Libre Office comes to Android The Document Foundation has released a version of Libre Office for Android. The new app allows users to read and edit documents. The Document Foundation bills the app as a “Viewer” with “experimental ... basic editing capabilities, like modifying words in existing paragraphs and changing font styles such as bold and italic.” …
Small time authors who have to commute to a regular job, can use a thin bluetooth keyboard with their mobiles to hack out prose instead of lugging a lappy.
Don't look at me ... I have to drive. The police tend to take a dim view of people using mobes behind the wheel as it is.
"'Scuse me Madam, just what in the manner of hell do you think you're doing?"
"Writing a murder mystery, officer."
"Well I've got news for you. it's no mystery how I'm going to prevent a murder or two. You're nicked."
Yeah, you've heard of these things called called buses, coaches, trains, and abroad where perhaps cloud connection is limited and on-device editing would be just the ticket?
Or the other night when O2 and by extension Giff Gaff and other victuals went tits up for the evening? Between an on-device document synced to a service like Dropbox and Office 365 where I believe you have to sign in to get anywhere useful, I know which I'd have been happier with that night.
Well, I'm not sure what point you're driving at, but my point is that part-time authors who previously had to lug around a laptop in order to write during the commute to the day-job, can now use their mobile phones to write on. Just a thin, light blue tooth keyboard will make the job a hell of a lot easier. Or a 7" android tab.
That is except for me, because buses and trains don't go where I need to go with anything like the required time scale. Heck, one time I used to drive from Folkestone to Munich. And don't ask why I didn't take the plane.
Funny thing but I have the same feelings seeing the multistorey clutter of stacked menu rows. I stopped using Microsoft Office 15 years ago (yes, in 2000) switching to Open Office and later to LibreOffice. I never looked back.
I realized how much I do not need this application when I bought recently a PC with a preinstalled Microsoft Office. I deleted it without switching it on, even once. I have no idea why people are paying money for something which offers them no advantage comparing to free software.
>>"I stopped using Microsoft Office 15 years ago (yes, in 2000) switching to Open Office and later to LibreOffice. I never looked back [...] I realized how much I do not need this application when I bought recently a PC with a preinstalled Microsoft Office. I deleted it without switching it on, even once"
It's always amusing how the most critical posts of MS products feel the need to emphasize their points by explaining how they avoid being able to make informed comparisons. They're always this unaware combination of "I stopped using this over a decade ago..." and "I deleted it without trying it.." followed by how rubbish they know it is.
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Ilmari,
It is not difficult to plug your mobe into a dock, and use an external keyboard and screen. Its quite handy to have your work always with you, and not handy at all to rely on internet everywhere you go.
Sometimes screencasting works too. Even if you have a Samsung phone and a Samsung mobile. Eventually it might work everyday. I'm not holding my breath.
"Libre is late to the game. Now that I have Office 365 on my Android I'm not willing to give it up."
I tried it. Having to sign to use it was a deal breaker. I sometimes need to edit documents where there's no phone signal. I'll stick with the app previously known as Kingsoft Office until something better, like at least a beta of LO or OOo comes along.
Are you sure you're not confusing it with Office Web Apps. You can use MS Office without an Internet connection, including mobile versions. Office 365 is actually a subscription model that can cover both downloadable versions and the web apps. It's not a specific piece of software itself. You obviously can't use the online versions of Office without a connection, but you can use the downloadable versions.
I just checked again. I installed the standalone downloadable MSWord from the Play Store. On first load it asked me to sign in or create an account. I exited it. I opened it again and went to create a new document. On opening, the new document is initially filled with the false Latin "Loren ipsum..." stuff and there's a yellow bar at the top of the page saying "Sign in to edit and save changes to this file"
Am I missing something? If I create an account and "sign in" now will it still work in a the wilds of Lincolnshire or Cornwall with no mobile signal?
"http://www.softmaker.com/english/ofahdcomp_en.htm"
That's a pretty crap comparison table, I'll stick my neck out and say they are either significantly out of date or deliberately lying. At the very least I work both with RTF files and edit/save multi-page excel files without loss of formatting on a daily basis with WPS Office and their table claims I can't do that.
Isn't this reinventing the wheel?
My understanding is that Kingsoft Office was based on the Star Office / Open Office code, so this development seems a bit pointless. It just needs Kingsoft's coding dragging back into the Open Office / Libre Office development mainstream. Presumably it is still open source....?
Whilst it's nice that there's an "official" LibreOffice being developed on Android, searching for libreoffice or openoffice on Google Play shows that there's already dozens of alternatives that can handle LO's file formats and many of them developed far beyond what this new official app offers (and a lot of them are free too).
As the review stated, this official app ludicrously dumps you straight into an extremely poor folder view of your Android filestore with many folders missing (e.g. SD card, where you'd probably store your docs!). Tip: Use an Android file manager (I like ES3) and click on your document from there - file assocations should mean it'll fire up the offical app and load in your doc (which I found was rendered by some of the unofficial apps better...oh, the irony).
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