Nextcloud, Ionos and other partners are developing an open-source office suite under the project name „Euro-Office“ as an alternative to the market-dominant Microsoft Office.
The two partners are not starting from scratch, but have forked the components of OnlyOffice available as open-source code and want to build on them. In the summer, the software is then intended to replace the previous office component Collabora in Nextcloud and the Ionos Nextcloud Workspace. A ‘technical preview’ is already available on GitHub.
While this is a good news, I think they should move from github, you know microslop copilot…
Are there any actually good replacements for Excel? As an intermediate/advanced user, every alternative I’ve tried to date pales in comparison. I can’t see anyone in my industry switching away from MS because of this, as things currently stand.
May I suggest Python ?
By the time you get tits deep in Excel to the point where other spreadsheets can’t hack it, you may as well be using a real programming language instead of VBA…
If you can do advanced Excel, you can do Python (and numpy will crush Excel in ways that aren’t even funny, well OK, it’s funny too).
Is python realistic for non tech people? I have a lot of databases across sharepoint but no real tech knowledge beyond basics.
You won’t find any applicants for a secretary, HR, or accounting position if it requires knowledge of Python.
No, but for these OnlyOffice is a viable alternative. @surgarsweat was referring to way advanced features, not something secretaries or HR or accounting will need. I have use OnlyOffice for 6 years now, and have yet to find an Excel need it could not fulfill.
Nah man. Advanced is a relative term. Making formulas in a spreadsheet can be advanced vs just typing stuff in there to make easy layouts.
Perhaps you underestimate people.
I’ve done IT consulting work for a company that had switched to an open source software stack and were forced to go back to MS because they literally couldn’t fill necessary positions and it was threatening to kill the business.
And this was at a time where there was a surplus of applicants for every position. They just all noped out when they were told they’d have to learn to use different software.
I’ve worked for dozens of companies as MSP and now I’m leading the in-house IT of a company with 300 employees. The picture is the same everywhere: Most office workers have simply memorized the exact steps needed for their role. Take away the tools they’re used to and their productivity drops to zero, while IT support workload goes through the roof.
Yup, seen it too, sucked, don’t think it’s the way forward though. Europe seems to agree, should be enough momentum.
No, there isn’t.
I would love if there was, but beyond basic use cases, Excel is significantly ahead of the competition.
Probably more credibility if you actually give real, specific examples of what you cannot do on Libre Calc that you require?
I was able to duplicate a simple Excel spreadsheet in calc with functions and VBA. I’d love an example of what it can’t do.
Also, jobs that still require advanced usage of Excel with VBA pay well enough to have someone redo it in typescript or JavaScript.
I hear this argument a lot but no one ever gives details as to what common features excel has vs say libreoffice. I’m really curious, because i’d like to contribute free time in this direction.
What I always find missing in all these Excel vs. other spreadsheet software debates is the rationale for using a spreadsheet in the first place. I work a lot with large corporations, and it’s often the case that they can’t move away from Excel because, in the past, they relied on it to solve a process in a way that—at least today—could and should be handled better. Perhaps we should question the process more often and the Excel alternatives less.
As a data consultant, I would say those companies already do question the process, and have done for decades.
Yes there are countless situations where a dedicated system or database could and should replace Excel, but there are just as many scenarios where Excel is ideal, and swapping out a spreadsheet for what would be potentially tens of separate applications across the business, or one absurdly expensive behemoth, to perform tasks that could be done rapidly and clearly in Excel is neither practical nor economically viable for most companies. A spreadsheet is perfect for plenty of situations.
My job is literally to help these companies move to appropriate database solutions, often transitioning away from Excel. But there’s no getting around that a spreadsheet solves (often simple) problems that are impractical with other tools. You can move a company to a supplier’s sector-specific solution and solve huge numbers of issues, but unless that solution exactly meets every aspect of the business requirements, there’s always going to be a fallback and it’s often Excel, for better or worse.
The issue is that a lot of processes need to be understood by people who have no IT background. Your basic office drones need to be able to use it, enter data, and make changes. Every applicant in an office job will be relatively proficient in Excel.
If you move your process to another solution, the majority of your employees will have to be re-trained.
No actual arguments needed unfortunately. Lazyness, change resistance.
Format as table
I’m confused. Excel is a spreadsheet, that’s always in the form of a table.
Yep, single most important difference in my view and the reason I pay an Office subscription.
Its almost always that they’ve been following specific workflows or processes for the last n years and find that particular workflow isn’t directly supported in LO.
Power Query
I can only assume anyone still asking the question “is Excel really that much better than the alternatives?” lacks exposure to Power Query and its prevalence in business.
Years ago, one of my buddies tried to open a very long spreadsheet and Libreoffice couldn’t do it. I think the maximum row and columns reached parity in version 7. I think one more cosmetic feature that is missing is the easy to access table and chart style templates.
I only have one example and it’s not really a good one: 3-4 years ago I had one specific spreadsheet (that I got from the internet) which I used to help plan some stuff in a videogame I was playing. It had a table with a few hundred items with formulas that would iterate over those items many times.
Excel on the local machine could handle changes to that sheet instantly. Anything else I tried (including excel web) would take several seconds to change any value, sometimes even minutes.
It was probably some problem with the spreadsheet itself, but there was no other similar spreadsheet I could use so at the end of the day I had to use excel if I wanted to plan anything with that tool (but I ended up quitting the game within a few days)
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In what ways to they fail? I’ve used LibreOffice forever and don’t have any specific complaints, but I’m definitely not using any of the more advanced features.
I love and use LibreOffice, but I do find Calc much harder to work with than Excel. PivotTables, sortable lists with locked headings and sort-buttons, even simply setting print area were all harder for me to get used to and implement on Calc than Excel.
I persist because I like the goal of FOSS, and it’s “good enough” for my usage, I can definitely understand when people show frustrations - especially power users that have worked with MS Office for decades.
I really like Gnumeric. It can handle some large sheets and complex cases better than LibreOfficr Calc. But Calc is my daily driver.