Microsoft no longer supports Office for Mac 2019. They no longer sell or support anything under the Office brand. No more standalone software. They want you to buy a subscription to Microsoft 365. So now every time I open an MW Word document, I get this little error message telling me that the software “needs updating” — an error message that now will never, never go away. They really want to annoy me into buying an MS 365 subscription.
But the subscription model for software doesn’t work for everyone. It most certainly doesn’t work for me. First of all, subscription software costs more — way more — for low-level users like me. MS 365 costs $100 a year. I bought MS Office 2019 for something like $125 and used it for 5 years, so MS 365 is about four times as expensive. Second, even though MS 365 uses an open file format, I don’t trust Microsoft. It would be all too easy for them to decide to emulate Adobe — when you stop subscribing to Adobe’s software, you lose access to all your work. Third, I actually don’t want my software constantly upgraded to the latest version with all the bells and whistles, I just want to use the same software version that I know and with which I’m comfortable, and with which I’m most productive. Fourth, I have subscription fatigue: I. Don’t. Want. Any. More. Subscriptions.
And finally, the only part of Microsoft’s office suite I really use is MS Word. So if I want to escape Microsoft’s evil clutches, all I need to do is find an alternative word processing program.
I’ve been working down the list of word processors. I’ve tried Scrivener and Nota Bene, but both products are too specialized for my needs. Both Google Docs and ApplePages both strike me as not quite ready for prime time; they certainly don’t meet my needs. I skipped over many other word processors, including Nisus Writer and Apache Open Office, because they appear to have such a small user base that I don’t trust them to be around for a long time.
I’ve finally gotten around to LibreOffice. So far, it does what I want it to do. It has an installed user base of about 200 million (small compared to MS Word’s 1 billion, but still…). There are some things about LibreOffice that annoy me, but so far it’s less annoying than MS Word. I like that it’s free and open source, and because I’m a regular user of GIMP and WordPress I’m accustomed to the quirks of open source software development communities.
I think I like LibreOffice enough to invest the hours needed in order to become as productive with it as I currently am with MS Word. I’m actually relieved at the prospect that if I can get fluent with LibreOffice I’ll never have to use MS Word ever again. I’ve always hated Word, I just felt stuck with it.
Even though I’ve always hated Word, I’m mightily resentful that I’m being forced to learn how to use a new word processor. For no good reason except that the corporate executives at Microsoft need to support their lavish lifestyles on the backs of their customers.
I’ve been using LibreOffice for about 15 years and OpenOffice before that. I use Impress for services, as well as using Write and occasionally spreadsheets. I used MS Office at work and didn’t find the learning curve to switch too steep.
Likewise, I’ve used LibreOffice and its predecessors OpenOffice.org and StarOffice for at least 20 years, both at home and in my workplace, both word processing and spreadsheets. Apart from some styling problems sharing between LO Impress and PowerPoint, the work has been seamless and I doubt most people know I’m even using it.
Scott and LdeG, so far the transition from MS Word to LibreOffice has been nearly seamless. If anyone else is thinking of making the leap, my advice: go for it.
I held onto WordPerfect for as long as I could. I don’t know whether the company was any more virtuous than Microsoft, but its software was much better. Alas, it is no more. I’d be interested to check out LibreOffice.
Microsoft has decided to use its captive user base as a means to do whatever it wants. Its clear Microsoft giving up one time license applications for a more predictable revenue stream of subscriber services was meat to help Microsoft not the end user. Windows has now become Microsoft’s OS to advance their other products. Its almost at a point where if you don’t use a Microsoft product you are going to be nagged to death to do so. The fact Windows 11 requires a Microsoft account or at the very least gives little option without some work arounds is a telling tale that this device is married to Microsoft. I have two Windows 11 PC’s that I barely use now preferring either a Linux OS or my MacBook for most work. It’s really a shame to see the path Microsoft has taken and their Windows market share has suffered for it.
Some place Windows at less the 60% of PC installs, a far cry from their dominate days. The wakeup call is there for Microsoft but will anyone there do anything to fix it?
John, thanks for the comment. Apple is also evil, just in different ways. The only thing keeping me from moving to Linux is the amount of time I’d have to spend learning new software (time which I don’t have right now).