LibreOffice and Zotero, and a side note on Privacy

Privacy is important to me, and should be to everyone. But privacy has a price which is not always worth its price, every person should at least ask themselves what the price of privacy is worth and take action accordingly.

I have tried for a long time to get out of Google, and have mostly succeeded, I have tried before and failed, and went back to them. I still have more than one Google account, since I publish books with them, but YouTube, for example does not live on my iPhone, and on my desktop I use FreeTube. On my Apple TV, I have to use their app. But I use YouTube sparingly today.

So the next project is to get free from Microsoft. I have used Microsoft Word and Paperpile which have worked well. But Microsoft sends a lot of telemetry, I have seen in NextDNS, and Paperpile is dependent on Google Drive. Last time I tried to use LibreOffice and Zotero it did not end well, it was the same with Microsoft Word and Zotero on macOS, it was extremely slow. My book The Sovereignty of God: The Forgotten Doctrine has > 1100 footnotes and references, so it was not tenable to use; therefore did I went back to Word and Paperpile.

But now it was time for a new attempt. I have always liked LibreOffice and have used it on and off since it was called StarOffice, and when used in Linux for many years it was the standard. And now they have also released Zotero 7 Beta, and this changed everything. So I installed Libreoffice 7.5 and Zotero 7 Beta, and it has worked beautifully with no slowdowns at all. I went through my manuscript for my book and even with all these footnotes and references it worked quickly. There was only one thing left.

Since my native language is Swedish, but my preference is to write in English, I have been very helped by the Microsoft Editor. But LibreOffice has access to LanguageTool via API call, and it works very well. And I like the approach of LanguageTool, software like Grammarly and ProWritingAid they poke on every word and sentence, nothing is ever good enough to them, while LanguageTool help in a way that suits me more.

So what am I using for software?

I am using a Mac Mini M2 Pro and a MacBook Air M1 with macOS, with Firefox as my browser. I use Obsidian with LanguageTool to write this blogpost and then pasted it into Publii, which is a static web content generator, I like it very much. I sync all of this via Syncthing, so I always have access to my writings via my computers or devices, and outside my home I am always connected via WireGuard VPN to my home, and am always using my DNS server at home, which is also filtering all the junk through AdGuard Home.

I am using LibreOffice with Zotero and LanguageTool. Libreoffice also has a King James dictionary and other useful extensions. So I am not going to renew my Office 365 subscription or Paperpile. To note, the new apps from Grammarly and ProWritingAid is working on nearly every app in macOS, but do you really want everything you write on your computer to arrive and be analysed in their cloud services? I would not like that. I am also using LanguageTool as an extension in my browser, but that extension is using my locally installed LanguageTool server, so it never leaves my home.

For my e-books I use Vellum, I only have to export my manuscript to DOCX and import it into Vellum. But Kindle Create also works really well. A side note, I am also very fond of Mellel and Nisus Writer Pro as writing tools, but they have limitations for me which need help with spelling and grammar, and they are macOS only, and I have to use Windows all too often. As it is, my firm belief is that LibreOffice and the new Zotero 7 beta is a perfect combination for anyone that do any kind of writing. You no longer need Microsoft Office.

I am also using Logos and Accordance Bible software, and I am torn between them. When doing word study or comparing translations, or doing any study of the source text of the Bible my preference is Accordance. Nothing beats it, but if you are writing a book I am using Logos, since I have thousands of books, and everything is searchable. I would not have been able to write a book like The Sovereignty of God without Logos, or it would have taken many years. For the ones that are using Windows, you also have a software called SwordSearcher, I have been very impressed with it and if you prefer the King James Bible you should check it out, it is very affordable.

Privacy is important, and in extension what you use for software is important in that regard, and we should not put all our eggs in the same basket so that one or a few companies can fingerprint and know more about us than we know about ourselves. This will be more and more important to all of us.

Update 2024-05-03: I was rather tired of macOS forcing me to put all files into the the trash for to delete it there, like it know much better than me what I want, and I wanted again to use something free, because I could see a lot of telemetry to Apple in my AdGuard server, so for now I have a little rest from macOS on my desktop computer. I have installed Linux Mint Debian edition on my Asus min pc, and I feel right at home. I will certainly miss a few things on Linux but I am sure I will overcome them after a while, it is when you have to that you find the best of ideas. And I can power-up my macs if needed.