alternative to Microsoft Word

[Chris Green]

I use a Linux prorgram called glabel, its sole purpose is to produce labels. As a result it'spretty good at it.

I think we have lost the old Unix idea of "do one thing and do it well".

[Joe]

Systemd.

[Scott]

Cheapskate :-)

[Chris Green]

Yes, exactly!

[Bob Eager]

I wrote a program to do labels around 1982. I still use it.

Fun reason for using it. At the time, everyone at work used the same program - an ancient FORTRAN thing that worked well enough. The input data had a field separator of an exclamation mark.

Guess what? I had someone on my list who lived in Westward Ho!

My replacement does a lot more. It works out how to merge lines if there are too many, and does various other stuff such as generating initials from ful names. It's not very portable, as it assumes an HP printer - but I am happy to change it if I ever have to (unlikely).

[Brian Gaff]

I've not kept up but the Open Office and its offspring, Libra Office do work well, but I've not looked into the ability to do the specialist tasks you want On principal I don't like online stuff like Google Docs as if you loose the internet you can't do anything. You could get a slightly older version of MS Office, though of course it will not be supported for as long, and no matter what you use you will get the rest of the world sending you cryptic emails assuming you have google calendar or Microsoft office calendar. People who assume that everyone uses these should go get a life. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

If then you just don't like anything complex and you don't like Libra even though it has thankfully not got the ribbon menu system, then you could try Jarte, which adds features to wordpad. You may need to find other software for your labels though. The pro version is quite cheap. Brian

[alan_m]

Over the years I have ditched various programs/utilities when they have been updated to become unusable. Unfortunately too may good utilities are purchased by the larger players and incorporated into their existing crap to become bloatware crap.

[David Wade]

That appears to be the documented way, but if you do a lot of single labels its a lot more steps compared to word...

1. you have to copy/paste. I find right mouse click easier that keyboard but its still more steps.
2. You have to select the label type every time. I couldn't find a way to save it. This is a major pain.
3. The label position is on a separate tab.

1. To print you then have to got to the new document and print.

2. When you are finished you get asked if you want to save the document.

I know these are niggles, but I know the lady I support (ex legal secretary) would scream and shout if the was what I asked her to do...

[fred]

Exactly. Why I mis Wors

[fred]

Too too clumsy compared to Word

[fred]

I've had a look at Libre and it appears to do all I want. Slightly diffrent to word but however. I can now happily print envelopes and Labels

Thanks to all for their input and especially the heads up for Libre

[alan_m]

It really comes down to what you are used to.

When Microsoft updated word X years ago there were a lot of complaints in the place I worked that you couldn't find (menu) items where they once were and it had become another lump of clumsy bloatware.

On my own computer I have been using Open Office/Libra Office for possibly 15/20 years and I don't have a difficulty with it BUT I only use the Word processor and the Excel replacement in a fairly basic way. I have no need for many of the bells and whistles that come with MS or Libra Office.

Do you remember when a word processor came on a single floppy disk and met 99.9% of the user's requirements?

[alan_m]

Or I've put it on one of the social media platforms assuming everyone has signed up and uses a dozen or more different applications/programs.

[Chris Hogg]

We used Wordstar on 5 1/4 " floppies, IIRC. It seemed miraculous at the time. No more editing with scissors and sellotape when literally 'cutting and pasting' reports!

[Jeff Layman]

Ah, the days of Tipp-Ex/Wite-Out/Snopake!

And people think glue-sniffing is a relatively new phenomenon...

[David Wade]

Generally the free office products work fine for most normal use. However in this case the person asking, specifically mentioned Labels.

I don't ever remember a word processing package that handled proportional fonts fitting on a single floppy. Two or three perhaps.

[Jeff Gaines]

UBit menu fixes that and it's free:

[SteveW]

Sometimes, when I'm using Word and the indents go wrong, I long for the days of ".LM 8" in Wordstar, which worked AND WAS VISIBLE TO THE USER, instead of codes hidden in the end of paragraph markers, that can be messed up totally by a deletion, over-type or paste.

[Tim Streater]

Do you use styles?