Products · Product
OpenOffice
Raised as a usability problem by 38 people on Hacker News over 16 years (2009–2024), in 35 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Ribbon interface is static and takes too much screen spaceUnreviewed
20092026- Ribbon interface made the office suites unusable; initial version was static and space-hungry2016-09-03
- Office suite felt too slow and bloated on older computers2016-04-15
- Open-source office suites are hard to use compared with Microsoft Office2012-04-05
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 39 complaints
- Templating features are less intuitive than Word's2024-04-05
- Spreadsheets with over 65k rows cannot be opened, and developers dismissed the bug2024-03-24
- Constantly breaks layout and refuses to fit images onto a page2023-03-21
- Editing one field changes many unrelated XML files, making diffs unmanageable2022-04-07
- Janky interface and nobody knows how it works2021-08-26
- Was almost impossible to use when tried about ten years ago2019-10-31
- Couldn't figure out how to sort; the feature wasn't obvious2019-07-19
- Hard to figure out how to automate simple things in Calc2018-07-14
- Struggled to find half a dozen basic things easily found in Word2018-01-19
- Missing features users relied on and slower responsiveness than Excel made switching frustrating2017-11-09
- Takes over ten seconds to open, while Google Docs opens in single digit seconds2017-11-07
- Icons are clicked but the wrong action registers, due to rendering2017-08-05
- UI feels years out of date, slowing users down compared to alternatives2017-01-29
- Ribbon interface made the office suites unusable; initial version was static and space-hungry2016-09-03
- Website and documentation are less friendly to non-technical people2016-09-02
- Office suite felt too slow and bloated on older computers2016-04-15
- Graphs with over 2000 points freeze the program while redrawing2013-10-12
- Seems so hard to use that people switch to Windows for presentations2013-08-11
- Defaults are rarely sane and bullet lists randomly get messed up2013-06-16
- Constant workarounds for bugs and poorly designed user interface2013-02-19
- The commenter finds the spreadsheet unusable compared to Excel, lowering their productivity2012-11-24
- Open-source office suites are hard to use compared with Microsoft Office2012-04-05
- Cursor is hard to see when sitting at the left margin after upgrade2011-06-28
- Templates look dated and the interface feels clunky, so users can't get comfortable with it2011-06-09
- No easy way to type the current date and time into a cell2011-04-29
- Lacks Microsoft's Track Changes feature needed for marking up contracts2011-02-21
- Menu-based interface feels antiquated and clunky compared to the Ribbon, hiding features2011-02-20
- Workflow is much worse than MS Office for this user2010-11-02
- Feels clunky and unfinished on a Mac2010-10-21
- Menus and menu icons are not logical, so users struggle to find commands2010-10-14
- Full-page tables display improperly, so documents can't be trusted without checking in Word2010-10-14
- Shortcut silently toggles formula display, confusing users who meant to switch windows2010-08-27
- Cloning Microsoft Office's layout makes it annoyingly different, with no usability design2009-11-08
- 18 buttons too many for a hand, making the mouse hard to use2009-11-07
- Mouse with 18 buttons and 52 commands is unusable for most people2009-11-07
- User couldn't figure out what to do with the extra buttons2009-11-06
- Cannot open some .docx files and loses margin formatting when opening Word documents2009-10-29
- Enter drops to the next row in the same column instead of returning to the starting column after Tab2009-09-20
- Crashes on some launches and behaves in ways that make no sense2009-07-17