For what it's worth, I write essay-length pieces and have had few problems
converting from Word to LibreOffice Writer.
Yes, there is a learning curve, since the nomenclature and keystrokes
sometimes differ. I've had to experiment and sometimes watch YouTube videos
to figure things out. If you're experienced with Word, LOW is not a hard
program to learn
But there are some nonmonetary costs. Most of the world still uses Word, so
people and organizations want documents sent to them in a docx format (or
saved as PDFs). So the biggest problem I've dealt with is how often to work
in LOW and then convert to docx if necessary and how often to just work in
docx format for an entire project.
The latter creates some formatting and other issues that can be
frustrating. For example, if you're working in LOW using a docx format and
you close the document. When you open it, the program places you on p. 1,
not where you stopped working. So users must pay attention to which format
they're using and why.
But overall, I much prefer not paying for Microsoft 365 (with its political
side issues) and intend to stay with the LibreOffice suite.
Leonard Beeghley
On Tue, Dec 9, 2025 at 10:32 AM 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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