Re: [libreoffice-users] LibreOffice Writer is sabotaging real work

Dear John,

I have not had issues with crashes, nor with broken features and was an early adopter of OpenOffice 
and later the LibreOffice branch.  Before that I used StarOffice on a Sun Microsystems BSD 
workstation in the late 1980s. I am a physicist, and my involvement was mainly on the computational 
physics and 3D imaging and graphics of radiation dose distributions in radiation therapy.  So, my 
writing was and mainly is technical rather than creative, although being a scientist and teacher 
requires both in an more or less integrated fashion.

One of the problems of those of us who learned on the more traditional WP systems is we are 
accustomed to direct control of formatting.  We want to do what we want to do before our eyes right 
now, as a stream of conscious as we write.  

Star office, and to a lesser extent, OpenOffice and LibreOffice are more architectural in their 
formatting schemes.  This has created conflict over the years with me and my writing, but once you 
get used to it, it can significantly increase your productivity and produce a more finished end 
product without having to go back and reformat chapters or volumes to insure consistency of your 
work.  It is this aspect that I have used with great success.

While LibreOffice has had coding bugs over the years, so has MicroSoft and Apple variants.  Some of 
them far more serious than anything I've encountered with LibreOffice/OpenOffice and StarOffice.  I 
started with a program called WordPerfect which I think is still being maintained, but I've lost 
track of it.

Make no mistake, at times, when trying to specifically format a specific item in a specific way, in 
technical writing, I butted heads with the LibreOffice programmers.  At times they carried the 
original Sun/Star concepts way too far, making it extremely difficult solve a one time format in a 
large multi-section/chapter document.  Originally, the philosophers of LibreOffice Core team were 
apostles of the framework/template concept, but that has, I think, in later releases relaxed 
considerably and the need for both aspects has been recognized and implemented.

Either that or I've grown accustomed to the way it is today, but I think over the decades there has 
been moderation and integration better on both sides.

I think if you follow VS Foote's suggestion and read some of that documentation you might see some 
possibilities you haven't seen before.  Those documents didn't exist when I first started using 
Libre/OpenOffice and there were times I was probably lucky I did most of my work on a large desk 
top that was impossible to throw across the room, but today I think LibreOffice is pretty solid and 
beats MSWord/Excel.  

I especially like its macro features and programming interfaces.  I keep a very large multi-sheet 
spreadsheet that manages all of my financial stuff, including my retirement plans. Since I am the 
plan admin and custodian, I have to keep numerous records for the IRS and found it was very easy 
use for these aspects and to call python programs that generate documents such as IRS 1099-Rs as 
needed nearly instantly as the program is capable of getting its own asset values on days the IRS 
wants them.

So, for me it was a good move, and I'm glad I stuck with it.

Walt



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On Tuesday, December 9th, 2025 at 09:32, V Stuart Foote <vsfoote@libreoffice.org> wrote:

> On 2025-12-09 09:14, Jon Hughes wrote:
>
> > I’ve been working on an anthology of short fiction, and using
> > LibreOffice Writer for the project has been an exhausting ordeal. The
> > constant formatting issues, crashes, and broken features have eroded
> > any hope of completing this work with your software. I ultimately
> > abandoned the project, deleted the manuscript, and removed LibreOffice
> > from my machine.
> >
> > I understand that this is free software, but distributing something so
> > unreliable for serious writing projects is irresponsible to the users
> > who trust it. I’ve lost significant time and effort because of this.
> >
> > I’m not writing this to be pleasant — I’m writing because I want
> > LibreOffice to do better. Please take this frustration seriously. Tools
> > meant for creative work should help the process, not derail it.
> >
> > -jrh
>
>
> Sorry to hear you've found LibreOffice difficult for your needs.
>
> But, have you reviewed the comprehensive documentation?
> Writer User Guide and Getting Started [1]
> Berlasso's "To Tame a Writer" [2]
> Byfield/Weber's "Designing with LibreOffice" [3]
>
> Taking time to first prepare well thought out and styled templates and
> master document assemblages greatly simplify preparing consistent text
> documents of any complexity. Very worth the time to learn to fully use
> the ODF authoring tools LibreOffice provides.
>
> Please consider another go with a bit better preparation.
>
> =-refs-=
> [1] https://documentation.libreoffice.org/en/english-documentation/
> [2]
> https://frommindtotype.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ttw24-en.pdf
> [3] https://designingwithlibreoffice.com/?page_id=27
>
> --
> Stuart
>
> --


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