For me, google docs works well enough... I use the sheets more than the docs actually, as I keep track of my current bills with it. All of that said, there are a lot of tiny features in MS Office that LO doesn't have.... I don't need them, that doesn't mean that nobody does. I know plenty of people that can't give up their use of excel or word in favor of LO.
I also would love to see a fully free/open solution that works as well as Exchange+Outlook ... I've seen lots of alternatives and options, none are nearly as clean or well integrated. And for that matter, most are a bitch to setup/maintain on the server-side of things, or simply aren't actually free, there's usually a critical "plugin" that's only available with a support contract.
Google docs is a much simpler system, especially for places like schools because of the "cloud" nature of it. Google docs has all the features the average person needs.
MSWord is for specialty cases, google docs and the open alternatives are for everyone else.
I'm about to earn a masters degree and I've never needed to use MS word. Double spacing, page numbers, and aligning text work in just about every processor. I've rarely received a word document from a professor that used advanced features of word, they're always poorly formatted.
One feature I personally needed and missed was to generate a table of contents with page numbers for each heading. I ended up exporting the doc to Word to do it, and in the process discovered that the exported document had a messed up layout in a few places.
About the "features average person needs" remember that users adapt their workflows to the featuers you give them and make do, not the other way around. Give them more, they'll use more.
I think you could probably add "resource hungry" to your description of GDocs....
Thankfully all my documents have very light formatting, so I can just write in Vim and then upload them.
If I copy something else from the same Word document into the same Google Doc, then Google keeps it in Times. How does that work?
Is there a "smart paste" feature I've missed?
I can try clearing the clipboard between pastes: would that make a difference?
Orphaning of content: GDocs will very happily strand a section header at the bottom of a page, dropping a page break right between the header and the content.
The cursor will occasionally just go where it pleases.
Revision history (compared to diffing git commits) is incredibly frustrating. Click on a revision, read the whole doc, repeat…
As a sibling says,
> Oh and typography.
With the exception of printers. Omg printers are such a PITA on windows I often just send a pdf to me and print it with the phone.
Now getting a new printer (new hardware) installed in Linux isn't usually so easy.. unless you're using a fairly mainstream HP Laser printer, which is actually what I recommend because it's so straight forward. Outside of that it's almost always a pain. My current printer is rigged up and connected to print from my phone from anywhere, I have it setup for remote printing via Chrome... which is kind of nice, ordering something, or paying a bill on a break at work and being able to print at home.
Unless you're using a really off brand, I haven't had trouble installing on windows via the add printer... it may take a while to download a full device list for printers, which aren't pre-installed, but that's time not difficulty.
I used to have it on a dns reserved ip but damned new telco router doesn't have that option since I upgrades to fiber.
Every time the epson setup wants to restart the whole computer to start the detection and it is so annoying, I just let any other airprint device do the thing.
I usually just set all mine in the router, but as you said, that doesn't work for you.
2) Because people are used to it.
3) Because Office products are the de facto standard, and they run best on windows.
I could go on, but you get the point.