Microsoft gives Windows 10 a name, throws folks a bone

An impending Windows 10 release, Azure playing nicely with Google, and a blast through BASIC in the browser. It's the Microsoft round-up. Windows 10 gets a new build and a new name As the next version of Windows 10 lumbered ever closer to the desktops of everyday users, Microsoft announced that it would be called (drum roll) “ …

[Updraft102]

LibreOffice only does a majority of what home users need?

I'd say it does a lot more than what nearly all home users need, and that it almost certainly does a majority of what office Office users need. Or are more than half of the features that a given Office user uses in a business setting missing?

[Mark 110]

You'll downvote me for this but Libreoffice is missing the key feature of having everything I need in the same menu location that it is in Office. Yeah I know - old, stuck in my ways .. . etc etc

[Nolveys]

You'll downvote me for this but Libreoffice is missing the key feature of having everything I need in the same menu location that it is in Office.

That went out the window for me once the ribbon came along.

I miss WordPerfect 5.1.

[BobChip]

Word Perfect 5.1

Remember the "Reveal Codes" feature? This allowed you to see exactly which text and formatting codes - features - were in use at any point in a document, and to edit or delete them if you wanted to. Never seen anything half as useful in any "modern" word processor. Dug me out of some horrible formatting holes in tables and forms, that did. I really miss it. WP 5.1 was pretty damn good really, even by today's standards. (I still have a copy, on 5 floppies....)

[cb7]

Re: Word Perfect 5.1

"WP 5.1 was pretty damn good really, even by today's standards. (I still have a copy, on 5 floppies...."

Better test those floppies, assuming you still have a machine with a floppy drive. They might have developed the odd (fatal) bad sector. Assuming of course your floppy drive still works...

Funny you should mention 'Reveal Codes'. Had a numpty user save their 2 page form they'd been working on for the last 2 days as a PDF from Word 2010. So far so good, except they then decided to delete the original Word source.

Still not the end of the world if that was the final version of the form. Except it never is, is it? And their disk is nearly full so previous version to recover. And no recent backup.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I offered to convert the PDF back to a Word .docx which Office 2013 and later can do.

It did a half decent job with only a few random extra carriage returns inserted in the odd table row.

And one extra large space in one row that I can't for the life of me figure out how to remove. Even after turning on Word's equivalent of 'Reveal Codes'

[Geoffrey W]

Re: Word Perfect 5.1

RE: ""Reveal Codes" feature"

Is that anything like the "View/Formatting Marks" option in LO? Sounds like it, and if LO does it I bet so does Office...

[GruntyMcPugh]

Re: Word Perfect 5.1

@BobChip: "Reveal codes"

I remember it well, as well as the 'print preview' which rendered a preview of what the document might look like,.... although back then we saved the print to a Postscript file, and had to ftp it to our VAX, and print it from there, as we didn't have any printers available directly to the LanManager (remember that? ) network.

I used to feel quite at home editing the codes, but then other formatting tools were such offerings as LaTeX, so if you'd cut your teeth on that, WP 5.1 doing most of it for you was a boon.

[Linker3000]

Re: for the cost of a tape to copy them to and delivery.

Meh!

Wordstar on CP/M is where it's at...

https://github.com/linker3000/Z80-Board

2nd last pic. (me a week ago)

[Rich 11]

I miss WordPerfect 5.1.

I miss WordStar 3.3.

(OK, maybe I don't miss it that much.)

[PNGuinn]

"That went out the window for me"

I see what you did there - have one of these!

[Steelted]

I have WordPerfect X9 (pirated) installed on my laptop. You want one?

[Bill_Sticker]

I have a legit copy. As a product far superior to all the versions of Word I've ever used. For home use OpenOffice is a reasonable replacement for anything MS ever produced. Exports to PDFs, reads more formats, I've even been able to access documents written on Macs. Who needs Word?

[steviebuk]

The ribbon annoyed me as well when it first came along. But then I sat and watched a "Promo" video from MS for it. Yeah obviously they were biased but she did present it in a way that made me see why it was good, useful and how it actually worked.

[tygrus.au]

How much of MS Office is actually needed?

My first computer had Borland Sprint 1.0, Printmaster Plus and GWBASIC. School assignments were completed with that plus: a 3 volume encyclopedia, Osbourne science books, School Project packs (poster folded up to half A4 from the newsagent); stencils; dictionary; thesaurus; cardboard and coloured pencils.

I can use more features than most but overall productivity has decreased over time as they change and bloat the software.

[kgbme]

AddinTools

@Nolveys You *do* know about "Classic Menu for Office" (32-bit and 64-bit), by AddinTools (https://www.addintools.com/office2010/professionalplus/index.html), don't you? o.0

... For example and there are also other ways to display the old-and-familiar menus.

[Zippy´s Sausage Factory]

You'll downvote me for this but Libreoffice is missing the key feature of having everything I need in the same menu location that it is in Office. Yeah I know - old, stuck in my ways .. . etc etc

I seem to recall it all moved around in Office about 10 years ago. I still haven't got used to that, but LibreOffice menus actually seem more sensibly ordered than that stupid Ribbon thing.

(Seriously, I'm against capital punishment, but in the case of the inventor of the "ribbon" I'd happily make an exception)

[JLV]

>the same menu location that it is in Office.

Menu? Office?

[Jedipadawan]

Huh?

>"You'll downvote me for this but Libreoffice is missing the key feature of having everything I need in the same menu location that it is in Office. "

????

Tools>Customise, configure menu and toolbars to suit.

And Libreoffice now comes with a ribbon as well though I avoid it.

Though... Office abandoned the Menu system for the ribbon in 2007 and then they patented it. So I assume you are mean the ribbon and then, while I do not know about whether the ribbon in Libreoffice can be customised, there is the problem of the Ribbon patent so I guess Libreoffice CANNOT reproduce the Office ribbon exactly.

But still, I, personally, would figure the cost benefit of learning a different system which can be user defined would beat paying for a system you can't define at all and forces you to pay again and again - either in forced upgrades or subscription, to carry out the same tasks as before (the ribbon and xml formats were developed to force people off Office 97 which gave the functionality everyone wanted and so Microsoft could not persuade people to upgrade... along with activation meaning forced paid for upgrades!) with the updates changing the ribbon requiring some degree of relearning anyway.

Libreoffice kinda stays the same... for good or for ill... so work out where the menu items are or use the shortcuts and you're set for life! Done me well for 8 years now and I used to work with ALL Microsoft products in a software house in the old country. Now I pride myself on being all Linux and it's saved a fortune on my micro business in SE Asia!

Oh, and KDE lets me configure everything the way I want as well.

I like customisation...

[Norman Nescio]

Re: Huh?

Though... Office abandoned the Menu system for the ribbon in 2007 and then they patented it. So I assume you are mean the ribbon and then, while I do not know about whether the ribbon in Libreoffice can be customised, there is the problem of the Ribbon patent so I guess Libreoffice CANNOT reproduce the Office ribbon exactly.

In sensible jurisdictions, software is not patentable. Copyrightable, yes, patentable, no.

The USA, since the 2014 Supreme Court decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, has effectively made software ineligible for patenting, under section 101 of the U.S. patent laws. This hasn't stopped lots of people still applying for software patents, and getting patents issued, but they will almost certainly be found ineligible on review, as will lots of previously issued patents. In principle software is not patentable in the EU, but that hasn't stopped the European Patent Office from issuing patents for software, even though their own web-pages make it clear that "a computer program claimed 'as such' is not a patentable invention".

India does not issue software patents. Section 3(k) of the Patent Act, 1970 lists "a mathematical or business method or a computer programme per se or algorithms" as 'Inventions Not Patentable".

Obviously, a great deal of lobbying goes on to get this changed, as making software patentable could be quite a money generator for some people. Whether LibreOffice falls foul of patent laws in your jurisdiction is only something you can determine.

[DropBear]

Re: Huh?

"In sensible jurisdictions, software is not patentable. Copyrightable, yes, patentable, no."

Please consider that design patents, which the MS Office ribbon seems to be, are actually a thing and differ from what people typically think of when patents get mentioned.

[Mark 110]

Re: Huh?

@ Jedipadawan

I did say i was being a grumpy old man when I posted it. Your answer - your suggestion that I need to spend a load of time re configuring Libre to match MS just makes me more grumpy. Would you rather I:

a. Spend some time with my friends family and some beer

b. Faff about with Office interfaces to save myself £40 a year (or something - can't be arsed to work it out - theres family friends and beer)

You choose?

[Ken 16]

WPS Office

I am more than happy with it, having used Open/Libre/Star/Symphony and Softmaker Offices in the past.

[The Vociferous Time Waster]

To be fair each new version of office seems to lack that feature.

[Timmy B]

It may do the majority but when a feature is needed that the other half needs then the whole thing may as well be useless.

[JBowler]

And there lies death

True and Office (I think I can still call it that, right, not MS Office?) believed (in so far as a group of individuals can believe) that the break point was 90%. If only 10% of users need (maybe 'want' these days) it (split infinitive, bloody hell, I can split anything) then if you try to provide it you will die.

Office, evidently, is still alive. I think it actually did 99%, but based on the comments on this thread it was apparently 101%.

Free stuff whacks out at 50%, like you suggested.

John Bowler

[Anonymous Coward]

"LibreOffice only does a majority of what home users need"

As long as you don't need full Office compatibility without issues, especially when files are created by others.

BTW, now the Personal edition will allow, starting from October, to install on more than two devices, and be logged in on five simultaneously. With the Personal you can't still share it with other users, but you can work on multiple devices at the same time.

[elgarak1]

Re: "LibreOffice only does a majority of what home users need"

That's the point: I am a one-user business. I would only need Word (as a desktop app) to check for compatibility. I do not need or want any of the file sharing or cloud crap. I want my files to be save, and not data mined by the app.

MS sells Word as a stand-alone app, albeit hidden within its online store (you'll have to specifically search for it.) It's €135 as a one-time-payment. That's easily the most expensive general usage word processing app I can get for the Mac, and I still do not know if it data mines or not (Microsoft's web store is notoriously short of information there, and directs you to a Personal Office 365 as alternative which officially data mines. And the stand-alone version _still_ needs a MS account, and I cannot see why I would need to do that.)

Otherwise, I would need an Office 365 Business Plan, which is €106 _per year_. Better yet, an Office 365 Deutschland (yes, that's right. Data kept _in_ Germany, under German law. Removes some components of Office, though. Interesting what Microsoft has to provide...) Last I checked, €135 per year... But they changed the web page, and do not sell or tell prices anymore, as far as I can see. You have to call and talk to a distributor. It still includes crap I really do not want or need.

In short, Microsoft is the crappiest software supplier for my type of business.

[theunregistered]

Re: "LibreOffice only does a majority of what home users need"

Just buy a business licence on ebay for office 2016 for couple of dollars...

[N2]

Re: "LibreOffice only does a majority of what home users need"

'In short, Microsoft is the crappiest software supplier for my type of business.'

I would say: In short, Microsoft is the crappiest and most expensive software supplier for my type of business.

[a_yank_lurker]

Re: "LibreOffice only does a majority of what home users need"

Slurp's Orifice has compatibility problems between version so complaining about someone else's problems is a bit of a cheap shot.

[Anonymous Coward]

LibreOffice has more Import / Export PDF handling options than Office - True or False???

PDF refuses to die, yet most of us don't have an 'authoring' version. Anyone still using PDF995 to fill in the gap?... Overall LO comes pre-installed with Mint, what's not to like! LO also offers a buggy but usable Android version to open docs on the go etc...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Slurp's Orifice has compatibility problems between version"

Which ones? Actually unless you're using very old versions, there are no compatibility issues - I've worked with various version from 2007 to 2016 without issues.

While complex documents may not open and work correctly in LibreOffice, sorry. If you don't care about compatibility LibreOffice is perfectly fine for home users.

Users that may need to work with Office documents from work may not be that lucky, and the last thing you want is to fight against compatibility issues in both directions, especially when you have no time for it.

[a_yank_lurker]

Re: "Slurp's Orifice has compatibility problems between version"

Orifice 2013 and 2018 always mess the layout of an elderly document we use every day work that is in the older .'doc' format if you save as a .docx format or any template derived from the elderly document. Given the original document is a controlled document it is not going to be updated anytime soon.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: "LibreOffice only does a majority of what home users need"

"Slurp's Orifice has compatibility problems between version so complaining about someone else's problems is a bit of a cheap shot."

I must admit to not really using MS Office in anger much at all over recent years but is it still the case that it takes MS about a year to bring out compatibility modules for backwards compatibility? Or is the shift to O365 a one time only deal and will always be constantly updated without warning like Win10? Can O365 open Office 95/97/2003 documents without error?

[Jakester]

Re: "LibreOffice only does a majority of what home users need"

Don't know how good O365 is at reading old Office 95/97/2003, but Office 2007 and 2010 really screwed up a few documents that I was able to fix with Libre Office (I tried to fix with MS Office first, but shouldn't have wasted the time I did and just gone to Libre Office).

[Peter2]

Or are more than half of the features that a given Office user uses in a business setting missing?

The only feature missing is the ability to perfectly impersonate word/excel through whatever interface is used to programmatically create documents from an external program. (ie, business CRM systems, etc)

[Donn Bly]

Java

Last time I looked LibreOffice still required Java. There is no way that I am going to allow the Java runtime and all of its security holes on my home machines - Just like I don't allow Flash and Acrobat.

I don't know the current percentage, but I banned them when those apps combined hit 90% of all commonly-used infection vectors. I mean, think about, Java is worse than IE....

[Steve Foster]

Re: Java

I'm using LO, and do not have Java on my machine. *Some* functionality in LO requires Java, but I don't install or use those bits.

[Jedipadawan]

Re: Java

>"Last time I looked LibreOffice still required Java. "

I can't find a link at this time but I recall the Java dependencies being removed some time back when LO was virtually rewritten somewhere alone the version 4 branch. Some functionality still requires a Java machine but Java is DISABLED by default in most rendering.. experience may vary if using Linux, I believe.

Don't do Windows so can't run up LO for Windows to check on that.

I have found a link on the current status of Java dependency in LO and it seems very little:

https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/18322/is-there-any-plan-to-ditch-java-in-the-future-and-use-only-cc-code/

[wallaby]

Re: Java

"I have found a link on the current status of Java dependency in LO and it seems very little"

"Very little" - so it does

[Donn Bly]

Re: Java

Thank you, I was unaware that the Java requirements had been refactored out. The dependencies on Java were the reason I stopped using Open Office years ago and stopped following its forks and development. Looking now it appears that it is only required by the database and related functionality such as mail merge.

[Jakester]

Re: Java

Java is required for Base in Libre Office. I don't use Base in Libre Office and I don't have Java installed, but I use Word and Calc often and have no problems. There are probably some features that may require Java, but I haven't run across them. I will not use Oracle's Java willingly on any computer because of their decision to require purchase of a license in a business environment (home use licensing to follow???).

I prefer Libre Office over Microsoft Office because when I get a call for support from Microsoft Office users where they can't open a spreadsheet or other document or formatting is wonky, I have always been able to open in Libre Office, fix the problem, and save the file so Microsoft Office will open it. Formatting isn't perfect going from Libre Office to Microsoft Office and vice-versa, but it is pretty good. I also use Libre Office in my preferred OS, Ubuntu. Because there is also a Mac version of Libre Office that is the same as the Windows version, there is more consistency in a mixed OS environment, although I personally don't use a Mac.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: Java

There is no way that I am going to allow the Java runtime and all of its security holes on my home machines - Just like I don't allow Flash and Acrobat.

You don't get "security holes" by installing the JRE just like that, you know.

[Donn Bly]

Re: Java

Wow, already 11 thumbs down because I don't want to make my OS which is already riddles with security holes any worse by voluntarily installing Flash, Acrobat, and Oracle's Java runtime? I didn't realize that there were so many malware writers hanging out in these forums.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no market for free software

I'm no great fan of MS Office but for goodness sake, you get an annual license for about the cost of a tank of petrol and in the unfortunate event of having to use it at work at least you'll be good at it! Add to that the 1TB of OneDrive they throw in and I can think of better things to do with my time than root around for free alternatives. Incidentally, it took them long enough to get it right, but OneDrive is brilliant now if set up sensibly, so the terabyte is genuinely useful.

[Geoffrey W]

Re: There is no market for free software

Oh, for heavens sake! You just had this argument only last week and here you all are again. Haven't you homes to go to?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: There is no market for free software

My apologies, it wasn't me last week but point taken. I will not even start on Linux v Windows, ever!

[wallaby]

Re: There is no market for free software

"My apologies, it wasn't me last week but point taken. I will not even start on Linux v Windows, ever!"

wish the penguinistas would take that view

[veti]

Libre Office is OK, but let's not pretend you can just slot it in to an office's install image in place of MS Office and expect it to work. That will not work.

MS has been to a lot of trouble to make Office customisable. What with styles and templates and formulas and macros, you don't even know *what* anyone else's install is capable of. And then there are a shedload of third-party tools that integrate with Office - again, you can't simply point those at Libre instead and expect anything but total chaos.

It's just not the same thing, and you're not doing anyone favours by pretending it is.

[Gene Cash]

LibreOffice - printing?

Being able to print LibreOffice documents in Linux would be nice, instead of having to fire up Windows in VirtualBox.

I have a Postscript printer, and still it chokes.

[Pat Att]

LibreOffice doesn't quite cut it

For home use, and lots of business uses I'm sure it's fine. When I started my own business 4 years ago I tried to use it. I had to give that up because my business involves sending lots of documents to people where they need to be in a particular format. Things like page numbering and line numbering were a real pain to do, and I got calls saying things were going wrong at their end.

Sadly it was just easier to bite the bullet and buy Word.

[Bitbeisser]

Re: LibreOffice doesn't quite cut it

Ever I started to work on my own, I am personally use LibreOffice exclusively and never had just one case where I looked back. It does EVERYTHING I need, and a lot of things that does it better than the equivalent M$ Office product. Much less grey hair since I am using Impress instead of Powerpoint, likewise with Calc instead of Excel and Writer instead of Word. LO is not perfect, then no office suite is, but it definitely works for everyone, if they just get off their high horse (and out of M$ backside) and try it...

[PNGuinn]

LibreOffice only does a majority of what home users need?

Clippy?

[Chronos]

Crashy McCrashface?

More like Snoopy McSpyface. Actually, why don't they just ask for permission to use Mr Schulz' beagle as their mascot?

[TRT]

Re: Crashy McCrashface?

If you're going down the Schulz route, my favourite is Linus.

[Chronos]

Re: Crashy McCrashface?

Ah yes, blanket surveillance :-)

[bombastic bob]

Re: Crashy McCrashface?

I was thinking Flatty McFlatFace

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Crashy McCrashface?

Shitty McShitface.

[MJB7]

Re: LibreOffice

I use both LibreOffice and MS Office. LO is OK, but in my view it's definitely not as user-friendly as MSO (and I'm a bit of a power user). Whether the difference is worth the cost? For a business - probably.

[Korev]

Coming in at a gnat’s whisker under $100 per year, the subscription represents excellent value when compared to an equivalent perpetual licence purchase (in the short term at least.) When stacked up against something like LibreOffice which, frankly, does the majority of what a Home user needs, that value proposition is a little more whiffy.

Or you could look at it from the point of view that you get a free Office subscription for roughly the cost of Dropbox Plus.

[elgarak1]

I do not need DropBox Plus, nor OneDrive.

Currently, the only thing I would need is Word as a desktop app, and for that it's really way too much cash (besides, the terms and conditions MS has on the Personal, Home, and Student editions of Office are downright horrible.)

Luckily, I'm using a Mac, and there are alternatives like Nisus Writer (€20 for basic, €80 for pro, no subscription) or Mellel (€50, also a one time). On Windows, you are effectively stuck with LO, which really is not an improvement except in price.

[AMBxx]

>> I do not need DropBox Plus, nor OneDrive.

Then don't buy it!

I use Office 365 extensively with OneDrive as part of MS Partner Pack. If I had to leave the Partner Program and drop back to a personal licence, I certainly would. Just a pain you can't increase the storage beyond 1TB.

This stuff isn't difficult. If you want it, buy it. If you don't, buy something else. Just stop shouting about your preference as if it's the only valid choice for everyone.

[elgarak1]

Re: >> I do not need DropBox Plus, nor OneDrive.

Here's the problem: *Word is unavoidable.*

If you work as a freelancer in certain type of text-related business (novel writer, translator, editor, proof-reader etc.) you are expected to send and receive Word files.

The receiving end is no problem. If I get a Word file, I'll open it with something. It's usually good enough... there are minor issues, but I can live with them, work with them, or correct them.

The problem are the people on the other side who cannot live with, work with, or correct the minor issues. So I need Word, and only Word, and only as a desktop app, and only to check how the files I _send_ will show up at the other people's end.

There's the stand-alone Word for €135 one time (effectively every three years or so.) The next most expensive word processor for the Mac is Nisus Writer Pro for €80 (about as powerful, but _much_ nicer to use... except for the file sharing issues...) Still, MS does not bother to give you a legalese on the licensing there. They don't even tell you if it's "licensed for commercial use", as they do on the Office 365 subscription. And yes, if you need it for paying work, that _is_ an issue.

[Anonymous Coward]

"people on the other side who cannot live with, work with, or correct the minor issues"

That's often, because the people on the other side are in a one-to-many relationship, and if you receive one or a few Word files, they could receive files from many different people, and the time to correct "minor issues" in each of them becomes too large, so it's obvious they'll set a standard people have to follow, especially if they are those the money come from....

[bombastic bob]

Re: >> I do not need DropBox Plus, nor OneDrive.

"The problem are the people on the other side who cannot live with, work with, or correct the minor issues"

yeah, those other people need to get Libre Office and quit whining about it. Not like it would cost them anything...

[elgarak1]

Re: >> I do not need DropBox Plus, nor OneDrive.

It's the other way round: *I* am forced to use Word. I would not, if Microsoft could be bothered to properly support a properly documented file format. Then no one would need to use a single program – everyone could use whatever the hell they wanted. But MS actively sabotages that by not properly supporting such a format, and not fully documenting their own (despite the fact that they managed to get a ISO 9001 certificate on said file format).

Over on the graphics design side it works a helluva lot better. There are properly documented file formats supported by multiple applications that people can choose from, and the workers with those applications know that and where issues can arise and know how to avoid them, and how to deal with them if they are there, on both sides of an exchange.

[Anonymous Coward]

"yeah, those other people need to get Libre Office"

Those other people often can't choose what software they use (and also don't pay for it), and often the same software is part of a complex workflows that can't be broken, because fixing it would be far more expensive than some copies of Office.

The problem, as usual, are people who think their little world is alike the broader one... and they are the only ones whining about Office. The others uses it happily, have their work done without issues, and then go home spending their time happily instead of spending their life on forums telling people to use Linux or LibreOffice....

[Jedipadawan]

Re: >> I do not need DropBox Plus, nor OneDrive.

>"So I need Word, and only Word, and only as a desktop app, and only to check how the files I _send_ will show up at the other people's end."

If I may say here, obviously there is always the special case. I mean, the Mac users who go on and on and on about Photoshop and how Linux, say, is crud because it does not have Photoshop, Photoshop, Photoshop...

But 98.86473% of users do not need anything like the power of Photoshop for their needs. But I know from painful experience that the Graphical artists working on Mac will INSIST that everyone does, indeed, need Photoshop. [I'm not accusing you of that, BTW, just giving the comparison. A lot of Mac users assume the entire population of the world are graphical artists. It's kinda weird.]

Yes, in your use case it's Office. End of story. I can understand that. Ditto that Graphical artists needs Photoshop. It's a given because of the history of the industries and the software that was standarised upon long ago.

But, contrary to popular opinion, the exception does not make the rule. Are the vast majority of businesses, leave alone users, using Office Macros to death? No. Yes, I lot of companies do but worldwide, and across multiple industries... no. We did not even use Office macros in the software house I was in back in the old country. Average user does not deal in complex documents or needing back and forth editing. If I really, really need to preserve formatting, I send as PDF. My students are also having to use Google Docs a lot for back and forth editing so Word does not come into the equation.

The niches do not determine overall usability or price/performance. I grant that Impress is lacking on Office regarding multi-media support - not that I do slideshows anymore - but other than that I find LO does far more than not only do I need, my business needs but every user I know here personally.

So, yeah, you gotta use Word. But the rest of the world...? Those running macros developed over the course of ten years; yes. But it kinda narrows down after that.

[Richard Plinston]

> On Windows, you are effectively stuck with LO, which really is not an improvement except in price.

Let Google be your friend:

"""The best free office software 2018

LibreOffice. Everything you could want from an office suite, fully compatible with Microsoft formats and totally free to use – even commercially. ...

Google Docs, Sheets and Slides. ...

Microsoft Office Online. ...

WPS Office Free. ...

Polaris Office. ...

SoftMaker FreeOffice. ...

Open365. ...

Zoho Workplace.

"""

[cambsukguy]

No, you get up to six Office subscriptions, all you need is someone to give them too, children, spouses, significant others etc.

Or does Dropbox plus also allow six separate users of a single account.

And, surely, for a non-business user, isn't 1TB enough? Video addicts/hobbyists or folks who have DLSRs and just have to keep everything in RAW excepted I suppose.

[Tom 38]

No, you get up to six Office subscriptions, all you need is someone to give them too, children, spouses, significant others etc.

Would be nicer if they cut the price to $16.67 per user per year and then let us decide how many licenses we need. How does that conversation go anyway, "Great news Timmy, MS have given us an extra license so you no longer have to feel like we love the other 3 more than you any more (but we do.)"

[JDX]

Would be nicer if they cut the price to $16.67 per user per year

They do a single-user version. It's £60 IIRC per year, as opposed to £80 or £90 for the 5 user version (I forget the exact price).

So it's more like you pay £50 for a home installation, then £10 per user on top. Of course, a single license is often enough for a family to share because you typically don't all want to use Word at once.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Video addicts/hobbyists or folks who have DLSRs"

I think it's more pirates who downloaded the hell from everywhere, and trying to backup it to the cloud for free or almost... like they did use GMail as storage before.

Heavy photo/video users are probably using a DAS/NAS and specific cloud backup offers, when needed, as they need something more reliable than services that could cut your storage at will.

RAW is the only real option to store photos, 16-bit TIFFs are not usually smaller and already lost full sensor data, and JPEGs will lose too much useful data - it's just an output format for display.

[Alien8n]

Re: "Video addicts/hobbyists or folks who have DLSRs"

Hitting the nail on the head there, always store in RAW. For your average hobbyist JPG may suffice if you don't want to do any editing of the photo, or if you use Photoshop for editing, but for serious photographers it must be RAW and something that like Lightroom for editing. 1TB might be a bit limited though, I do about 1TB a year with 20Mb RAW files. The newest cameras are 50Mb + per file.

[Jedipadawan]

>"When stacked up against something like LibreOffice which, frankly, does the majority of what a Home user needs, that value proposition is a little more whiffy."

Doubly so when you live in a country where the mean income is around $300 a month.

And, if I may add, once you go Office you're going Windows or the even more expensive Mac. Windows requires shed loads more resource to run than Linux whilst charging you to play. Which means you need to pay for Windows and office AND pay for half decent hardware run at anything like any speed at all. Given my business needs multiple laptops running at nearly all times, the costs for hardware alone with going Microsoft would beggar me in a country where the cost to income ration of hardware is MUCH higher than the US or UK!

As it stands, I have ended up standardising on the cheapest of the cheap dual core atom/celerons with 2GB or RAM and 500GB HD - er, upgraded my going on 5 year old Atom n2840 netbook to 1TB JUST before the old HD died from overuse - running Neon KDE with Libreoffice. All works a charm! I even have a half basked University student assembled single core n455 atom running the above and it still serves a purpose!

Windows + Office, forget the software costs.. the hardware would cripple me financially here!

I grant, my business does not require macros of reading in massively complex Office docs but most small businesses do not operate with such either. It's the tech firms or corps that have invested in such and can't get out. See COBOL in banking.

For me, Microsoft is just a non-starter. But I can afford to live in a three bedroom house here when it was a flat in the UK, with my wife working with me as a first line manager in a tech company!

[Giovani Tapini]

You have just defined why Microsoft still makes so much revenue

You only forgot that everying becoming "as-a-service" means that they can leach you continuously rather than keeping old versions running in perpetuity paid for only once.

Its the, er, Microsoft Industrial Complex in action...

[Anonymous Coward]

Took a look at small basic...

... lot's of goto-s. Not what I would want to teach new programmers.

[bombastic bob]

use of 'goto'

FYI - 'goto' is a legitimate way to program although it should be used (mostly) for things *like* error cleanup [see lots of Linux kernel modules for examples - 'error_exit' and similar labels].

In the world of userland-only coding, you can afford to be snobby about 'never use goto'. In the kernel world, you use it because it works better. Just pointing that one out, for those who don't know.

[JBowler]

Re: use of 'goto'

It's a necessary techinque in a deficient language.

An error exit is an exceptional condition and, given that language designers haven't yet found a way to prevent exceptional conditions being written, exceptions are the way to deal with that. "goto error_exit;" is a sad C epitaph.

Once or twice I've felt I needed to use goto in C, but I've spent all my life rewriting more famous people's brown stuff.

This is only a comment on your own response; basic is fundamentally steampunk and I completely get that. Of course basic can have exceptions as well; it's an interpreter.

John Bowler

[John F***ing Stepp]

Re: use of 'goto'

In school (a iong time ago) goto was concidered a no no in COBOL, while I agreed in principal I made the comment that we could do without the if then statement if we wanted to. Being called on that, I wrote the next semester's programs without if then statements. Not easy but worth it when my instuctor had to wade through 24 pages of flow chart per program.

(also made the line printer play the rumba as a side affect)

[Richard Plinston]

Re: use of 'goto'

> It's a necessary techinque in a deficient language.

The problem with goto isn't the goto itself, that is perfectly clear what happens.

The problem is that goto requires a label as its target. When you are analysing code and you find a label then the flow of control can now be arbitrary. Control can pop into existence at the label from almost anywhere and it will take a comprehensive search and examination in order to find all the points that may launch to that label.

At least with C the label can only be accessed from within the current procedure unless particularly nasty coding is used.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: use of 'goto'

In the kernel world, you use it because it works better.

No. Because ancient language + ancient tradition -> druidic traditions that should have been flushed long ago.

[Dan 55]

Re: use of 'goto'

No. Because ancient language + ancient tradition -> druidic traditions that should have been flushed long ago.

Nest 5-6-7 ifs to avoid goto if you must, but I won't buy a kernel from you.

[JDX]

It's BASIC. BASIC uses GOTO.

[Dan 55]

GO TO has its place. Especially in most versions of BASIC...

But what I was going to say was WTF have MS done to the PRINT command.

[Simon Harris]

"But what I was going to say was WTF have MS done to the PRINT command."

And EndFor? What's going on there? If this is supposed to be BASIC, the correct word is NEXT.

[tony72]

With the Lenovo Explorer now down to $132 (from an original $349) ...

I'd buy a set at that price, but sadly the Atlantic price divide seems to be in overdrive here, they are still £380 (~$490) on this side of the pond, on Amazon at least.

[cambsukguy]

Re: With the Lenovo Explorer now down to $132 (from an original $349) ...

And postage from a US supplier is? Even with VAT added it sounds like a lot less.

[Rob E]

Re: With the Lenovo Explorer now down to $132 (from an original $349) ...

I'd also like to know where they can be had for $132

Seems to be still pricey in the states as well. Maybe a typo on the price?

[WallMeerkat]

In your code snippet I would rename the loop counter 'i' as the 'l' looks to similar to '1'

[JDX]

It's the standard loop increment var surely. i, j, k is very widely used. Perhaps choose a different font or rely on the tool to tell you it's not valid (no idea what options their tool has)

[Dan 55]

ii, jj, kk if you must.

That way you can search and replace.

[JDX]

re:ii, jj, kk if you must.

>That way you can search and replace.

If your loop is big enough you need to search-replace that's probably a code-smell in a language which supports subroutines/methods/functions.

[Loud Speaker]

Because I, J, K, L, M, O and P, and any variable with a name beginning with those, is an integer in Fortran, and we all learned Fortran in College before BASIC was invented.

[Norman Nescio]

Re: Implicit typing of variables

Because I, J, K, L, M, O and P, and any variable with a name beginning with those, is an integer in Fortran, and we all learned Fortran in College before BASIC was invented.

I gave you an upvote, but FORTRAN implicit variable name rules were that variables starting with I-N were integers, everything else, reals, unless, of course, you declared IMPLICIT NONE at the start.

The problem with implicit typing of variables is that if you misspell a variable name, it won't be caught by a compiler, so you can get quite subtle errors. As FORTRAN is case insensitive in the source, you can inadvertently substitute a lower-case L for a capital i and <vice versa>, so a variable named "loopcounter" can be confused with "Ioopcounter". If you couple this with the undefined value of an uninitialised variable - some systems set such undeclared variables to zero, others provide you with any old junk, you can get some pretty nasty behaviour.

I've had to debug some pretty gnarly FORTRAN code in my time. Modern tools make this easier, but a lot of code used in academia is not written by expert programmers, but by experts in whatever field that happened to need to do some data processing. FORTRAN made it easy to write code, but unfortunately left the door open to writing nearly unmaintainable bad code.

[Someone Else]

You can write FORTRAN in any language!

See title above.

[Czrly]

What's this Silverlight thing?

I navigated over to the SmallBasic landing page out of nostalgia for all those things I made in gwbasic, a... while... ago. Sadly, it needs something called Silverlight to run and I couldn't be arsed. Is that like Shockwave Flash or something?

In an era where complete emulators for entire processor architectures can be implemented in pure JavaScript, complete with VGA-compatible graphics adaptors and SoudBlaster 16 cards, this SmallBasic thing comes across as minimum-effort by relying on Silverlight -- a technology that should have been exposed at birth and is certainly dead by now, surely.

EDIT: Some of it does appear to run without Silverlight.

[Teiwaz]

Re: What's this Silverlight thing?

Ah, Silverlight, even it's mommy disowned it before everyone else.

[Kubla Cant]

Re: What's this Silverlight thing?

In an era where complete emulators for entire processor architectures can be implemented in pure JavaScript...

But SmallBasic presumably runs in a different era.

[JDX]

Re: What's this Silverlight thing?

Silverlight was like a better version of Flash that arrived as everyone was starting to decide Flash was a bad idea. As a developer it was pretty neat because you could write .Net code that got run in the browser and get more code re-use client/server, as a user it was one more plugin to install.

Netflix used to use it because I think it had more security than Flash, when Netflix dumped browser plugins that was probably about the end for SL.

[K.o.R]

Re: What's this Silverlight thing?

On a related note, I've recently had to deal with people sending me proofs of payment... as XPS files. Which would be fine except none of the Windows 10 apps can read the damn things anymore.

Whoever decided that deprecated apps (Reader) are going to be unable to work at all ("Reader is no longer supported. Go screw yourself."), rather than just no longer updated needs shooting with something very pointy.

I have to send them to our one remaining W7 machine to convert them to PDF.

[Norman Nescio]

Re: What's this Silverlight thing?

On a related note, I've recently had to deal with people sending me proofs of payment... as XPS files. Which would be fine except none of the Windows 10 apps can read the damn things anymore.

Whoever decided that deprecated apps (Reader) are going to be unable to work at all ("Reader is no longer supported. Go screw yourself."), rather than just no longer updated needs shooting with something very pointy.

I have to send them to our one remaining W7 machine to convert them to PDF.

XPS files are a Microsoft equivalent of PDF files, and are not intended to be editable, so it's not in LibreOffice's primary mission to 'edit the uneditable' - however, all is not lost, there are several third party document viewer applications that will accept xps and oxps files. The Third Party Support section of the Wikipedia article gives a list. The ones for Linux platforms should be able to read the XPS and OXPS documents sent to you.

However, this guide: How to access XPS Viewer in the Windows 10 April 2018 Update might solve your problem without resorting to third party software if you are using Windows 10.

[K.o.R]

Re: What's this Silverlight thing?

@Norman: Ah, yes I had seen that, but I ran into a different issue because WSUS doesn't seem to like letting me add features in that way (see also: JP IME dictionaries and such). I'll give it another go though, as I may have solved that but forgotten that it was applicable to this issue too.

(Unless they've updated it, I still need to go through a PDF printer to make XPS into PDF though. Oy.)

(My comment was referring to how Silverlight is to Flash as XPS is to PDF, not why LO can't open them; I hadn't even considered trying that)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What's this Silverlight thing?

Silverlight was like a better version of Flash

If you want to be a revisionist and still garner upvotes, probably best to try talking about Trump and the Republican Party instead.

[JDX]

Re: What's this Silverlight thing?

I'm talking as someone who was full-time developing for Flex at the time and did some work with SL.

SL was unpopular IIRC partly because it had strong DRM built in, and most El Reg users dislike anything that makes stealing other's work harder, citing "freedom".

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10 Names

If you'd only asked, I could have provided a wide selection of potential Windows 10 names, many of which feature only 4 letters.

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously...

I making a point of immediately binning any CVs submitted as a .odt file, the last thing we need are hippy's and Linux fanbois!

[Teiwaz]

Re: Obviously...

I making a point of immediately binning any CVs submitted as a .odt file, the last thing we need are hippy's and Linux fanbois!

Idiot. Everyone knows Linux Fanbois would be using LaTeX

[doublelayer]

Re: Obviously...

LibreOffice can save just fine as word or PDF, so it can be hard to determine if someone's using that. Of course, complex stuff that docx files support might not be perfect if LibreOffice saves them, but experience tells me that the same type of chaos can be created just by saving a file in one version of word and opening it in another. Simple things like CVs will be fine.

The major problem I've seen with getting some people to use LibreOffice is that people used to excel won't take to calc. A lot of excel stuff doesn't work at all. Normally, that's probably fine, but if the people you're trying to convince worked in finance of any type, they will be grumpy and unhelpful. If you try to convince them to leave excel behind, this gets worse.

[Chronos]

Re: Obviously...

A lot of excel stuff doesn't work at all.

Indeed. It usually goes like this:

"This has a pivot table in it."

"Why did you need to use a pivot table? Was selecting a subset of cells for that line graph too difficult?"

"..."

Because they know "I wanted to be able to say 'pivot table' in meetings" isn't a good reason.

[Norman Nescio]

Re: Obviously...

I making a point of immediately binning any CVs submitted as a .odt file, the last thing we need are hippy's and Linux fanbois!

Idiot. Everyone knows Linux Fanbois would be using LaTeX

The bearded sandal wearers from the old days of UNIX (I am one) would use troff.

.

..

...

....

.....

......

.......

........

It is not easy to find bearded sandals.

[Waseem Alkurdi]

Re: Obviously...

It is not easy to find bearded sandals.

Done:

http://fashionthirsty.com/amazon/SY819_FTB0.jpg

[bombastic bob]

Re: Obviously...

"I making a point of immediately binning any CVs submitted as a .odt file"

That's why smart people submit PDFs instead, to get past the H.R. weenies and middle managers who think 'that way'.

Besides, who'd *WANT* to work for a snooty anal-retentive person that throws out a resumé simply because it's in an open source format? Or, worse, a company that HIRES such people in the H.R. department? [H.R. is the worst part of working on-site for any medium to large company - it's like they live to justify their own existence or something, nearly as bad as OUTSOURCED H.R.]

Fortunately, at this time, it's a "seller's market" (edit, I'd said 'buyer' but it's really 'seller') for employment opportunities, at least in the USA. It's pretty 'great'. [yeah I _did_ mean that, actually] So go ahead and toss my resumé so I don't hear back from ya!

[Loud Speaker]

Re: Obviously...

resumé simply because it's in an open source ISO standard format?

Or, why would you submit your resumé in a format that can be edited by someone at the recipient end?

[Handel was a crank]

Re: Obviously...

That's ok, we don't want to work for someone that can't pluralise a simple word such as "hippy".

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Obviously...

Nor for someone who can't write any of the three forms of the present tense of the verb 'make'.

[Jedipadawan]

Re: Obviously...

>"I making a point of immediately binning any CVs submitted as a .odt file, the last thing we need are hippy's and Linux fanbois!"

Dunno if that's a joke or not but shall we say that I'm now very glad to be running my own business my own way and it's all Linux and very nicely everything runs too.

[Simon Harris]

Re: Obviously...

From the misplaced apostrophe I assume you are in charge of recruitment for a grocery store.

[fraunthall]

Re: Obviously...totally uncalled for

Try being a bit less arrogant. People will like you better.

[Steve Davies 3]

May I humbly suggest...

that we call Windows

"Abandon hope all ye who enter here"

or

"There be trouble ahead!"

Or words to that effect...

[herman]

Re: May I humbly suggest...

Here, there be dragons.

[bombastic bob]

Re: May I humbly suggest...

but I like dragons... I don't like Win-10-nic.

How about 'icebergs ahead' ?

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: May I humbly suggest...

"How about 'icebergs ahead' ?"

Is that the name of the version of Windows that runs on Itanic CPUs?

[TRT]

Windows 10...

Novichok Release.

[a_yank_lurker]

Re: Windows 10...

or Upchuck Release?

[DJV]

"codebase will have enjoyed more focus on quality and polish"

Ha ha! Did you type that with a straight face?

[ivan5]

Re: "codebase will have enjoyed more focus on quality and polish"

Can't be true as you can't polish a turd, only roll it in sprinkles.

[Richard Crossley]

Re: only roll it in sprinkles.

Icon, because you earned it with that comment.

Thanks for the laugh after a hard day.

[DJV]

Re: only roll it in sprinkles.

I see that 3 (so far) of Microsoft's shills are doing the downvote rounds!

[Pen-y-gors]

Cheap Office

Neatly side-stepping the usual civil war, for those who really want/need Office or bits thereof, the best deal is the academic licence. It's under £100 for four years, and includes Access. Basically you just need to be a student (sign up for a cheap evening class?) - obviously you wouldn't dream of doing this for business use.

[Boris the Cockroach]

Looking at el-regs

coding skills.

There are plenty of opportunities for you in coding the next craptia delivered government IT project...

Joke icon............... but I dont think its a joke....

[Waseem Alkurdi]

Small Basic

The language, aimed at inflicting BASIC on students

No. Not even close.

I've used Small Basic back in school days. It's more like dumbed-down Visual Basic ... but certainly not even close to a BASIC dialect (compare it with Microsoft's own QBASIC).

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Small Basic

"I've used Small Basic back in school days. It's more like dumbed-down Visual Basic ... but certainly not even close to a BASIC dialect (compare it with Microsoft's own QBASIC)."

QBASIC was a massive extended and basterdised version of Dartmouth BASIC. ALmost every version of BASIC most people have seen was extended in some way to accommodate the new features found on the hardware, especially back in the days of 8-bit computing. There was a fairly generic MSBASIC + compiler on CP/M.

[Simon Harris]

Re: Small Basic

I used BASIC on a PDP8e back in my school days. That one was much closer to Dartmouth BASIC.

For a more traditional PC BASIC experience than QBASIC, there's GW-BASIC - extended to make use of PC hardware, but syntactically closer to the spirit of the original. You will, of course, need a DOS emulator to run it now.

[Someone Else]

Re: Small Basic

Upvoted for the PDP-8 reference, and the fact that you apparently knew the difference between PDP-8 BASIC, and FOCAL.

[Anonymous Coward]

New name !

Remember Gordon Ramsay's "Shit in a bag" rant ?

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Thanks for the nostalgia

I had that book, except it was written for (mostly British) 8-bit micros from the early 80s, while I had a 386. The programs never left the pages, sadly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Small is still beautiful

It sure is.

The DISM command line can work wonders in achieving this.

They should'a named it Windows Telemetry Edition.

[ecofeco]

"Higher and Deeper"

Now THAT would have been the more correct name.

[Mark 85]

So given all the uproar over Office (again), I guess I shouldn't upgrade from Office 2010? Not used much unless someone insists on getting a Word document.

Then again, I always preferred Word Perfect but that horse is pretty much dead and MS Works still handles a lot of my needs but not all. I'm sure that at some point, I'll get sucked into a massive upgrade to the latest and greatest (tongue in cheek) Office to be "compatible". The days of :buy it, own it, and it just works" are long over.

[Solarflare]

If you are willing to go on a very popular auction and general tat website with only 4 letters in its name, you can find an Office 2016 Professional license for about £5.

[Aspie73]

I had the book that's in the image at the start of the article!!

It's how my programming career began, aged 10.

[Nosher]

That's not real BASIC

Just for a minute there I though that you meant BASIC as in the proper stuff out of the 1970s and 80s. What your "mine's a pint" demo shows is something that I presume is much closer to (or even is) VisualBasic. Objects with accessors and methods?! How disappointing.

[Waseem Alkurdi]

Re: That's not real BASIC

Yes sir, that's exactly what I've said. I've even used it for a while (the offline version 1.2 though): it _is_ a subset of Visual Basic, and there's the option (in the original version, at least) to "graduate" [sic] it to Visual Studio.

There's even a "graphics mode" that copycats Logo's turtle.

[Someone Else]

I'm sorry, but...

"Crashy McCrashface" FTW!!!!!!

[Someone Else]

From the article:

Also hitting public preview is an online version of Microsoft’s spare-time project, Small Basic. The language, aimed at inflicting BASIC on students, celebrates its 10th birthday in October [...]

To which one would reply:

I is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.

--Edsger W. Dijkstra

_{Although, the vast majority of "students" these days could give a flying fuck as to who Dijkstra was, much less what he said...all to their eternal detriment.}

[fraunthall]

Can Microsoft not get anything right?

The latest Windows 10 update (April - for ver 1803) was a piece of shit. It blew up my laptop's ability to see itself in "network" in W. Explorer, and it has caused many other users I know about untold headaches on their computers. Can't they get anything right? All the BS bells and whistles provided by W10 cannot replace the reliability of Windows 7. What do they do? - I suspect its just adding new layers and modules into the old code instead of cleaning it up or rewriting the OS. Plenty of room there for bug after bug after bug. Ugh! I know what I am doing with Windoze, but I feel the pain of the ordinary user who, at best, can only roll with the punches. I wish I could use the other OS which shall go nameless.

[theunregistered]

Lets' face it, most of us are just lazy, and want as stress free life as is possible, and if that means all just Microsoft on our computer for compatibility, then so be it. I use a business licence lifetime of office for mine, a couple of squid on ebay, or amazon, never had any issues and even upgraded home win 10 to pro for another couple of sqiudios. what exactly is the problem with that?. i see no problems