LibreOffice at LinuxDays 2024 in Prague

Our Czech community provides insights from the LinuxDays 2024 conference, which took place over the weekend of 12 – 13 October in Prague:

At the LibreOffice booth, there was a very large group of people (with a few exceptions) of satisfied LibreOffice users, of which young people (primary and secondary school students) were represented in surprisingly large numbers. This means that even the youngest generation, who prefer a different approach to data processing than office software, can be reached by LibreOffice.

This year we had a special treat for conference visitors: printed manuals for LibreOffice Base and Writer. The printing of these manuals was provided by Zdeněk Crhonek. They are printed in colour on high quality paper and probably attracted the most interest – they caught the eye at first sight.

The look of LibreOffice

Users overwhelmingly expressed satisfaction with LibreOffice. The features are sufficient, the user interface is easy to get used to, and so is the way of working. For some users, the interface is seen as “old school” – but one such good thing is the implementation of alternative layours. It’s fair to say that few users know about the option to change the user interface layout, despite the fact that this option is offered in the very first dialog after installing the package.

This means that users don’t read these tips (which is a big mistake – they contain very useful and practical advice), and furthermore that LibreOffice lacks a wizard to guide the user through the various setup options. There are a lot of them, but they are hidden, so “nobody” knows about them. Such a guide would be a very useful addition indeed.

Using LibreOffice modules

Most users use LibreOffice to write text, create spreadsheets, and some even make presentations. In this regard, it should be noted that LibreOffice is a really extensive package; it is not a better typewriter. A word processor is not Notepad. So it is a pity that LibreOffice’s features remain unused. Users often create texts that require formatting in, for example, TeX, Markdown and so on. This is also a possible way to go, but they can equally (and better) take advantage of Writer’s extensive range of features. The same applies to Calc: this application is not just for creating spreadsheets, but also for computational operations and visualizations.

Insights on individual modules:

• Of particular interest was the discovery that you can add content as automatic text in Writer.
• One user would appreciate a significant improvement in the usability of bulk correspondence by allowing the source data used for this purpose to be imported into Writer, but then independent of the source database (as is reportedly the case in Microsoft Word).
• Writer supports LaTeX via the TexMaths add-on, which converts the content to PNG or SVG but preserves the source syntax.
• Users confirmed a known fact, that there is no video compatibility between Impress and PowerPoint. However, exporting from Impress to PDF works – then the videos are preserved.
• Users are not familiar with Impress Remote. This allows you to control the presentation remotely using your mobile phone. The phone needs to be paired with the computer on which the presentation is running (communication is via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi). One person was very interested in this possibility, but unfortunately we had a problem with pairing devices – so the process could be simplified more.
• One booth visitor uses Impress very often, but not always on her own laptop. The advantage is to use a portable version of LibreOffice (or the AppImage on Linux).

LibreOffice online or on mobile is no longer a secret

A surprisingly large number of users know and even use the mobile version of LibreOffice from Collabora. When we presented this application three years ago, at the InstallFest 2020 conference, it attracted a lot of interest. Now it seems that awareness is much better, although it is still surprising how few people know about the online version of LibreOffice.

However, there is even more interest in Collabora’s online LibreOffice solution, which is already quite widely used, or at least of interest, by conference visitors. Some users have problems with installation, so they would welcome more easily accessible tutorials on how to install (in different ways).

Microsoft Office/365 in education

The necessity or obligation to use Microsoft Office/365 for school purposes is a major frustration, especially for young users (school children). This applies both to school work itself and to the creation of homework. We think this practice is totally unacceptable: schools are not supposed to function as Microsoft training facilities (the worst in this case is the combination of a teacher and a certified Microsoft Insider).

Teachers should be aware of the negative impact they are having on children by requiring Microsoft Office; they are creating more users of one commercial company’s products, regardless of the existing and available open source alternatives. Even primary school students can be more aware than their teachers in this respect, as they demonstrated at this event. Yet the number of schools using and subscribing to LibreOffice is not small.

The fact that Microsoft 365 has been found to violate EU data regulations also speaks against the use of the cloud version; for this reason, its use in education is banned in the German state of Hesse, and the state of Schleswig-Holstein will switch to LibreOffice in 2025.

At the conference, the use of LibreOffice in public administration resonated more than ever. It seems that users are really interested in this topic. This is a good sign, subjectively it seemed that this topic is already outdated, but this is not the case.