Sorry for the Danish post i hope you can translate it.
The Ministry warns that Microsoft programs can create problems for written exams for students with Mac computers.
Users who have updated the programs to the latest version may experience the programs running slowly, freezing and crashing. This means that the examinees are delayed in their work and that parts of the answers risk being lost, write the Agency for Education and Quality and the Agency for IT and Learning in a notice to schools.
I know it sounds crazy, but a better free alternative exists.
It sounds insane to me they would use a suite where they have no control over its state… Can’t they at least block the updates? Just imagine you’re a student and your success depends on the incompetence of others
This is an excellent lesson to learn in school since it happens a lot in life.
Fair enough, but if it was at work or something you can at least say, ‘eh at least I still get paid’ Here you have no recourse options.
edit: Having read the translation now. It seems the students do have a choice in which software suite they use. So I guess they did have a recourse. So in the end it was their own responsibility. I guess it was a good lesson then.
I can’t speak for every University, but some have a way for you to appeal issues like this to the Dean.
I would imagine they have a similar setup as here in Norway (who’s also experiencing this issue) where the students own the machine and they aren’t centrally managed, especially the Mac’s
What do you recommend? I love LibreOffice on Windows and Linux, and it still works well on macOS but the GUI seems weird on it, the buttons are really large. I still use it but my partner is put off by it.
LaTeX, code and compile your documents instead of fighting with word.
Honestly Markdown is perfectly fine 99% of the time. It also has many advantages by just being much simpler
OnlyOffice is nice, but a tad controversial. It’s UI is much much closer to how 365 looks.
What’s controversial about OnlyOffice?
I only recently discovered it, and I’ve been happy with it so far. I’ve found the interface a little more snappy and easy to use than LibreOffice.
I don’t remember exactly, but something about it’s license maybe.
Obviously you need to replace your macOS with something better.