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posted by martyb on Tuesday June 02 2020, @01:52AM   Printer-friendly
from the how-do-I-convert-my-existing-files? dept.

Google Docs vs. Microsoft Word: Which works better for business?:

Have you been thinking of reassessing which word processor your business should standardize on? The obvious choices are the two best known: Microsoft Word and Google Docs. But which is better?

Several years ago, the answer to that would have been easy: Microsoft Word for its better editing, formatting and markup tools; Google Docs for its better collaboration. But both applications have been radically updated since then. Word now has live collaboration tools, and Google has added more sophisticated formatting, editing and markup features to Docs.

TFA requires free registration, but the question is an interesting one: Have Google Docs arrived at parity with, or surpassed, Microsoft Word for business needs? How much work is required to transition existing documents, macros, and workflows?


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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @02:37AM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @02:37AM (#1002010)

    I use both LibreOffice and OpenOffice (fwiw, OO has a smaller disk footprint, so I started with it first, years ago). My customers are all Microsoft shops and I often have to deal with .docx files.

    Both LO and OO have problems with certain kinds of formatting in .docx (and .doc), for example, numbered lists often display improperly in my experience. While I don't use Google Docs very often, I do use the file viewers in Gmail (are they related?)--the Gmail .docx viewer has the same kind of problem with lists that LO/OO have, mis-numbering and/or mis-indenting. For documents where formatting matters, I can sometimes get my customer to send me .pdf files.

    Also, both LO & OO have problems with large embedded graphics (plots from Matlab with tens of thousands of data points). Redisplay can take many seconds per page or fail completely. MS-Word has no problems with these large image files. My Win 7 machines have 8Gb memory, so I don't think I'm having swapping problems...

    The Gmail .docx viewer often screws up pagination and I think it sometimes gives up on large embedded plots. Note that different versions of Word also screw up page boundaries, so there is plenty of blame to go around on that score!

    I'm sticking with LO and OO for my primary use, since they both have sensible menus that don't take up too much screen space and don't hide things away like MS does.

    I do have old versions of Word (Office 97 and 2003) around--these have one obvious advantage, on modern hardware they are blindingly fast. 97 is, iirc, the last version that you install and it does not "call home" to Redmond. I used Office 97 to draft a large textbook c.1999 and it was a terrible dog on the hardware back then (swapped frequently and locked-up often), but that experience taught me many workarounds and other "tricks"...and it's actually pretty pleasant to use now (but I can't get it to print through Win7--have to save and open in LO/OO if I need to print.)

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @04:56AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @04:56AM (#1002046)

    All the problems you describe are Microsoft problems, not the problem of software that follows a standard. If Microsoft's Word garbles lists and math, I just do not use it. Problem solved.

    Oh, I suppose you still need Word for games, eh?

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:07AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:07AM (#1002113)

      Yes, I agree these are primarily Microsoft problems. But since my customers (large companies) are MS shops, they become my problems too. Just pointing out that LO/OO are not as compatible with MS formats as some people like to think.

      The only game I play on Win7 is the original MS Solitaire (moved sol.exe over from an XP box).

      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday June 02 2020, @02:17PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 02 2020, @02:17PM (#1002177) Journal

        It is sad reality to have to use Microsoft products in business, and build products for customers using this wretched junk.

        MCSE: Minesweeper Consultant and Solitaire Expert

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Tuesday June 02 2020, @11:56AM (1 child)

    by Muad'Dave (1413) on Tuesday June 02 2020, @11:56AM (#1002138)

    I've had real issues with both OO and LO handling labels. In OO 4.1.7 (Mac version), simply choosing New / Labels results in the app abruptly abending. Just starting and trying to exit LO 5.3.5.2 results in a hang. Later versions somehow screw up the margins and formatting.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @05:00PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @05:00PM (#1002230)

      stop using EnslaveOS.

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @07:56PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @07:56PM (#1002310)

    When I want to exchange between Microsoft Word and Libreoffice I save as .doc. It works much better than .docx.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @07:02PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @07:02PM (#1002891)

    The change to Skia may have alleviated much of that. Cairo has been a clusterfuck for years, and I don't know if they were using it in LibreOffice all that time, but if they were it may have caused a lot of those display problems under non-standard use cases.

    If it turns out it did, please do reply back and let us know. Not many of us get to deal with complicated documents like that, so hearing feedback would be helpful :)