Libre Office 5.1 Keeps Crashing, Any Solutions?

[piggynose]

i read something about a bug report, any help would be appreciated

[Buenchico]

You can report problems (and read the reports that others have submitted) here:
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/

However version 5.1.3 is classed as 'Libre Office Fresh' which, while theoretically stable, carries the potential risk of more problems than using 'Libre Office Still' (5.0.6):
https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-still/

Alternatively, while you're waiting for the developers to fix LibreOffice, try OpenOffice (which is the most popular free office suite)
https://www.openoffice.org/
or WPS Office Free (which also has plenty of fans)
http://www.ksosoft.com/product/office-free.html

[Huderon]

Buenchico WPS Office Free puts a watermark on everything that is printed after the 30 day trial period ends (at least according to Wikipedia). I haven't tried it myself, so can't verify that.

There is another free office suite to add to your list, Softmaker FreeOffice, which, as far as I know, has only one restriction which is that it will not save documents in .docx/.xlsx/.pptx formats. The web site for it is at http://www.freeoffice.com/en/

[Buenchico]

^^^ Don't trust Wikipedia!

WPS Office Free is genuinely free and not time-limited. It's the free trial of WPS Office Business which is time-limited.

[Jackdaw33]

Whilst I am more than happy with Open Office it has always puzzled me as to why these programs are free. How do the developers make their money?

[Buenchico]

^^^ WPS Office Free is from a commercial company (Kingsoft) which gives it away to home users in the hope that they'll pay for a licence to use WPS Office Business in their workplace. It's roughly akin to the way that the free versions of products like AVG and Avast (or the excellent freebies from Serif) are offered to the public. The developers hope that a small percentage of users will decide to upgrade to the 'premium' versions.

OpenOffice is developed entirely by volunteers:
https://www.openoffice.org/why/why_volunteers.html

LibreOffice is developed by a non-profit organisation:
https://www.libreoffice.org/about-us/who-are-we/

[Jackdaw33]

I had Kingsoft on my last computer.

[Old_Geezer]

Perhaps they don't. Perhaps they just do it for the joy of creation and give it away for the love of mankind and a belief that we should all help each other.

[Buenchico]

^^^ Whatever their motivation might be, O_G, this website is effectively run by volunteers.

Yes, I know that I know that Silverdisc (the company behind AB) is a commercial concern, funded by advertising, but the site only works because people voluntarily contribute their knowledge (or research skills) to provide answers to questions.

[Buenchico]

Returning to the original question:

In case I didn't make it clear (and assuming that you want to stick with Libre Office anyway), my suggestion is to uninstall the 'Fresh' version and then install the 'Still' one.

[piggynose]

i am having problems trying to download openoffice, its taking forever, and after 15mins, it shows a box with Failed. So should i uninstall libreoffice first?

[Old_Geezer]

Ought not affect downloading. Suggest trying again.

[piggynose]

i've tried 5 times now. it starts off ok, appearing to finish the download after 20 mins, then it goes mad, and ups the time to 2hrs, 3 hrs and finally 5 hrs, then minutes later it says its failed! will try later