It’s basically an abysmal text editor combined with the worst page layout software the world has ever seen. Creating documents with it very much resembles masturbating with a blender.
Use LibreOffice
I used LibreOffice Writer for my coursework the past semester, and when I used my spouse’s Windows computer to double check the images were correctly placed before submitting a paper they were on completely different pages. This was when I saved it as a .docx, because the only two options accepted were .docx or pdf. I wound up doing everything as a pdf if I needed images, but I think LibreOffice doesn’t have a save as pdf option? Or if it did I missed it, I just used Google Docs to save it as a pdf.
Submitting anything as an editable format like docx or odt is a bad idea. The moment a document is finished and I give it out of my hands, I turn it into an pdf.
IIRC you have to use the “Export as” option instead of the “Save as” for a .pdf file.
Good to know, at the time my brain was absolutely fried so it doesn’t surprise me that I missed it, lol
LibreOffice has a native export to PDF. And, if you use (almost) any Linux, you have a PDF printer included.
Even better, you can create a “Hybrid PDF” which embeds a second copy of the file in ODT format inside the PDF. This makes it re-editable.
Word supports ODT but it doesn’t support reading these ODT files embedded in PDFs though.
Hello! Thanks for the tip!
I am on Linux but haven’t needed to use office software in nearly 20 years, how do you access the pdf printer? Is that different from saving as a pdf through the menu?
Edit: thanks for the help everyone!
You literally ‘print’ to pdf. Instead of a physical page appearing from the demon box, it will give you a prompt of where to ‘print’ your file. Windows has it too, though I always use the pdf export and not the print. But in a pinch it’s good.
export is typically better as it preserve selectable text, if you print as pdf it will be as flat as a real paper (modern readers will still let you select text but you will be prone to any errors the text recognition can make)
You hit print and select the PDF output. It probably works everywhere you can select a printer.
Windows also has that, but you have to navigate your way out of OneDrive folders.
The PDF printer would be accessed via the Print functionality. It’s a virtual device that renders output to a file instead of a physical printer.
Print to PDF is the way!
There’s a button in the toolbar to export to pdf
You can export to pdf and the hiccup you encountered is M$ intentionally not following their own format.
LibreOffice is as good as Word. Which sadly means there are still no really good document editors out there.
Yeah but it’s free.
Also there may be no good document editors but there is a good typesetting language.
I’ve been enjoying OnlyOffice myself! (LibreOffice is fine, I just like the UI of OnlyOffice more.)
Only Office > Libre Office
$150 a year, you mean
And unwanted AI features!
Software as a disservice.
Saad ='(
It’s $150 for a “perpetual” license - but that’s not including any one drive storage. The Office 365 SaaS (I think now it’s Microsoft 365?) starts at $99/year.
I know this because I’ve been trying to find a solution for my sister who absolutely needs office to get a workable solution for Linux. Supposedly, she has to submit papers/writing as docx and can’t trust LibreOffice not to fuck up formatting.
I’ve never used it, does it handle docx authorship better than libre?
Honestly, I’m not even 100% sure they need Word or if they’re just being told that by their boss.
LaTeX supremacy has entered that chat
Overfull hbox has left the chat un formatted
expecting word to edit pdfs is like expecting excel to edit compiled matlab programs
Also I don’t see the problem with the other two.
Move image? Works fine if you select the right wrapping.
Ignore spelling mistake? Right click -> ignore once / ignore all / add to dictionaryFrom my experience with word, ignore spelling mistake is a lie, it always starts complaining again eventually (and changing spelling from us to uk almost never works)
Those without tech literacy love to blame the software.
A bad workman blames his tools after all.
I think from an end-user perspective it’s realistic to expect Word to edit PDFs. It’s just that the PDF format is an unbelievably complex clusterfuck and thus requires an entirely separate and expensive program.
i mean, it’s equivalent to using a typewriter to edit a printed page. pdf was not designed to be edited.
What? If pdf wasn’t designed to be edited, why are there pdf editors?
because people who don’t know computers can’t learn to use the right file format.
pdf is a container format for code that is run by printers. it’s not something that can be easily changed. pdf editors are hacks upon hacks upon hacks.
I got so frustrated trying to use Word to write a document at work that I just gave up and wrote the whole damn thing in LaTeX. Lots of nested bulleted lists (or worse, numbered lists) and Word do not play nicely.
Sucks to be the guy who has to edit it when I’m gone.
You know it’s bad when I prefer a nice markdown editor to word lol
I wrote things in a community college class in latex and they made me resubmit in word because their anti cheat software couldn’t read pdfs. Upsetting. I was 30. I’m not cheating on a heavily sourced psych paper.
That’s how I feel about most Microsoft products actually.
I feel like Microsoft products steadily get worse over time. It’s like they spend money to have their programmers seen how bad a product gets before people will get fed up and dump it.
Microsoft products can be quite good, but you’re right that they are severely hampered by boneheaded decisions.
Microsoft Office is still very good overall. Definitely one of Microsoft’s better products. The ribbon UI was revolutionary and is still great.
The Mac version of Microsoft Office is also a good example of how good and bad versions alternate. Office for Mac 98 was terrible. Office for Mac 2004 was great and and in many ways better than the windows version. 2008 dropped support for Visual Basic. 2011 reintroduced it. Microsoft’s email client for the Mac changed between Outlook, Entourage, then Outlook again with various changes and supporting different features.
My favorite versions of Microsoft operating systems are: DOS 5, Windows 3.1, NT 4, 98, XP, 7, 10, Phone 8.
I’m still mad Microsoft canceled their fantastic flight simulator.
That was my first thought too. Somehow they seem to be able to make the shittiest possible version of everything they attempt, and yet it almost always becomes the standard that everyone uses.
TGFM - Thank God for Markdown
Seriously, though. 9 times out of 10, markdown has all the formatting I need for the task at hand. On the rare occasion I need something more, I’m glad I have access to Apple Pages, but it comes with its own set of unique challenges.
I wish Markdown had better support for tables.
I miss the Steve Jobs era of iWork.
I won’t say it was the best (why were there no pivot tables in numbers?? And why is the current implementation shit requiring manual refreshes that you can’t rely on?), but the software worked very uniformly and was straight forward.
If he hadn’t died he would still be yelling at them to make keynote and numbers work, and he probably wouldn’t have missed the collaborative editing boat.
iWeb was pretty sweet too.
I felt so happy to remember this >20 year old image when I saw the title of this post. I remember finding it very funny back then. Anyway, what’s the appraisal? Daddy needs a new pair of shoes.
would you send that to my mom please?
Used Microsoft Works in the early 2000’s. Only discontinued in 2009 apparently.
Want to edit the header just on page 6? Or feel like being sexy and having a single page in landscape or a different size?
Easy! Just make a bunch of separate documents, export them as PDFs, and merge them in Adobe Acrobat.
I agree lots of things about word sucks. But FYI single page landscape is achieved by using two section breaks. It’s not ideal, but its somewhat understandable given how styles are prioritized. I’ve tried others that work well, but they also suffer on things that word does well that we take for granted.
The way it should be handled is to just let me rotate a single fucking page. It’s 2025 and there is zero excuse for that bullshit.
Like I said, I agree it sucks. I’ve had the exact same thought many times.
This why LibreOffice called out Microsoft for using “complex” file formats to lock in Office users
You using complex file formats for vendor lock in
Me using complex file formats because my code base is shite.
We are not the same
Word is the proof that God exists and he’s still real fuckin’ pissy about that apple.
You can get word for apple
The real miracle isn’t Word’s features, it’s how it’s still the default after decades of collective pain.
Same reason Windows is still the default on desktop: EEE and vendor-lock.
As someone that recalls using Word 5.5 in DOS for a book report in 5th grade, as with all things, the peak has come and gone.
IMO, the enshittification curve started about 2010ish when MS demanded internet connectivity for features that didn’t work. Saving PDFs was its peak. RIP Word 2007, which I used well into 2015.
