Really is a combination of two factors:I have done some pretty complex spreadsheets on LibreOffice and found it to be quite fine. Equally; (albeit; some time ago) I've worked on big MS sites where users had loads of issues with Excel when doing more advanced stuff. Actuaries in particular; used to constantly; "break" it.For serious work I vastly prefer Excel running native rather than Office365. LibreOffice read/writes Excel, which works fairly well some simple spreadsheets, however runs into issues with complex sheets with macros or VB functions. For that at home I fall back on browser based even though the GUI sucks. For an OS perspective I am Windows free at home for more than 25 years, still run Windows at work since we are a Microsoft shop.
LibreOffice, Office365, Google Sheets. All work fine. Although I have a Windows laptop with it installed, I haven't used Excel/Word etc in years. It's all online/browser based.
I think your idea of most users is a few years out of date.because they were attempting to do things that were really on the edge of what Excel was designed for at the time...but didn't want to wait for the painfully slow design process that would have been required for we IT folks to produce a "system" to do what they wanted.
They would then expect us to attempt to debug their vast spreadsheets...It was an absolute nightmare.
![:shock:]( "Shocked")
The thing is though....What you describe is not typical of "most users" and that is what is being discussed here. I would suggest that in fact few users do that sort of thing....or even have the faintest idea how to for that matter!...and for those users...LibreOffice is certainly perfectly acceptable.
because they were attempting to do things that were really on the edge of what Excel was designed for at the time...but didn't want to wait for the painfully slow design process that would have been required for we IT folks to produce a "system" to do what they wanted. 
I do complex stuff at work, as we have fallen into the popular trap of trying to solve all problems with Excel. I also have a fair number of spreadsheet based processes that have Excel, plus macros, plus VB providing a solution. Doing this in LibreOffice would be tough. Secondly, due to this dev work I am much more familiar with Excel, so it becomes the complex problem spreadsheet hammer I reach for.
OTOH, I use LibreOffice at home, both for "regular" personal stuff and for things like being the treasurer for my son's sports team. Works great. I am in complete agreement that many (most?) spreadsheets users only touch the bare surface of Excel's capabilities and LibreOffice would work just fine. The use paradigm is very similar.
For simple spreadsheets i have no issues taking LibreOffice developed stuff into Excel, or Excel into LibreOffice.
Statistics: Posted by bjtheone — Tue Jan 28, 2025 10:35 pm