoft Office applications and LibreOffice. For Microsoft, it will explain how macros are recorded for the Windows and Mac versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

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LibreOffice can compete with Microsoft Office’s new collaborative features

Posted on by timcdana in Google Drive, LibreOffice, Microsoft Office, Office for Mac

People have been working together on documents generated by office suite applications for decades now. One person would create the document and write his part before sending it to his colleagues, so she could create her part and make comments on his.

In the past 10 years, this collaboration has happened in real-time. Google’s office suite made it popular and easy for students, colleagues, and others to log in to their Google accounts to work on a document. A group of people work on a document, and they can see each other’s changes almost as soon as they are made. This is known as real-time collaboration.

LibreOffice and Microsoft Office have made strides to catch up to the new kid on the block. Both have taken slightly different directions. They allow for multiple people to collaborate on a document.

However, with its past two versions of its office suite, Microsoft has given users the ability to collaborate in real-time, like Google Drive users can do, through its desktop applications. With the 2013 and 2016 versions, users could work with others at the same time from the applications installed on their computers.

The latest versions of LibreOffice still don’t allow for real-time collaboration through its desktop applications, but they now have applications that can be installed on a server. These allow for real-time collaboration.

This article will mainly compare the collaborative features of LibreOffice and three of the applications from Office 2016: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Comparisons will be made with Google Drive as well since it is the office suite that is best known for real-time collaboration, and like the other two, is used by millions of people.

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LibreOffice, NeoOffice: two great suites for your application toolbox

Posted on by timcdana in LibreOffice, NeoOffice, Office Suite Overview

When OpenOffice was first released it was available for Linux distros and Windows natively, but it ran on Mac under Unix. A company called NeoOffice responded by forking the code into their own distribution for the Mac.

For the past 5 or 6 years LibreOffice and OpenOffice have run natively on Mac, but NeoOffice is still being developed. The suite is being sold through the Mac App Store for $29.99.
It has some different features than it’s other open-source counterparts. These include being able to sync with iCloud and having independent floating windows that are common to a lot of Mac applications.

This article will compare the two office suites.

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LibreOffice, Google Drive partner through Web browsers

Posted on by timcdana in Google Drive, LibreOffice, Web browser

In the last blog entry, I talked extensively about connecting to your Google Drive account directly through LibreOffice and using the Google Drive application that can be installed on Mac or Windows.

There is another way to share and update documents created in LibreOffice using your Google Drive account, however. Simply launch your favorite Web browser go to your Drive account and upload the desired documents and folders.

A Web browser has several advantages over using the Google Drive application or a third-party application. One of the key reasons is that you don’t need to have all the documents from your Drive account downloaded to your computer.

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LibreOffice, Google Drive: two great companions for collaborating on documents

Posted on by timcdana in Google Drive, Microsoft formats, OpenDocument Formats, word processors

Office suites are almost as old as the personal computer, and like the personal computer, they have evolved over the decades. Modern office suites can open and edit universal formats and directly connect to the Internet.

Two of the most popular office suites are free for everyone and work well with each other: LibreOffice and Google Drive. Both are compatible with almost every operating system.

LibreOffice was designed to work equally well on Windows, Mac, Linux distros, and several other operating systems. Google Drive can be interacted with most Web browsers. It officially supports FireFox, Chrome, Safari, Explorer, and Edge. Firefox and Chrome have versions for the previously mentioned operating systems.

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Consistency helps LibreOffice Writer power users more than Word’s ribbon helps its users

Posted on by timcdana in Office for Mac, user interface, word processors

User interfaces for office applications have evolved over the past few decades. Microsoft has transitioned its popular office applications from drop-down menus to a ribbon user interface. The Document Foundation, on the other hand, has added to LibreOffice’s toolbars and menus over the years.

This article will compare the two word processors: Word 2016 and Writer.The Mac and Windows versions of Word will be discussed separately because there are differences in their menus and ribbons. LibreOffice has the same menus and toolbars, regardless of the operating system it is installed on. Therefore, it can be presented in one section.

All three applications have similar user interfaces as the other applications in their suites. However, each word processor has unique menus and ribbons, so it is important to discuss each one individually.

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Easily make LibreOffice, Office 2016 more worldly by adding languages

Posted on by timcdana in Office for Mac, Office Suite Overview

The desktop computer was an American invention, but four decades after the first ones graced offices and households, they are now in just about every office and home in the world.

This means that people who speak many different languages use one, and most likely use office applications to create documents in a myriad of languages.

This article compares the language support for Microsoft Office and LibreOffice. Both office suites support many languages.It also explains how to install language interfaces.

In general, LibreOffice supports 150 languages, while the Windows version of Office 2016 supports 92. The Mac version of Office 2016 supports 58. Support for languages means built in dictionaries and thesauri, as well as the ability to change menus, toolbars, help resources, and dialogs to another language.

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