I’m old enough to remember using a typewriter. When I was a researcher in environmental acoustics, I got my first computer and began learning how to use WordPerfect. Later I moved on to Microsoft Word, and then expanded out to Microsoft Office.

Today, if you’re not using Linux, just pay the annual subscription for Microsoft 365 - it’s the best, and worth it, and installs on Android too.

I’m writing briefly here about “What You See Is What You Get” suites WYSIWYG.

ODF

As I discovered the happy world of Linux and prefer it over MS Windows, I switched to free programs that use the OpenDocument format. I began with what is now Apache OpenOffice, and later moved on to the more frequently maintained LibreOffice.

using LibreOffice

  • I tweak the toolbars a little, and I do this, alt+t (= Tools) > AutoCorrect > [ Correct TWo INitial CApitals, Capitalise first letter of every sentence ] > off, which saves me a load of annoyance.
  • One excellent feature is saving to PDF, which I do all the time for excellent cross-platform readability.

maintaining LibreOffice across machines

In your current working LibreOffice user profile, which is

  • on Linux: ~/.config/libreoffice/4/user/
  • on MS Windows: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\LibreOffice\4\user\

- you need to backup the directory config and the file registrymodifications.xcu. When you install LibreOffice on a new machine, or just want to bring another installation up-to-date, just replace those two nodes from your backup.