Because Office 2010 is annoying.

OK kids, in preparation for possible consulting work, I need to get a 'proper' office suite. iWork won't cut it, and like it or not, pretty much the whole industry uses MS Office.

We have Office 2010 here. It makes me want to cry sometimes. When it comes to the ribbon, I fall into the h8r camp, but the ribbon is here to stay.

But for those of you who've been using O2013, and specifically XL2013, I'd appreciate your feedback on one of my most hated bugbears in XL2010. I only realised that things might have changed when I downloaded an evaluated copy of O2011 (Mac) and found XL2011 gets this bit right (although it's had its data analysis innards ripped out.)

The bugbear involves adding error bars to data points on a graph. Attached is a small XL file to play with, and screenshots of how XL2010 and XL2011 handle things.

In XL2010 you style the data series. Then you add the error bars. But in order to do that you have to click on a different tab in the ribbon ('Layout'), then click 'Error Bars', 'More Error Bars Options'. From the dialogue box, 'Verical Error Bars', 'Custom' and specify the error from columns D and E (depending on the data selected, natch).

And even then XL adds feckin' horizontal bars as well :@

In XL2011, things are a whole lot easier. Error bars are just selected from the same dialogue that you use to format the data series (and series order can also be changed here!)

So, gentle forumites, has XL2013 learned the ways of grace and good UI design from XL2011, or is it still as retarded as its buck-toothed, slack-jawed predecessor?

OH FUCK, WHY CAN'T I UPLOAD ATTACHMENTS?

I'm liking LibreOffice on XP. Fast download, fast install*, no DRM BS, seems to work well.




*I only installed the wp.

Does it handle .docx and .xlsx and .pptx files well?

It can open them but it's not 100% with formatting and stuff.

No excuse for not using .odt these days though. Office can save those now, right?

I've been able to open docx without apparent problems. We get docs from a range of MSOffice versions (97 - 2010, Win/Mac), with fair to poor cross-compatibility in terms of preserving formatting (or even being able to open). Libre does it just as well, maybe even better IME, especially with the newer MSO versions.

Haven't tried spreadsheets, nor heard good things about the ppt thing in terms of compatability with MS originals.

Yep, seems my Office 2010 can handle .odt and I agree everyone using an open standard would be great. Never gonna happen though in the short term.

In the OP, for "I need to get a 'proper' office suite. iWork won't cut it, and like it or not, pretty much the whole industry uses MS Office", please read:
"I need to get MS Office. iWork/OpenOffice/LibreOffice/NeoOffice/WhateverthefuckOffice won't cut it."

Hmmm. Thought it'd pretty much happened. On the rare occasions I get such things from clients they tend to be in the open thngies these days.

From what I've seen animations get totally fucked when using ppt/pptx with the major free office packages. Shame really. Wish I could move away from MS Office. Thankfully it runs nicely with Wine on ubuntu 12.04.

Hmm, only seen one .odt (or the spreadsheet version) ever.

Everything I get is either .doc/.docx or PDF. Since most people use Office and .doc/.docx is the default file type to save so that's what gets churned out.

Everything made with ppt is fucked.

Might be because I tend to deal with a lot of filthy mac users. I've heard compatibility between MS Office on mac and windows is about as good as Libre Office/MS Office.

Another satisfied MS customer...

Weirdly, I've found Office Mac 2003 is better at opening Office Win <2010 than Office Win 2010.

Doesn't exist. Either Office 2003 or Office Mac 2004.

more than the usual amount of bastards in this thread...

2 now you're here ;-)

God, I'm just imagining trying to explain to people at the NHS what a .odt file is, and then trying to explain why they should use it. Even though I work for an NHS IT agency, 90% of them just wouldn't get it.

Exactly. Most people I came across were baffled by the .doc/.docx difference.

There shouldn't be any Office Mac, ever.