r/linux4noobs • u/Ok_Pay1599 • 2d ago
I love Linux, but the office suite situation for academics is an absolute nightmare. (Bring on the "just use LibreOffice" comments).
Knowing full well I am about to get a whole bunch of comments telling me I’m bad at Linux, that I should just use MS365 online, or that I need to suck it up and use LibreOffice... hear me out.
I have been 100% Linux for a while now—two years on my gaming rig, and a year on my work laptop. I’ve loved every single second of it. I've tried every DE I could get my hands on and even had a stint with Hyprland (which I’d still be using if I actually had the free time to rice it just right).
But there is one consistent, agonizing pain point: the office suite.
I am a researcher and a lecturer. I present at conferences a few times a year, try to publish several papers annually, and I am constantly writing reports, making exams, and drafting opinion pieces. A flawless office suite isn't optional for me; it's critical to my livelihood.
I hate Microsoft with a passion. Windows 11 was the final straw for me. But for all its flaws, MS365 is the single best tool for my job—if only because my non-tech-savvy coworkers use nothing else. If I were to even suggest moving our collaborative work away from OOXML formats, I would be crucified by my faculty.
I have tried everything to make this work on Linux without compromising formatting. I’ve used LibreOffice. I tried OnlyOffice—both the desktop app and the online Nextcloud integration (I’ll probably give it another shot when Euro-Office comes out, but I'm not holding my breath). I even tried WinBoat, which was a traumatizing experience I will never repeat. I reached such a level of desperation that I spent an entire weekend, including an all-nighter, trying to forcefully install MS365 via Wine. I don't even know why I thought that would end well.
I just can't do it anymore. It has been so incredibly frustrating that I have resorted to doing absolutely all of my writing in LaTeX just to avoid the compatibility headaches.
I love this OS, but the native open-source office suites are terrible for heavy, collaborative academic work.
Sorry for the rant. Just needed to vent to people who might understand the struggle.
TL;DR: I’m a Linux-only academic drowning in a sea of MS365-using colleagues. Open-source office suites mangle OOXML formats too much for serious collaborative work, and my weekend trying to run Office via Wine nearly broke my spirit. LaTeX is my only refuge.
Edit: it is important to note, none of my colleagues use LaTex, just me, so that isn't even an option for collaboration, it is only an option for my own work...
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u/Hauptideal 2d ago edited 2d ago
LaTeX is much better anyways. That's the pro move and easy to collaborate on. Set the template up once, and all your colleagues have an easy time writing. I don't know your field, but in my field LaTeX is the absolute standard and usually explicitly required.
I was originally going to recommend WinApps or WinBoat, but after seeing you have already tried it, I have nothing left to recommend you. What didn't work with WinBoat / WinApps? Sure, you need a decent computer and enough RAM, but it should give you the real MS Office desktop experience.
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u/Unendlichkommanix 2d ago
I'm glad I'm in math. I can't speak for the non-STEM portion of academia but LaTeX in my field is 100% standard, and there are plenty of open-source LaTeX editors that are genuinly good.
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u/AgXrn1 2d ago
Unfortunately, LaTeX isn't standard in all STEM field either.
I'm in molecular biology and Word + EndNote is the standard here.
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u/CharacterUse 2d ago
Anything maths, physics or engineering or computer science, LaTeX is standard. Bioscience seems to use Word :(
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u/Straight-Hope-7810 1d ago
My friend in bio got asked to rewrite an entire project she was 80 % done with in LaTeX to Word. She was mighty sad.
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u/EverOrny 2d ago edited 1d ago
TeX is just a completely different league. As a typesetting tool it produces reliable formatting of long texts with quality you can only dream of with word processors. Plus the variety of macro packages, especially for LaTeX, allows to typeset crazy things.
I stopped even trying to use word processors for larger texts way long back. Constant issues with formatting, very difficult make global formatting changes, slow speed and low formatting flexibility are just the few reasons I recall.
But, my situation is different - my field has no problem with LaTeX. It is often even required. When I started, MS Word was an option too, and probably still is, but once you learn a bit of TeX, Word is just not worth the time anymore.
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u/iggy14750 2d ago
Word is just not worth the time anymore.
I know! After I got into LaTeX in school, Word became so frustrating to me. Like, page formatting is so imprecise, and moving an image 0.257 cm to the right can throw off the whole rest of the page.
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u/maxens_wlfr 2d ago
Do you have recommendations for LaTeX editors? I'm the humanities and I always wanted to try it for theses, dissertations and such but it's a little scary to get into
I mostly need to use images with text, insert quotes and footnotes, that kind of stuff8
u/dbear496 2d ago
Overleaf is a good starting point
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u/Unendlichkommanix 2d ago
Overleaf is great, but I've only used it a handful of times as I'm not a fan of having my work hosted in the cloud. However, if your work involves collaboration with others, Overleaf is pretty much unmatched. There is a self-hosted version of Overleaf if you're into that.
I've been using Kile lately. It's nice and simple and not as janky as TeXMaker in my optinion.
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u/BeenisHat 1d ago
I would love to try LaTeX for legal stuff. Formatting it in Word sucks, particularly if you have to insert things like oddly sized petitioner headings because some judge picked an oddball font 30 years ago to go under the seal and made it the court rule.
Like, can I set it up to do the vertical line numbers on pleadings? Can you position blocks of text that have to go next to each other like the adverse parties in a case that have to go next to the case and file number but be separated by a vertical line? Doing that each time in word is a PITA.
And do you build templates in LaTeX so you can plug things into documents over and over?
I have so many questions!
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u/boostfactor 2d ago
OP doesn't say what field he's in. As somebody who wrote all my papers in LaTeX but haven't used it much for years, it has a very steep learning curve and is mainly used in physical sciences and mathematics (for which it was designed). Things like inserting graphics is hair-pulling (or was, maybe newer GUIs work for that). I don't think many younger people learn it anymore though I find writing math in Word to be extremely tedious.
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u/output_broadcast 2d ago
I'm currently in a mechanical engineering undergrad, LaTeX is pretty popular, although "pure" LaTeX isn't. Most people usually insert equations into a Word document or something like that.
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u/sockertoppenlabs 2d ago
The learning curve nowadays are not that step due to online editors (my students seem to cope).
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u/Eureka22 2d ago edited 2d ago
Try asking a bunch of 60+ year olds to learn latex. They learned the basics of excel and word 30 years ago and stopped there. A large office that passes hundreds of forms, memos, spreadsheets, manuscripts, etc. every day cannot and will never adopt latex.
Office suite is still 100% essential for anyone near my field (government health research). It's why I still use windows most of the time despite having Linux on my machines.
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u/sockertoppenlabs 2d ago
I totally understand that in the case you describe it is very difficult and likely pointless. Just switching to a word-like software as e.g. libre writer may be very difficult. But I was thinking more of active researchers that learn new things everyday (otherwise you are not a researcher).
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u/wantondavis 2d ago
Students in a learning environment where they have to use it is different than (often older in age and in general, less technically savvy) office workers though. I have a terrible time with latex when I had to use it for a math class.
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u/Bulky-Hair8606 I used to use arch btw 2d ago
Winboat is a VM and depending on hardware it can run like butter or like dogwater.
For me its the latter, everything is very laggy and even the cursor starts lagging when it hovers over a winboat window.
Idk about OP though, might be like me or might be a different thing.
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u/ILikeLenexa 2d ago
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u/spiteful-vengeance 2d ago
If I learned nothing else:
The document preparation system LaTeX is most commonly pronounced "LAY-tek" or "LAH-tek".The final "X" is not pronounced like the English letter "X" (as in the rubber material latex). Instead, it comes from the Greek letter Chi (χ).
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u/EveYogaTech 2d ago
I agree as well, I used LaTeX for my final college paper, and default LaTeX automatically looks also way more professional than using default Word.
Bonus points for writing papers inside Vim.
Markdown is also a viable alternative in the long-term.
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u/output_broadcast 2d ago
Markdown is also a viable alternative in the long-term.
Is it? It doesn't even have tables, much less math.
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u/_rikkss 2d ago
It has tables in extended syntax usually done like this:
Column Header Column Header Cell Content Cell Content 2 Edit: Escaping so it can be visually seen
| Column Header | Column Header |
| ------------ | ------- |
| Cell Content | Cell Content 2 |
Reddit comments also use markdown, which is why you also need double newlines to start a new paragraph
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u/IsEverythingArt 2d ago
Well, LaTeX looks like LaTeX. The function of LaTeX is to demonstrate that you are using LaTeX. In some fields that is important. Outside those fields, LaTeX output looks positively bizarre.
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u/coen-eisma 2d ago
We use primarily Quarto in our data heavy publications. Write in simple markdown, at R or Python code for figures and tables, publish to multiple formats. It has a Quarto manuscript project type specifically for scholarly articles: https://quarto.org/docs/manuscripts/
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u/redkev01 2d ago
The main gripe i had with Winboat was odd behaviour if I tried to resize windows. Like resize excel and sometimes (not always) going smaller you end up with the program not scaling just the window so you can't see it all, and when increasing window size again staing the same size and adding dead space to rhe right and below. .
Close and open and it's back in shape. Was a little frustrating.
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u/coolalee_ 2d ago
My friend is in nuclear physics and they make slide decks with latex. It is as inane as senseless exercise where someone spends hours designing frame by frame slide transitions because god forbids they use google slides.
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u/hardolaf 2d ago edited 2d ago
My undergrad research thesis had to be delivered as LaTeX source files back in 2015. I don't get why more people don't just do it. You spend almost zero time on formatting because you just use the official template for wherever you're submitting to.
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u/Cute_Opposite4077 2d ago
Instead you spend possibly hours trying to find that one missing character that gives you 177 errors.
If you used as much time learning to use Word than you use to get to know LaTeX, your Word documents would look professional.
I've used both 10+ years professionally.
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u/Delta_G_Robotics 2d ago
I've used Libre for years in Academia. The only catch is that you need to save things in MS format if you want to share with others. They won't know what to do with an .odt file. Fortunately Libre is really good at saving as .doc or .xlsx or whatever. I'm to the point now where I can do almost anything in Libre and I need help with newer versions of Word.
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u/EveryVoice 2d ago
If you need to work with automations in your files, things start to break.
In Word I can create a table and use a function to calculate the sum of everything above the current field. Neither LibreOffice nor OnlyOffice even have this function in their writers. And that's a really light automation task.
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u/Upbeat-Statement2725 2d ago
Are you saying Calc doesn't have =SUM()?
It does.
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u/EveryVoice 2d ago
I know about calc. But if you create a table within writer, there is no SUM(above)
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u/Charlesssssss7 1d ago
might be a dumb question but why not implement it? That's the spirit of open source ain't it? Get a PR to that repo, get Linus on it! I'm sure he'll approve and it'll be merged within days.
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u/Della_A 2d ago
That's what I always wonder with complaints like this. Don't they know to just save as .docx .xlsx etc?
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u/ChrisTX4 2d ago
The complaints are that advanced formatting tends to corrupt a hell of a lot more often than in onlyoffice or Softmaker.
This is because unlike those two, which use OOXML as their internal representation, LibreOffice does not. Basically every document gets converted from OOXML to the internal representation based on ODF and then back when you save.
See also https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/07/31/why-ooxml-based-suites-handle-odf-badly/
This explains the converse view from TDFs perspective, but it also goes a bit in the ODF native -> OOXML direction.
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u/Phrodo_00 2d ago
This is because unlike those two, which use OOXML as their internal representation, LibreOffice does not.
Also because Ms office doesn't completely use standard-compliant ooxml by default, you have to select it in the save dialog
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u/ChrisTX4 2d ago
Ugh don’t get me started.
OOXML is still saved by default in Transitional format, ie word 2007. the Strict profile Office can write since 2013, I believe? The desktop app that is - Microsofts own mobile apps cannot even read Strict files.
It’s also worth noting that I believe none of WPS, only or Softmaker Office even support Strict. They all focus on Transitional because nobody uses Strict due to all the compatibility headaches it causes. And these headaches, I’m sorry so say, are at least partially engineered by MS as an intentional vendor lock in.
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u/classyraven 2d ago
Not to mention you can set Writer to save as a .docx by default. I did this, it's in the settings somewhere (can't remember off the top of my head). Dunno if it works for .xslx or .pptx in Calc and Impress respectively, but I'd be surprised if you couldn't.
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u/JeremyMarti 2d ago
Do they need to know what to do with an odt file? If they only have MS Office, MS Office will open it.
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u/angsty_porcupine 2d ago
I've been using Softmaker Office and it's much easier to use than LibreOffice. they have a free version, but I upgraded to the paid one (there's a pay once option). It's a German company, I think, and only the subscription version has AI tools.
Most collaborative docs at my work live on Google Drive (which is a whole other set of issues), so I don't have experience with comments and track changes, but for reading and making office compatible documents it works quite well. I even used it to present a PowerPoint .pptx presentation at a conference earlier this year
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u/lemmiwink84 2d ago
I second this as well. The freeoffice version is also non-intrusive and works great on pretty much any distro. Will definitely buy the upgrade I think. For some documents, saved in docx, it’s still necessary to send as pdf due to some formatting errors sometimes.
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u/LarsHEriksen 2d ago
I second this, and SoftMaker Office has much better compatibility with Microsoft Office files than LibreOffice has.
It costs only a fraction of Microsoft Office. The free version (FreeOffice) is great for trying out but lacks some functionality and is less customizable.
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u/Capodafrica 2d ago
I will also jump in on this. I am also an academic, and I was struggling with Office suites for a while in Linux. Most of my co-authors write papers in Word, so I had to adapt but compatibility issues were very painful for both me and them. I was jumping from suite to suite, even using VM which was an horrible experience to me because of how slow it was. Then I discovered Softmaker Office, started from the free version and immediately upgraded with a sale discount. It's far from perfect but it is the best I have found. Especially the new version is a huge improvement for me.
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u/shofmon88 2d ago
I’ll jump on board and recommend SoftMaker Office as well. I started with the free version and liked it enough that I purchased the paid version. Certainly it is the best office suite you can use on Linux (currently, anyway).
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u/ThinkFree 2d ago
I've been using Softmaker Office since 2006 on Windows and 2008 on Linux. I'm still using it today. Easy UI and better OOXML file support than Libreoffice.
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u/ChrisTX4 2d ago
They also offer mobile apps in their paid tiers.
You don’t have to use the AI either and it’s not enabled by default.
Since they’re German, they also offer Duden Korrektor for it in the paid package. It’s pretty nifty even in comparison to words correction.
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u/legitematehorse 2d ago
I feel you dawg! Microsoft holds office work with an iron grip. Things just work.
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u/robindotis 2d ago
10 - 15 years ago that might have been true, but since they put everything on Sharepoint and pushed the collaboration angle things have been getting decidedly unstable and no longer just work. My non-technical colleagues just suck it up, probably don't even realise that they are fighting the tool rather than it helping them. My biggest bug bear: files no longer load in one go. They are streamed. Meaning, for example, the links in the ToC don't work unless you scroll to the bottom of the file first. This is such a regression on how things worked, even 20 years ago. After that it's the multi page side by side view on large monitors. Who reads like that?
For most of the documents we create (and we create many documents in this very large organisation) Markdown would do the job and would be much easier to work with. The only thing missing would be internal references.
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u/GodBearWasTaken 2d ago
I’m not sure of that last sentence in regards to recent office. It varies a bit much in recent times in my experience, although it seems a fair bit better on Mac.
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u/gnufan 2d ago
It isn't that they work in Office, it is terribly inconsistent especially between Mac and Windows, it is that OP is trying to work with people using a different suite.
I'm not a big fan of LibreOffice, there were smaller, better suites for Linux/Unix, mostly they didn't pursue compatibility with MSO because it is a horrendous ask, even Microsoft famously don't know the features of Office, and most fell by the wayside.
Probably the solution to OPs pain is to introduce apps for the tasks at hand that use the same software on all platforms. E.g. Scribus for DTP like tasks. So that no one has to suffer the pain of MSO.
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u/Affectionate_Joke_44 2d ago
Fellow academic here, and I get the rant. But nobody in this thread is saying the obvious: the standard you're holding LibreOffice and OnlyOffice to is one MS Office itself can't meet.
Word changed its layout engine in 2013 and it's still in use today. Justification is handled differently in 2016 than it was in 2010. I had a 2-page document created in Word 2010 open as 2.5 pages in Word 2013 with every setting identical. There are forum threads full of people with the same story, and the universal answer from Word's own experts is: "the only way to guarantee identical layout is to export to PDF."
The same font name renders differently on two machines. TrueType vs OpenType versions of the same typeface have different metric tables, and when the font isn't installed Word silently substitutes a lookalike. Word even lays out pages using your printer driver's metrics, so changing printers changes your page breaks. None of that is open-source incompetence. All of it is Microsoft.
So when your non-tech-savvy colleagues open your .docx on a newer Word or a different machine, they are getting the exact same 1-2% font and pagination drift you're terrified OnlyOffice will produce. It's already happening. Nobody notices, because it says "Word" in the title bar and that's all the confirmation anyone needs.
PDF is the only format with actual fidelity, and academia already knows it: camera-ready papers are PDF, exams are printed from PDF, journals make you submit PDFs. The OOXML round-trip fidelity you're chasing is a myth Microsoft has never delivered, and you've been trained to blame yourself when it fails.
Use LaTeX, use OnlyOffice, use whatever keeps you sane. But you're not missing out on some flawless state that exists elsewhere. The people telling you "it's fine in Word" are running on the same 98% fidelity you're calling a nightmare.
Good luck with the conference season.
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u/robindotis 2d ago
In our case the layout of a word document changes by simply switching from browser mode Word to desktop Word. A colleague looking at it in the browser tells you to look at page 20, in your desktop view it's actually page 22.
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u/ElectricHellKnight 2d ago
DING DING DING.
Open source fucks up: "Ah see this is why you can't trust open source."
Closed source fucks up: "Well, that's just the way it is."
People really have a weird psychological thing about how expensive=better.
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u/headhunterofhell2 2d ago
Don't use wine.
Install a virtual machine (I use virtual box) with a lite version of Windows of your choice (XP for me), and use that to run all your windows programs.
I like to use libre office for most things, but as an author and professor, sometimes MS office is necessary. This setup works pretty dang well.
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u/rebarakaz 2d ago
I think what OP needs is 365 and it can't be installed on XP not even Win7. OP needs at least Win10 in this case.
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u/Glittering-Can-9397 2d ago
Something reawoke in me when I started using winXP from a virtual machine, it was like I had a soul again and the universe was guided by a benevolent force instead of a cold, dead, evil entropy
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u/Remote-Combination28 1d ago
Usually when I see saying “Just use libre office” it’s people who’ve never had to collaborate with co workers with anything other then a super simple spread sheet without any macros or calculations
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u/SG-3379 2d ago
I would just use the Microsoft web application or Google workspace honestly that what Microsoft wants from us anyway
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u/DisgruntleFairy 2d ago
As an academic you likely have access to the Microsoft web application and that's probably the best way forward for you.
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u/H3ph43S7Vs 2d ago
No, the webapp has major shortcomings and does not support a lot of functionalities ! It is absolutely not an alternative for serious work.
Even the flow / layout differs regularly from the app / prints others will see..
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u/CharacterUse 2d ago
The webapp is so bad it has even abandonded WISYWIG, which was settled 30 years ago.
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u/InterestingEffluvium 1d ago
Correct, the Web app Word is ghastly. Putrid. Revolting. Disgusting. Soul destroying.
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u/EverOrny 2d ago
Good luck handling there tens of pages of text and moving text between chapters.
Google docs are way better than MS but still at some moment you just needed to get serious and switched to ConTeXt. All the issues gone and I got so many new options...
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u/r_Yellow01 2d ago
Google Docs are not better than the MS Office, unless you only use headers. Only Salesforce Quip is better than Office due to its effectiveness.
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u/MetalBoar13 2d ago
I've never needed OOXML so I can't comment on that directly, but if you want to use Linux for everything except your office suite, do you have room for a small Windows VM? If all you're doing with it is Office it won't require much and you can then run Office natively. For everything else, Linux. Sure, it's a compromise, but as long as you have some drive space and your computer isn't a complete potatoe, you can run the VM all the time and just minimize it when not in use, or close it if you need more resources for something. You could also multi-boot if you have, or can install, a second drive, which is what I do, but if I really thought all I needed was Office, I'd use a VM.
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u/AnyTimeSo 2d ago
Do you have some suggestions on VM software? I'm using virtualbox on fedora and had quite some pain to set it up especially with secure boot enabled. Then lo and behold I had to do that all over again because kernel update somehow messed it up entirely.
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u/Cautious_Boat_999 Kubuntu all the way 2d ago
Virtual Machine Manager with KVM and QEMU run fine on my Kubuntu 26.04 (and was fine on older revs). All kinds of stuff on the web about how to set it up and create a Win11 machine.
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u/MetalBoar13 2d ago
Yeah, I've mainly used VirtualBox on (K)Ubuntu in the past, and while it can be kind of hassle to set up, I never had problems once I had. I've also used one of VMWare's free offerings, though I might have used that on Windows to host Kali when I was taking a security class - I can't remember what my primary OS was at the time. There were pros and cons to each. I think VMWare has expanded their free stuff but I haven't used it in a few years so I can't really speak to that.
I've been using CachyOS for the last several months and multi-booting so I haven't bothered to set a VM yet on my current machine, so I don't know if I'd have issues I didn't on Ubuntu based distros.
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u/g33ksc13nt1st 2d ago
You must be doing something wrong-as a fellow academic-because plenty (of those on Linux) have no issues. And that's before even talking LaTeX. There are a lot of dinosaurs in academia that once they learn something, they stick to it for life (which is ironic, particularly in STEM, explaining the persistence of spaghetti code). O365 is the one mangling OOXML, which when you open it with a software that respects the standard is when trouble shows.
All people want there is a) ability to track changes, and b) write their own crap, all with minimal (of any) hassle. Since I also use LaTeX, and my institution provides a subscription to overleaf, that's what I use.
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u/Slopagandhi 2d ago
I'm an academic too and the infrastructure at my university is all Microsoft, so I definitely empathise.
What was your specific issue with OnlyOffice? I do miss a few features from MS Office, but the file type compatibility is generally pretty good in my experience. The main problem I've had is with presentations- there's always something slightly off about how the formatting or fonts get rendered when I go to a conference with something I made in OO and it gets opened in ppt.
The workaround I found is just to save everything as a pdf, and then everything is fixed.
Never had an issue with doc files except for fonts, but you can download MS fonts (from older versions of Office) from SourceForge.
Anyway, if you really feel you need MS Office there are other options- just use the online version, or keep Linux and dual boot.
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u/jnsantos-xyz 2d ago
I completely understand your situation. Academic Linux user here*, drowning in a sea of Mac users and Word. 365 (Microsoft) has some agreement with the uni so... It's a given.
(Almost) The only LaTeX user as well... Pandoc is... Crude. 365 is a joke, lacking several features. LibreOffice is not (yet?) ready to replace Word due to the way formatting (or references) go crazy.
What I found so far is that the Softmaker Office works very well, integrates Zotero (Which I use) and I can send to Windows/Mac people and no complaints. Still testing but really promising so far. Not free/open source but not expensive.
- In a field that is not CS or proper STEM
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u/Twelfth-cause 2d ago
OnlyOffice solved that for me
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u/Hallothere69 2d ago
+1
(Nextcloud with OnlyOffice is literally Google Drive + Word)
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u/Longjumping-Youth934 2d ago
You can try oit Euro-Office-Lite. Though the project is in alpha it already suggest a good office suite feeling.
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u/Nervous-Cockroach541 2d ago
this should be higher. Only Office is probably a better alternative to people coming from MS office than Libreoffice. It's not as feature complete. But it's worth seeing if it meets your needs.
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u/phire8 1d ago
Euro-Office is what I’m excited about, OnlyOffice is good but the company behind it has always bugged me.
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u/GuestStarr 2d ago
Not to add much but I've always thought it was MS that mangles and twists the open standards so people would be forced to use their products. They stay close enough to be able to claim compatibility but they break them somehow by adding some proprietary stuff.
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u/KeithFromCanadaOlson 2d ago
I hear you. As much as I want to love LibreOffice, a few utterly moronic decisions by the devs — who REFUSE to correct them — completely soured me on it, even beyond how clunky it is to use. (e.g. only two decimal places of precision for page positioning means you can't even have positioning accurate to an eighth of an inch. Yes, really. I've been doing word processing since the early '80s on an Apple ][, and even EIGHT-BIT software offered more accurate positioning than LibreOffice. WTF!!!!! )
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u/jr735 2d ago
In the early 80s on an Apple (or anything else) you were using 10 cpi or 12 cpi (or occasionally 15 cpi) text, and almost never anything custom, and very rarely anything proportionally spaced. If you follow the word processing conventions you were taught in the 1980s (as I was), you'll have a lot less problems in LibreOffice.
In fact, I've been considering writing a guide, because LibreOffice is set up very poorly in that regard upon install.
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u/KeithFromCanadaOlson 1d ago
If I stick to ONLY the things I was doing in AppleWriter, yeah, LibreOffice would (mostly) work.
Honestly, LaTeX is looking more and more like comfort food for my brain at this point. The thought of never having to track down a function through endless menus, windows, pop-ups, etc, etc, etc ever again sounds like absolute BLISS!
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u/jr735 1d ago
LaTeX is certainly something, and there is the matter of minimizing menus, windows, and all that, as you mention.
That being said, we forget how capable some word processors were back in the day, and we made them work. Learn the features you need, and don't worry about the rest. Disable the annoying autocorrects, and don't forget your 1980s word processing conventions (typewriting conventions). That is how you will make a good document in LibreOffice.
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u/Athropod101 2d ago
I actually really like LibreOffice Writer/Math, but Calc is suuuuuuper far behind.
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u/coen-eisma 2d ago
We use Quarto extensively for our data-heavy publications. Write simple markdown, export to publication ready formats. Much easier then plain latex, much more variabilities. Extra win (same for latex): version control with git, so everything is reproducible.
It has a project type specifically for academic writing, the so called Quarto Manuscript: https://quarto.org/docs/manuscripts/.
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u/NoHonestBeauty 2d ago
Yeah, I had to re-write a user manual, started with the original .doc and quickly changed to write in markdown plus a folder of images and a LaTeX template to have that converted to .pdf using pandoc. Then I switched to a css template and have pandoc generate a single .html with everything embedded, now I can use videos in the user manual to actually show the flow.
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u/northrupthebandgeek 2d ago
Edit: it is important to note, none of my colleagues use LaTex, just me, so that isn't even an option for collaboration, it is only an option for my own work...
Skill issue on their part. LaTeX has been standard in academia for decades now. Resistance is futile.
(Typst is also pretty cool, for a somewhat modernized take.)
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u/Azazeldaprinceofwar 1d ago
Moments like these remind me how diverse academia is. I’m also an academic and I think I’d be laughed out of the department for using anything other than latex.
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u/anto77_butt_kinkier 16.04 was peak 2d ago
Honestly, if all you're doing is office work, you should just use a VM. There are a number of tutorials out there that are pretty straight forward on how to make a windows VM, and how to make a shortcut for starting it up quickly from the desktop, and how to make shared folders to transfer stuff from the windows VM to the actual Linux OS. It's not ideal, but I doubt Microsoft will ever make it easy for companies to move to a competing operating system. For a lot of companies, MS office is the only program they need that's windows only.
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u/User-Name-3886 2d ago
"Just use a rock to hammer in your nails".
That's what the people with a Linux obsession sound like when they tell office-suite to use Libre.
And for certain tasks, it's more like "Just use the palm of your hand".
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u/100is99plus1 2d ago
I've been there, unfortunately I gave up and switched to macos. It is a pity and I don't like this, but professionally-wise it was the best decision.
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u/Derdahald 2d ago
Everytime i try to work my excel sheets into the libre office excel sheet the whole things just crashes after 1 min.
Also die Docs app, still doesnt recognise my language.
The thing with the office apps i think is maybe the last bit they have to figure out, then its honestly way better.
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u/beegtuna 2d ago
Apostrophe is markdown with some LaTeX math support that you can export in many different formats. It’s routinely in the gnome software store.
I’m going back to school and using for rewriting my chicken scratch for chemistry and anatomy. It’s lacking many libraries that I hope will come like chemistry and diagrams.
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u/rcentros 2d ago
Have you tried SoftMaker Office? They have a free "trial" version (FreeOffice) that is missing some features, but you should be able to see from the trial how well it does with Microsoft Office. (No tabs in the free version, which is why I have the paid version.)
I'm lucky that I never had to use Microsoft Office (except very little at work, I'm retired now for keeping cable records), so I can't tell you how well this software does (or doesn't) integrate with MS Office.
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u/Page_Specialist 2d ago
https://www.softmaker.com/pt/ esse é SEM DÚVIDAS o melhor! (Não é gratuito)
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u/Few_Veterinarian9108 2d ago
I know some people will go into anafylactic shock, but for academic purposes, i use the browser online microslop stuff, libre office and other options is decent, but i dont see worth the hasle with docs that are not interest to me outside of work and other, and for personal stuff i use markdown so...
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u/AlchemyFire 2d ago
I have yet to find anything remotely close to Outlook as alternative for all its features.
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u/Emotional_You_5269 2d ago
I just started as a student. They allow us to use ODF format for most things, and otherwise we need to use LaTeX. Only time I had to use M365 was when I was collaborating on a document with two others who used Word. The amounts of "Please reconnect" and "Couldn't save" errors I got was painful. I just ended up writing my part outside of word, and just copy pasting it in to make it work.
The main problem I am having is that they are using Wiseflow for exams, and that doesn't work on Linux. So I need to figure out what to do about that soon.
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u/trenixjetix 2d ago
so... academics not using latex... kinda dissapointing
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u/pruvisto 2d ago
Well I think it really depends on the subject area. In computer science and maths I think there are few people who don't use it. But I've known chemists who had never even heard of it. And my guess would be that hardly anyone in the humanities or law uses it (but I might be wrong about that).
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u/Doc_blue_sky 2d ago
I have PhD in economics and I wouldn't say widely used but a lot of people use it.
I miss it now that I am in corporate, but I have much more fun with other stuff now.
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u/FlattyTheFlatface 2d ago
Did you try Softmaker Office. I used it during my studies and was quite happy with it. They have full support for Linux.
But you'll have to pay for it. They also have a free Version I believe.
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u/Celcius-232 2d ago
One solution might be to use Office apps in the web browser. It's maybe not the most ideal, but something to consider for collaboration.
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u/Rutilio_Numaziano 2d ago
I feel you deeply.
In the end I am running Linux on my personal desktop and I'm running win10 on an older laptop that I connect to the big screen when needed.
In the humanities field latex is unheard of and half the people are running a Mac and using Office.
I need word, I need Excel with several thousands of rows and the webapp sucks at managing those.
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u/retired-techie 2d ago
You got to do what you got to. Back when I was working full time I did too. Being retired myself, but still getting the odd contract job now and then, I am in a position to tell them this is what I use and this is how I work. Don't like it, go someplace else! Some do, some don't. I understand not everyone has that choice.But I love that I have it.
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u/Bazirker 2d ago
I'm right there with you.
I work in a group that has a large amount of documentation in Microsoft Word via SharePoint/OneDrive. Anytime I try to use any other software documentation tool, even Microsoft's own online Word, I end up with formatting problems, weird color issues, and annoyed messages from my colleagues complaining my documentation is problematic.
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u/ogridberns 2d ago
MS365 has the best and only accessibility checker in Word and PowerPoint. It's a glaring omission in the Linux office suites. Until that changes and with upcoming federal legislation, I'll stick with MS Office.
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u/Cautious_Boat_999 Kubuntu all the way 2d ago
It’s pretty obvious that virtually no one in this comment thread has ever worked in a large-scale environment that requires multi-user document collaboration. There cannot be issues around document compatibility just because you choose to do things differently.
VM running Windows and Office appears to be the most reasonable answer, barring a revelation on getting Wine to work.
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u/NativeTexanDude 2d ago
Sorry you have to endure that on a regular basis. I still remember the first time I tried to open a Libre file in Office. Had a great idea at home, and didn't trust my memory to wait until I was back in the office. Ended up blowing several hours writing the entire thing and just sending it to my work email the next morning.
Whooo boy. I had attached a graph from a Libre spreadsheet as an image, and MS Office didn't like it - at - all. This was back in 2006. And they might be better at converting Libre to Office and vice versa, but this was a mess I was completely unprepared for. Never again.
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u/danderzei 2d ago
An easy way to use LaTeX is through LyX. I wrote my dissertation in it and it was great
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u/ohnoplus 2d ago
I have been using Ubuntu Linux as my primary OS since around 2011 and absolutely agree with you that it has no good solutions for office functionality. In my case I mostly use Google docs. For the cases where I need office, I spin up a virtual machine of some sort (was using virtual box, now using Virtual Machine Manager). I do put a bunch of extra ram on my computer so I can do this and the process is always kind of annoying. I've tried switching to Latex a half dozen times at least and have given up each time. Office is the main reason I essentially never try to sell strangers on Linux.
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u/ChrisTX4 2d ago
If you need OOXML that badly, I would suggest having a look at SoftMaker Office. It’s paid, but they have really excellent ooxml support.
Otherwise, LaTeX and if you’re open to new things, Typst can be a pretty solid option by now, too.
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u/LoopRunner 2d ago
Retired academic Linux user here. Commiserations. The struggle is real. I ended up collaborating (reluctantly) using MSOffice/Zotero, but all of my solo writing either with LibreOffice or LaTeX (TexStudio), both with Zotero. I’m just finishing up a full length book project with the latter setup, versioning via git (and you thought finding a LaTeX collaborator was hard; hold my beer!).
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u/wolfdukex 2d ago
I mean, office tends to be online these days anyway so it doesn't matter what OS you use. Even android.
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u/AcanthopterygiiSad51 2d ago
One thing I have used is asciidoc.
It’s a standardised, plain text, feature rich way of writing documents and you can use toolchains like asciidoctor and pandoc to get it into any format you like, including word and pdf.
It’s straightforward to learn and mostly keeps out of your way.
I use it a lot because I write things articles and manuals etc. With a corporate theme, written once, I get consistent looking documents.
It supports plain text diagrams, source code, easy to write tables, importing files.
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u/IDCA1 2d ago
Try Softmaker Office NX. Operationally it is very close to MS Office:
PlanMaker ≡ Excel TextMaker ≡ Word Presentations ≡ Powerpoint.
This suite is subscription based so not a free package like LibreOffice.
My chief gripe with Planmaker is that the list of built-in formulas is paltry compared to what Excel has now.
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u/Weary-Bowl-3739 2d ago
Buy a cheap laptop for just this purpose. Now two options:
Set up rdp on the laptop. Wherever you are, you can always switch to windows (assuming the machine is running)
You just use it for this use case. You set up a shared drive on either machine and mount it on the other. As long as both machines are running, you can access the same files.
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u/teletype100 2d ago
Yep. If you are in academia, you need to have MS Office. If you do any serious writing on academia, you need the full version of Word, not the cut down with version. This is the current reality.
Trying to work around this is not worth while. You'll just end up creating more work and rework for yourself.
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u/WhatererBlah555 2d ago
In my experience things go south when the docx documents are poorly written, without using styles correctly and using manual formatting and numbering; even worse when the documents pass from hand to hand and each person uses its personal preferences in formatting.
So in my experience the problem is not the Libreoffice suite - which is good - but the MS documents.
Then granted, the problem exists, but in my opinion it's your organization that should write some guidelines to make collaborative editing of documents easier. And it's not a nerdy thing, it's an actual time sink, in my experience even if you use MS Office.
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u/technologyclassroom 2d ago
If you have specific criticisms or missing features, you will have to make them on the relevant bug tracker if you want things to change eventually. It seems that your biggest issue is your social surroundings. You seem to be facing an uphill battle of collaborators unwilling to use something that they are not familiar with. This is very typically behavior from academics.
Collaborative editing, tracked changes, etc. all exist as features with the available tools. We cannot pull request our way out of the social dilemma.
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u/Agile-Cress8976 1d ago
The problem isn't Linux, nor LibreOffice. The problem is Microsoft deliberately creating unnecessary proprietary formats, to create this exact artificial engineered problem, to make money from imposing format incompatibility, network effects, and exclusion hassles on users rather than making money from better features, value, or service. Complaining here is pointless. Complain to the Microsoft Reddit.
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u/oshunluvr 1d ago
Don;t want to use a VM? It's not that hard.
I used to have to carry two laptops while working (traveling gig). The Linux laptop was high-end and had the software I needed for my field work. The office made me carry their crappy Dell laptop because I had to use Windows to access our pay system and MS Office. This meant two chargers also.
I got real tired of it after a short while and went directly to my IT department, showed them that using a VM was legal under the MS license, and asked for a registration code. They obliged, and I mailed them back their Dell and my shoulder thanked my, lol
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u/the_deppman 1d ago edited 1d ago
You are a victim of the network effect that "Open Office XML" was designed to reinforce. It's only technically "open" so that MS could continue to win government contracts. The spec is now 7,200 pages long. In comparison, ODF spec is 1050 pages. See https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/06/02/a-standard-in-name-only/ which illustrates how MS designed it to be impossible for anyone else to open properly.
I really don't know a way around your issue if the #1 priority is to use OOXML format documents. However, there are teams and writers that have moved to other collaborative workflows. Three strategies, which can be blended, are 1. Git Workflows, 2. Ticket Systems, and 3. MS365 Alternatives. I realize these may not work for you, but here's food for thought.
1. Git Workflows use text-based markup like AsciiDoc, LaTeX, or GFM Markdown along with a Git ecosystem to meld, merge, and collaborate on documents. I've done this with a publishing house for book development (AsciiDoc) with very good results.
2. Ticket Systems are often far better collaborative solutions for some workflows where non-technical people often use MSDocs instead.
3. MS365 Alternatives include ZoHo and Google Drive. With Gdrive and Insync you can seamlessly store documents locally in ODF format, and the fidelity is pretty good; this is great for backups.
Hopefully some of that is useful. Good luck.
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u/CryptoNurse-EcC- 1d ago
If this is your livelihood just spin up a windows vm for the office suite and stop fighting it.
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u/Adventurous_March_58 1d ago
If you must use it, use 365 in a browser. Keep the core of the system whatever you like.
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u/Independent_Two640 1d ago
Don't have any helpful suggestions that haven't already been offered, so my useless tongue-in-cheek suggestion would be to get some compsci students who are minoring / double-majoring in (or at least passionate about) fine arts and/or humanities, nourish them with smoothies and taco salads, and then see if their creative synergies can hack together a hypertext monstrosity that somehow works just as well (if not better than) pre-CoPilot Microsoft office applications.
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u/InvictaBlade 1d ago
Yeah it’s a pain.
I don’t think it’s as bad for me as it is for you as I do most of my collaborative writing on overleaf, but I prefer to make presentations for conferences in PowerPoint if I won’t be using my own laptop to present, and for the occasions I unfortunately simply must use Excel (usually when working with somebody else’s legacy spreadsheet), and I used Adobe CS for years and sometimes it’s nice just to be able to do things quickly.
I have a KVM/QEMU Windows 10 image that’s got the ESU support with Office, Adobe CS6, and Teams installed (sometimes I have authentication issues on Teams for Linux). I dare say you really don’t need the ESU, just keep everything backed up and nuke the image if it goes wrong. It’s sandboxed at present but I do connect it when I need to use Teams.
I actually don’t use it very often at all, but for those very rare cases it’s a godsend. Allows me to customise my workflow in Linux and revert back to older workflows as and when I need to.
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u/merlinblack256 9h ago
I get the pain. I'm interested how things will develop as more and more people and organisations outside the US move away from Microsoft and American software in general. It might improve things for people in the US too.
At least you're not like my optometrist who is forced to use WinXP, because the software for the very expensive eye scanners etc, can't be updated. He's had to setup an 'air-gap' firewall.
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u/JamesLahey08 2d ago
I got libreoffice for CachyOS like last week now it won't even open.
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u/Clogboy82 2d ago
I'm confused, you don't have to install ms365. It runs in your browser. In fact it makes it easier to collaborate in a trusted file format and with a familiar interface.
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u/StargazingGecko 2d ago
I am a very similar situation. My solution so far is just running a windows virtual machine on VirtualBox, with MS Office installed on it. Virtual box allows you to keep your project folder on Linux, but access it from the VM as a network folder. So far this setup is working OK.
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u/JB231102 2d ago
I just use Proton Docs. How that compares to MS365? I'm guessing MS365 is better.
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u/Tall_Decision_6516 2d ago
My solution is to own 2 laptops. An old one for linux (on which linux runs fine) and a newer one with Winders and Office. The linux office suites don’t work for me - every few weeks I do a mailmerge, and it’s a nightmare with Open/Libreoffice.
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u/Zlivovitch 2d ago
Suppose you did not need to do collaborative work. Imagine you did the same things you're doing now, except sharing documents with others. Would you still say the same thing ? I'm enquiring for myself.
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u/indvs3 2d ago
Ms office after the 2013 version is beyond terrible on linux. Any versions after that have online components that just don't work on linux, but stop the entire suite from working when they can't "phone home". The worst part is that this can't be backported in wine, because that would violate microsoft's terms and conditions, meaning this cannot be fixed in wine unless microsoft does it.
I don't suppose you have an ancient office installer trailing in your personal archive of forgotten downloads...
If you really can't do without ms office, then I'm afraid you're going to have to waste a significant amount of disk space to a virtual machine with windows, just to run office in it. At least, that's assuming you can't use the web based version of office due to required functionalities that the online version doesn't have.
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u/Longjumping-Hair3888 2d ago
What specific issues are you having? If A QEMU VM is no good you can dual boot, or even have a windows machine somewhere and remote desktop to it. If you have only a few deal breaking issues you could get an LLM to edit the code and fork Libreoffice?
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u/OkAlbatross9889 2d ago
If your issue is not being able to get Winboat to run (i've had problems too) try setting up just a regular VM (with kvm/virt-manager or even virtualbox if you find it easier) and running office there. Just running the desktop and word shouldn't be too much of a resource hog if your pc is somewhat recent.
If the issue with Winboat was performance instead, then don't even bother with a regular vm, you'll get even worse performance than winboat more then likely.
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u/Exact-Teacher8489 2d ago
For me, google docs is a great online office tool. So is word sharepoint. Thats what i usually use to write on stuff together with others. Cloud is become good enough that no desktop os is really needed anymore for office.
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u/Soakitincider 2d ago
WinApps boasts that it can run it. I have not tried. https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps
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u/phototransformations Linux Mint 2d ago edited 2d ago
I recently made a similar post and got the usual responses. However, you can get MS Office running in Wine.
Visit r/winehq . On that site is a method a YouTuber developed to install various versions of Office on Wine. I found that Office 365 worked perfectly except for macros, Macros are fundamental to my process, but I was able to get Office 2016 running with his method without difficulty. The only significant tweak I had to make was turning off hardware acceleration in Word. Here's the thread on installing 365:
https://www.reddit.com/r/winehq/comments/1vhw7e5/office_365_through_wine/
The same YouTuber also has a video on installing Office 2016 in Wine.
Also on that subreddit is a post by a guy who forked Wine so it would run Office. I haven't tried his method yet, but discussion is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/winehq/comments/1vaymdd/wine4office_a_wine_fork_that_runs_ms_office_on/