Discussion: Default office applications

[Eero Tamminen]

Hi,

On keskiviikko 28 tammikuu 2015, Elizabeth K. Joseph wrote:
> We've had this discussion a few times in past cycles, but as we
> continue to bump into bugs in Abiword[0], the topic has come up again.
> 
> How are we feeling about our default choice of Abiword and Gnumeric as
> the office applications for Xubuntu? Is it time to consider switching
> to LibreOffice?

I think both are fine as standalone applications.  Main problem comes from 
file exchange with Windows users, which is fairly frequent use-case.

* Gnumeric has worked fine for me with Excel documents.

* Abiword cannot be used even to properly view more complicated Word 
documents.

* When it comes to presentations, while LO-impress can be used to view them, 
modifying the, with LO normally breaks them (fonts/kerning etc).


So, I think the questions are:

* How well LO fits onto installation media, it and its dependencies are much 
larger than the games that are being talked about...

* How important file exchange with Windows users is?

Solution for latter can also be e.g. "Install full (Windows compatible) 
office suite" link on desktop...


	- Eero

> I'll note that in the past the pro-LibreOffice users tended to
> dominate these discussions. Feel free to speak up, but we're actively
> encouraging the folks who use and prefer Abiword and Gnumeric to speak
> up too. How would changing the default impact you? Do you feel
> strongly about not switching to LibreOffice?
> 
> Thanks everyone.
> 
> [0] One of the latest that came up during testing:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/abiword/+bug/1395323