LibreOffice still kicking at 40, now with browser tricks and real-time collab

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Mac experience and installation quirks

  • Mixed reports on macOS: some users on Sequoia open files fine without Full Disk Access; others (notably App Store installs) can’t open files from inside LibreOffice unless they grant broader permissions.
  • Several Apple Silicon users (including M4) report frequent freezes, especially when opening settings; toggling Skia rendering helps some but doesn’t fix it.
  • Others on Apple Silicon and Intel say it’s stable for simple use, suggesting hardware/driver/config–specific issues.
  • Frustrated users have switched to alternatives like OnlyOffice for rare local edits, though there’s mention of ongoing effort specifically targeting Mac bugs.

CSV handling and data integrity

  • Strong praise for Calc as a “CSV IDE”: opens CSVs without silently mangling data (dates, leading zeros, etc.), unlike Excel’s default open path.
  • Several anecdotes of consultants/clients “verifying” CSVs in Excel and unknowingly corrupting them before handing them off.
  • Text editors are suggested, but many prefer a tabular view to catch missing fields; some mention Emacs/Vim CSV modes as a halfway house.
  • LibreOffice’s command-line ability to split multi-sheet Excel files into separate CSVs is praised, though poorly documented.

UI, performance, and usability

  • UI opinions are polarized: some find it ugly, cluttered, and sluggish; others love its classic, dense, pre-ribbon Office-like interface and the fact it offers multiple UI paradigms (single toolbar, tabbed “NotebookBar”, etc.).
  • Some say they avoid MS Office precisely because LibreOffice’s UI feels more predictable; others bounced off entirely and moved to Google’s tools.
  • Historical performance regressions (especially around graphics/image caching) made older versions painful; more recent releases are reported as much improved but still not “lightweight.”

Interoperability, formatting, and document model

  • Many positive stories: LibreOffice opens old Word docs (including pre-2000) or formats that current Office 365 struggles with, and some universities/colleges were successfully navigated using LibreOffice alone.
  • Others report the opposite: “broken formatting/layouts” when opening modern Microsoft formats, particularly legacy binary .doc files; this is a deal-breaker in environments with frequent document exchange.
  • Writer’s style/paragraph model confuses some users: formatting a selection can unexpectedly alter adjacent paragraphs, especially with paragraph styles and bullets/numbering. Others defend this as standard stylesheet-driven typesetting in line with desktop publishing tools.
  • Base (database frontend) and macro/scripting support are criticized as under-documented and painful for automation.

History, forks, and project health

  • Many were surprised the lineage goes back to StarWriter in 1985; some nostalgia for StarOffice on ’90s UNIX/Linux.
  • Discussion of ODF as a long-stable, clean format versus Microsoft’s Office Open XML, which some consider messy and poorly implemented even by Microsoft.
  • Apache OpenOffice is widely viewed as effectively dead: tiny contributor base, decade-old major release, outstanding security issues, and mostly cosmetic commits. Some argue it should be retired to stop confusing users who then miss out on LibreOffice’s improvements.

Features users especially like

  • Direct object-level PDF editing in Draw is repeatedly highlighted: useful for tweaking diagrams, lifting vector logos, or editing Matplotlib-generated plots for presentations.
  • CSV reliability, old-document compatibility, and the ability to auto-update on Windows (recently added) are appreciated.
  • Some praise Writer as “Word 2000–like,” avoiding modern Microsoft account and cloud/AI entanglements.

Paid support, enterprise adoption, and competitors

  • Some users wish for a straightforward, consumer-style paid “supported” LibreOffice akin to Microsoft Office, arguing this would boost corporate/government adoption.
  • Others point out that such offerings do exist via ecosystem companies (e.g., Collabora) and business-focused support contracts, but they’re not as simple as buying a single-user license.
  • Observations that many offices either never adopted LibreOffice or tried it and moved to alternatives like FreeOffice or OnlyOffice; OnlyOffice gets praise for performance and compatibility, but also criticism over logging/ops issues and security/support concerns in some deployments.

Online, collaboration, and future directions

  • Interest in the new CRDT-based real-time collaboration and wasm/browser efforts; some hope this could make LibreOffice better than MS Office for local-first but network-synced work.
  • Skepticism remains about whether such a large C++ desktop codebase can ever feel truly native in the browser.
  • A few commenters dream about a clean-slate, low-bloat, scriptable, cross-platform office suite, possibly in Rust, with first-class wasm, new formats, and notebook-like spreadsheets.

Overall sentiment

  • Strong respect for LibreOffice as one of the flagship FOSS projects and for its longevity and breadth of features.
  • Enthusiasts see it as “good enough” or excellent, especially for personal use, CSV work, PDF editing, and independence from cloud/AI trends.
  • Critics focus on UI rough edges, performance, and imperfect MS Office compatibility, especially in professional, document-exchange-heavy workflows.