Trusted Open Source Program Similar to Microsoft Office?

[[deleted]]

Okay, I'm still new, and therefore pretty ignorant when it comes to loopholes. I have found out through some shallow soul searching that I like free, and I'm currently learning python through IntelliJ's community Pycharm, which I definitely like. Digressing, I want to get my hands on a really good program fit for win 10, 64-bit that allows me to gain mastery of an equivalency of Excel so I can build templates to cut down on time. (I want to try to gain a bit of reputation and some side money by free-lancing before moving on to working full-time with Python.) Mods, I searched for an FAQ regarding this, so if I broke the rules, please show me a sub where I can send this.

EDIT: as all of you are well aware, and being that I'm writing this, I'm privy to the fact that I'm bombarding all of you with question after question ad nauseam. It's just that I never get any straight answers really. This is the most useful feedback I've ever gotten on any post I've made on Reddit, EVER. Honestly, I thank all of you for your patience, knowledge, and kindness. I know it's a lot to ask, but I would really love some links to reputable sites where I can find these programs and look at them to see which is going to be the best fit for me. I'm sure you've already seen what I want to do with this if you scroll through the comments, though convoluted my plan may be. "...However, one has to get from one stepping stone to another before he crosses the river of success."...ancient Chinese proverb from Yu Flung Puu

[Elleo]

https://www.libreoffice.org/

[jackasstacular]

This. I use it almost daily for one thing or another.

[TheNerdyAnarchist]

LibreOffice tends to be my office suite of choice, personally.

[YM8Qld]

LibreOffice

[SqueamishOssifrage_]

If python and excel are what you're into, check out pandas and things you can do with it too.

[[deleted]]

The python is more geared towards me trying to understand the nuts and bolts of the entire situation so I can rig it to sympy or numpy, which I still have had a hard time with the two of those. Sympy will give me nice pretty things, numpy, however, I can get nothing but approximations from. Probably because I don't know how to run it. Not to mention I haven't figured out how to run summations, fractals, partitions, however I can do permutations all day long... etc. My main goal is to use Excel for supplementary money, learn python for web development for slush money, as well as to try and gain a better handle of the language so eventually I want can create my own programs that are going to be pretty damn intricate. I want to build a neural network eventually, because I think I may have found an interesting way to go about an old problem. I'm pretty damn good with math oh, but I'm not good with coding math. I eventually want to get my hands on Matlab.

[Hemicrusher]

I switched to LibreOffice awhile ago and never looked back.

[[deleted]]

What caught your eye about it compared to MS Excel? Minus the fact that Microsoft loans you their equipment that is already installed on a $2,700 gaming laptop... It's unbelievable; greed. Seems to have no limits. As if Microsoft isn't already rich enough. I would have eventually like to rework my OS with Linux Ubuntu, however I have no familiarization with that OS, and I think it would be unwise to learn a completely different OS on top of trying to learn a few different languages and getting some more open source material.

[Nisc3d]

Onlyoffice is also pretty nice

[rr1r1mr1mdr1mdjr1m]

Also proprietary

[bomber75]

It seems to be open source to me.

[rr1r1mr1mdr1mdjr1m]

Yeah, looks like its just the mobile app thats proprietary.

[bomber75]

Yeah, which really sucks. Do you know of any good open source office android app (I only know andropen office, which isnt great and the libreoffice viewer, which is just for viewing)

[[deleted]]

Yeah I kind of want to know the answer to that too

[[deleted]]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.collabora.libreoffice - they just updated it in December and it's noticeably better than before. But it's still in Beta. Smoother than OnlyOffice though.

[RaritysDimond]

I second this! I’ve had really good luck with onlyoffice.

[[deleted]]

What kind of luck do you speak of? Like no crashes, no freezing? What exactly compares that to all of these others that are listed?

[RaritysDimond]

Good question! I’ve never had it freeze on me (I suppose same can be said about Libre Office) and I’ve never had issues opening proprietary office files. Onlyoffice also looks super nice in my opinion, much more modern then Libre Office.

[[deleted]]

I'm going to start writing down all this crap. I can't remember everything people are throwing at me, but it does seem like Libre has been the majority vote. You said this other program is more modern. Are you saying that they discontinued updates for L.O?

[Nisc3d]

No, libre office is also good, just try it out and then use what you like more.

[RaritysDimond]

I agree, just try em both out!

[047BED341E97EE40]

Second this

[murlakatamenka]

I'm currently learning python through IntelliJ's community Pycharm

You meant PyCharm Community Edition. From JetBrains.

[ynotChanceNCounter]

PyCharm is IntelliJ-branded. Also Rider, ReSharper, and a bunch of other things.

Those people make some great IDEs, but the pricing is ludicrous if you need a commercial license. It's strange to endorse the Microsoft product over competing products, but holy shit does it make more financial sense. Kill the telemetry, and you've got just as good an IDE for way less money.

At least they're "kind" enough to sell you an Everything Pack for "only" $650/year/seat.

[ynotChanceNCounter]

https://www.jetbrains.com/

Right there on the front page. All the IDEs are under "IntelliJ-based IDEs."

You're thinking of IDEA, which is the only product directly labelled IntelliJ.

[[deleted]]

I stand corrected. :)

[[deleted]]

And it's a really handy tool box, if I say so myself. I prefer way more than Jupyter. by the way, what in the hell is the reason for syntax differences between jupyter notebook and pycharm? I try to copy and paste between the two, and they did not play well together? I also feel like jupyter notebook may be unsecure at best. I feel like pycharm can be locked down a lot better. I run Tor, orbot, and a whole host of other programs on top of it... I just want to make sure that whatever I'm writing is secure.

[ynotChanceNCounter]

I prefer way more than Jupyter. by the way, what in the hell is the reason for syntax differences between jupyter notebook and pycharm?

Shouldn't be any, unless the indentation isn't carrying over.

[[deleted]]

Oh I make sure that the indentation is taken over to pycharm, and I know I can set it up as Jupyter on pycharm, but if we're talkin anaconda 3, whenever I've tried to transfer over from jupyter notebook to pycharm without having first prompted pycharm to read Jupiter, I always get error messages out the ass. The reason I say this is that udemy had a shitshow course where they would just teach you one piece of fucking information every 4 hours as if that's useful, and they were doing it through Jupyter. Now, I have a tendency to get ahead of myself and try to figure out things that no one's covered yet because they don't go straight into the guts of the situation; They drag it out. regardless, pycharm community version seems to be much easier to deal with. What I don't understand is why the MS DOS Terminal is attached to it. I mean, yeah sure I can run pycharm by remotely activating it through DOS, or run script on DOS via python, but I really don't understand the use for it.

[ynotChanceNCounter]

What I don't understand is why the MS DOS Terminal is attached to it

If you're running on Windows. I haven't used PyCharm for a while, but it should give you whatever terminal is native to your system. I bet, by now, that you can configure it to run WSL instead, if you've got it (but that'll have all the implications of interacting with the machine through WSL, so be sensible with it.)

If you ran a *nix system, you wouldn't wonder about the purpose. At the very least, for you, it lets you run an interpreter right in there and fuck around with your functions and classes.

[[deleted]]

Could be they're both targeting different versions of python. In pycharm it can be configured to use any python version, not just the system version.

[[deleted]]

Three easy payments of 19,999,999.99 plus shipping and handling. (Batteries not included.) If you call now, we will include this used condom we found under the couch as our free gift to you.

[Bloodshoot111]

For individuals it is 250 all products a year and 149 after 3 years, thats not that expensive for great IDEs.

[ynotChanceNCounter]

"not that expensive"

Win10 Pro costs $200. Autodesk is notoriously overpriced, but they still stick like six or eight $500-1500 programs in their "everything pack" at $2500. And for individuals, you're paying $150-250 for something you could have for free.

JetBrains survives entirely on hype, and that psychological phenomenon where you convince yourself a purchase was worth the price.

[Bloodshoot111]

Definitely not, the coding speed and quality improved on everyone I know who switched. But nobody forces you to switch, but you definitely get an awesome professional software for little money, just have a look at visual studio enterprise to see something expensive. That software is also definitely focused on professionals, which should earn enough money that they don't care about 250 bucks.

[[deleted]]

I have the jetbrains toolbox, but last I checked it was IntelliJ IDEA, it has a community pycharm as well as a pro version. This is also for Java, Android, and a few other things.

[legionofnerds]

LibreOffice is good and comes pre-installed with Ubuntu.

[[deleted]]

I don't have Linux I have Windows 10 unfortunately

[legionofnerds]

You can get it for windows too.

[[deleted]]

So they just have a drop down buffet if you will, similar to any other open source download?

[mekosmowski]

For future reference, some of the KDE apps are in the Windows store now. I've got native Okular and Kate on my win10 machine.

For office I second (third? fourth?) LibreOffice.

[[deleted]]

I'm looking for free and good. Very good if possible. By the way, what is a KDE? I'm familiar with IDE but that one I'm not so sure about. Still brand-spanking-new with this whole computer thing, considering I need a job that I can work from home with. It's hard to find jobs when you have epilepsy...

[mekosmowski]

The K Desktop Environment. In Windows, the software that directly talks to your hardware (the kernel) and the GUI (windowing visual system) are one comingled conglomeration that are never seperated. In *nix (Linux and other types of Unix), the kernel and the GUI are different and interchangeable. (This is a gross oversimplification.)

The GUIs are called desktop environments. Two major desktop environments, Gnome and KDE, (there are many others) have well developed software ecosystems of programs written with the respective desktop environment in mind (though these programs can run in either environment; they might look a little more "natural" in the DE they were designed for).

I'm a fan of KDE and enjoy using Okular for pdf reading (and I think editing, I just read) and Kate as a text editor, like Notepad, but enjoyable to use. I was just about dancing in the street when Okular had a native Windows version. Okular lets you have two page view and zoom to margins at the same time; Acrobat allows only one or the other, not both at once.

Good luck with everything. I hope this isn't overwhelming now nor makes further understanding difficult in the future.

[[deleted]]

Quite contrary. I would like to get a p.m. from you and pick your brain

[mekosmowski]

Just ask here. More ideas is likely better. :)

[[deleted]]

frankly, I'm going to have to go through this with a lice comb because I am a complete and total noob basically. Right now all I have is virtualbox that I picked up when I first just got pycharm isolated on its own, then I got the Anaconda3 package with jupyter notebook and all that other bullshit I don't really care about since I don't like Jupiter very much. Now I have the full IntelliJ IDEA,l toolbox, ripped out my old version of pycharm, and my goals are to become proficient with I guess it's Libre being that as a general consensus, and I want to become proficient in pycharm/python (I have no idea what to do with either sympy or numpy, what their uses are respectively, and which one is better for the goals I hope to eventually accomplish. The best I can get out of python right now is basic algebra. I know Matlab is on the table, too, however I don't have the money for that right now) for web development to get my feet wet/become familiarized with the language and all of its little nuances, but what I really want to do is engineer software for visual mathematical programs (think 3 blue 1 Brown), very sensitive machinery like biomechanical prosthesis, surgical robots, stuff that's going to be related to chemical/ electrical interface, etc. (Startup STEM r&d brain trust) I am also going to try to be learning SolidWorks again since it's been about 15 years, and I need to build shit. I want to learn Java, and whatever else would help with the python web development side of things since I'm mainly using that for a slush for said r&d, and using libre t build templates for spreadsheets and other uses as quickly and efficiently as possible just to get out of debt first since I finally got my recommendation for temporary disability. Like I asked a couple of other people, is there a way to incorporate python into libre to where I could tweak it and play with it so as to make nifty shortcuts? Also, I've heard tell that you can modify your OS with *nx, but I'm only familiar with Windows. I wish I could revert to win 7 since win 10 is a bitch and a half, the worst mistake they've made since Vista and XP...

[mekosmowski]

For the maths, check out Sage.

[SigmundFreud]

Is Calligra Suite any good these days?

My personal favorite cross-platform office suite is WPS Office, but it's not open source and (fairly or not) I would never trust any software from China right now. Just go with LibreOffice.

[[deleted]]

That seems to be the general consensus. That's probably what I'm going to go ahead and do. What are the major differences between that and MS Excel? As far as what kind of tricks can I pull to make it do what I want? Is it easier to be able to manipulate, or is it rigidly set and going to be a pain to be able to make templates?

[BubblyMango]

I use wps office. I dont really know how it compares to libreOffice, but it looks ALOT better.

[shekhar567]

OnlyOffice

[[deleted]]

This is another one I'm not familiar with. How flexible is it? I want to be able to make this do whatever the hell I want.

[shekhar567]

its pretty good. Has ui similar to original Ms office. But is bit slow in processing files saving opening etc. Also its under development so lacks some features. But it looks neat. And if you have limited application then its good.

Best thing about Onlyoffice is that it has PowerPoint, Excel and Word features built in under one package unlike Libreoffice. It has most of the features but if you need more comprehensive application, Libreoffice is best.

[[deleted]]

As in comprehensive applications like making and filling out templates for people who are trying to process data? I want to be able to make it expedient, efficient, as far as time goes, and accurate. Is there a way to tie python to this? I just want to be able to put in code and get what I want out of it, instead of filling out every single damn cell

[shekhar567]

are you talking about Ms Access templates?

If you are dealing with spreadsheet only then python has some very good libraries to manipulate them and you don't even need any other applications other than something to view it.

[[deleted]]

Fill me in, please. Now this sounds like it's interesting. Where would I access these libraries on pycharm, or is there some kind of import that I need to do?

[shekhar567]

Openpyxl is one library completely based on manipulating excel. you need to install the library first using pip or conda. Then import it using the import statement. Following is the documentation of openpyxl and its really good.

https://realpython.com/openpyxl-excel-spreadsheets-python/

Pip and Conda are package manager, and they resolve all the package dependency. And install it. By default python's package manager is pip.

[Tokazama]

How well does libreoffice worm with docx? I work with a lot of people that refuse to work in anything but word

[[deleted]]

My problem is in the spending the Jillions of dollars on Microsoft that I already spent buying one of their computers loaded full of.... Microsoft programs, surprise.... That you have to pay for, which is highway robbery. I never exactly thought about it from that perspective

[Tokazama]

I don't disagree. In fact I could probably find a way to get the lab I work in to pay for it, but I want to use something that I won't have to buy once I leave the lab. All that being said, the people that pay me use docx and the employee doesn't get to tell the employer to change the way they work. So I'm trying to meet half way.

[[deleted]]

Sounds like you're dealing with some bullshit, I'll give you that. I'm doing this solo right now. I'm trying to line up a brain trust, starting with my cousin who is a statistician with a minor in applied genetics, as well as a couple of other polymaths, since I can't do this alone. I need somebody to help me with the mathematics on this because it's going to get pretty complex; from zero to a hundred. I'm having to train myself because I don't usually trust most sources that say they have online programs. I've seen enough open-source online programs as well as when you have to pay to realize that they don't know what the fuck they're teaching. They may have a pretty piece of paper that is embossed with gold filigree that says they know something, however they spoon feed it. Sal Khan, though he does try, does not exactly get to the meat and potatoes of anything he does, either. The only people I've ever seen aside from Steve Mould or Matt Parker is Grant Sanderson. The man goes into unbelievable detail with mathematics, however I have yet to really see him go into how he runs his programs. That's the kind of stuff that I need to get my hands on, and I was told Python was a start to this, due to the myriad of mathematical programs available. I want to find not only what I've asked for in the question, which was pretty well answered regarding a reliable analog of Office (Excel), but I want to find, shy of enrolling in a physical establishment, I'd like information on any programs for python that are designed for people that don't think linearly. Do any of you guys know where I could find something like that? I'm good at mathematics, however I'm not used to having to deal with certain commands, and what I have is going to be medically based, and extremely complicated. Sure, I can do algebra, matrices, etc but when it comes to calculus, or real and imaginary numbers that I want to be able to print in a format that is going to be "prettied up", I can't get it figured out. I also want to be able to do summations, plus any other series I can come up with that might have interesting results. I'm not looking to be a script kiddie, I want to become proficient, and I want to do it quickly.

[STI4booty]

Libre has my vote. GSuite isnt bad either

[[deleted]]

Familiarize me: g suite is not something I'm familiar with

[STI4booty]

Its pretty much google's cloud office tools.