> and no amount of me suggesting they get a mac makes them want to get a mac "office doesn't work properly" mainly the issue. (thats nonsense, but they believe what they believe)
Do they use Office-Office (or Microslop Copilot 365 xXxQuickScoperz42069xXx or whatever it's called today)? Is there any reason they can't use Libreoffice and the like, or does that fail instantly when they try it for whatever reason? Or is the idea of using not-Office-Office rejected instantly and you can't even get them to the point of trying it?
My grandma's been on Libreoffice for 10+ years, since she doesn't use any of the fancy features of actual Word and Excel. In reality, she'd probably be fine on Wordpad (although she would need an actual spreadsheet program, but even Calc is overkill for her, and it works fine anyway), so I fail to see why seniors would complain about not being able to use an office program, assuming you can get them in front of a Mac running one.
From experience, I can assure you LibreOffice is no real equivalent to Office.
I can guarantee you that you will have people asking you about stuff that Office does just fine but isn't really possible in LibreOffice or is a major hassle.
I have been the one touting alternatives since I was very young and foolish (in particular advocating for the free Apple suite), but I have run into enough problems I couldn't solve that I don't bother anymore.
Microsoft is winning with Office because everyone else is more incompetent than them; it's simple as that.
If someone could come up with a true, cheaper competitor, everybody would switch, regardless of the file format arguments.
In fact, the generalized use of Google Suite for the simple stuff shows that it is the case. When people insist on Office, they generally have a good reason, and you should trust them.
I consistently see .docx files and people using Office and Google's alternative, and they don't even use templates. They use nothing more than a few fonts, some size adjustments, bold/italic/underline, maybe a table and and an image if they're fancy.
Unless they just can't handle the buttons being in a different place, as ggm said, I can't see what functionality the average user is missing. Fair enough that the Excel wizard is missing their macros, but most people are far from the level.
What are these problems you (or anyone you've met) couldn't solve? I have a hard time imagining what that could even be in the first place, since the scope of required functionality is so small; again, my grandma could probably use Wordpad if it came down to it, and from what I see other people using Word for, that seems to be true in the general case too.
They use Office (YYYY) locally. They repudiate 365 on the quite reasonable take that its rental not ownership, but forget if they found the right bundle, the rental would give them decent cloud (this is when onedrive as a backup can be sensible)
Mostly, they are addicted to menu position and one specific thing word does in showing you content, but different for each person.
I am doing the "how do I make libreoffice look like Word" tunings for font and menu, and so far, I think its close enough I could re-visit this with them but getting them to even agree to look at my own MBP is a struggle.
Older people feel they are losing agency, control. I try not to just tell them what to do. It's better if they decide, than if they give up and ask me to decide for them. The organisation I work with emphasises that older people have a right to dignity even when they're wrong.
There is a cohort happy on linux. I just chose not to work with them because I saw the cohort with a mixture of iPad and Windows as more interesting. (I am a BSD and Mac person mostly)
> Mostly, they are addicted to menu position and one specific thing word does in showing you content, but different for each person.
Fair enough, and I'd agree with them that the button should just stay in the same place, but given that they're on the same version of Office YYYY still since they bought that version whenever, the button doesn't actually move for them, even though the later versions of Office have probably also moved it.
Do they use Office-Office (or Microslop Copilot 365 xXxQuickScoperz42069xXx or whatever it's called today)? Is there any reason they can't use Libreoffice and the like, or does that fail instantly when they try it for whatever reason? Or is the idea of using not-Office-Office rejected instantly and you can't even get them to the point of trying it?
My grandma's been on Libreoffice for 10+ years, since she doesn't use any of the fancy features of actual Word and Excel. In reality, she'd probably be fine on Wordpad (although she would need an actual spreadsheet program, but even Calc is overkill for her, and it works fine anyway), so I fail to see why seniors would complain about not being able to use an office program, assuming you can get them in front of a Mac running one.