Libre Office Writer and MS Word

http://www.datamation.com/applications/how-libreoffice-writer-tops-ms-word-12-features-1.html

All the same, some basic differences remain. Far from being the underdog in every circumstance, Writer has at least twelve major advantages over Word. Together, these advantages not only suggest a very different design philosophy from Word, but also demonstrate that, from the perspective of an expert user, Writer is the superior tool.

 

Hmmm ...
One aspect that Word has been doing better relates to Search & Replace. LibreOffice is not user-friendly (or should one now say intuitive?) at all in that respect.
In any case, there are a lot of factoids relating to major office suites propagated by commission agents. This article may help set some of them right.

 

After using LibreOffice Writer (and before that OpenOffice) for so long now, I get lost in MS Word, especially the latest versions.

 

That's the ribbon effect, I guess.

 

This.

 

From the Datamation article:

"Word generates tables of contents quickly, using existing templates. However, the result is uneditable, and invariably runs leader dots between the title and page number -- a sure sign of failed design to any typographer."

This is not true. In Word, Tables of content are editable and can be generated without leader dots.

I used Writer for years, but for me, the overall experience with Word is much more satisfying. If "shorter documents" refers to documents up to 500 pages or so, I agree with the article in this:

"Word's design favors shorter documents, and users who are less concerned with layout and exactness than getting a task done with a minimum of distraction."

 

I find both equally clumsy. They both have merits in some areas, but truth to be told, I'm more used to working with Word, at work, although I hate the ribbon.
Mrk

 

I like both about the same I guess, however, I do find that some Word documents I pull into Writer don't format properly..

 

I like both about the same I guess, however,I do find that some Writer documents I pull into Word don't format properly..

 

Its very important to have MS Fonts installed in system.

 

I would prefer Word if I could have a legitimate copy of MS Office 2010 for free or at a very very cheap price.

See why Word is better than Writer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yj93EgscbA

Not saying I'm unhappy with LibreOffice, but MS Office 2010 is still better....

 

At the rate LO is developing, it will surpass WORD by miles in near future.

 

A luxury item is expected to better than a common one. Doesn't mean I should buy the luxury item. I seriously doubt that the majority of office suite users need or use the really advanced features that may be better in proprietary software.

 

So that is what it's called. I see it appearing in other products too.

 

The nice thing, IIRC, is that you can still use the keyboard shortcuts of Office 2003.