Yes, Google Docs exports to ODF.
Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
I like how there seems to be more and more alternatives to MS Office, even from big companies like Google. Best case scenario, this could lead to companies actually starting to use an open format, like ODF, so that all these different office applications can be used without causing issues in the file and that would pave the way for open source alternatives, like LibreOffice or OnlyOffice, to become viable alternatives for a lot more people and companies. Do Google Docs and Proton Drive use/support ODF? I’m pretty sure MS Office supports it.
antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
By default?
antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
No, there is no default option, just a dropdown that offers docx, pdf, rtf, txt, odf…
tourist@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I wish msoffice would just die a miserable death
Word is a pain in the ass. Resize a table column by 1px and the rest of the document gets absolutely fucked
Excel suffers from similarly frustrating UI issues, but my main problem with it is that it’s being used for things that it was never intended to be used for. On the extreme side, a company will shove all their HR info into one xlsx file and then someone will accidentally, somehow unrecoverably, delete it
More commonly, I’ve had to use it as a progress tracking/ticketing tool. An entire team adding rows, deleting rows, accidentally clearing formulas, highlighting random fucking cells, resizing columns etc. all at the same time. It’s just hell.
RecluseRamble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Abusing Excel as a crappy database is a very real and very widespread problem.
gibmiser@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You use what ya got, and you don’t buy database software or hire a database guy until you know you need one
Takumidesh@lemmy.world 2 months ago
But access comes with office, so if you have excel you have at least a software that is intended to be used as a DB (efficacy aside)
RecluseRamble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Probably true for most companies but I worked at one that had plenty of DB servers and developers, even developed their own database tech. Still, Excelitis as we called it was rampant.
ruse8145@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
It can also link nicely over odbc to full databases which are represented a nice tables…with links between sheets…waiiit a second.
mutant_zz@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Sadly, the lock-in is pretty extreme… as is user inertia. Office 365 has made the problem worse as well, even if you have something like OnlyOffice that does a good job of compatibility with Office, it can’t sync with OneDrive.
If you collaborate with non-technical people, they will expect you to work in Office formats, and won’t even entertain discussion of any alternative.
ruse8145@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
Wait who are the technical people you work with who are using things besides Excel?? Or by technical people do you specifically mean computer science people? Cause you get mech, civil, or electrical engineers in a room and I think I would have a heart attack if their designs were not all in Excel or word (+altium, solidkindaworks, etc)
bzah@discuss.tchncs.de [bot] 2 months ago
Where I was working Excel was used for the specification of scientific data. You get stuff like thousands of rows in several sheets themselves in multiple files that inherit from one another and everything is edited by hand… And I maintained a tool that combined them to create binary files from this mess. Lot of fun.
ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It’s criminal that Microsoft has such a monopoly on word processing, they can’t even render text properly. It’s not an issue in Mac or Linux, but it is in all windows applications that aren’t using a chromium base.
Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
I feel you on that first part, I always use Markdown nowadays when I don’t have to use Word (or LibreOffice Writer in my case), I even use Marp to make presentations with Markdown. Since there’s no dragging stuff around and eyeballing if it’s actually coherent, it’s much quicker, the layout is always perfect and changing the layout doesn’t fuck up the entire slide/document.
ruse8145@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
It…was intended for those things. Excel is modern business’ multi-tool. You’re not going to excuse it until there is a solution for the HR person to do basic bulk data processing, basic Excel programming without having to acknowledge they are doing programming, etc.
The other path is better spreadsheet software, but let’s be honest most of the others are poor clones. Gsheets are nearly useless, only office is solid but…well, it’s just Excel but free. Open office is Excel millennium edition and libre while better than open, and has a few nice quality of life improvements, it’s still Excel.
tourist@lemmy.world 2 months ago
fair enough