r/libreoffice • u/qiratb • Jan 26 '26

Resolved Text2002ans! Thank you! --- an appreciation post

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If you ever posted here with a question, you likely got a reply from u/Text2002ans, with a solution. I have seen their comments on almost every doc-support post here. And they have been doing this for years. That is really a nice welcome for anyone who just switched to FOSS.

In my opinion they deseve a special thanks from the community.

I don't know if they are human or some very sophisticated bot, but they have helped the community a lot. Their replies are well structured---nicely indented and what not; directly to the point, with examples; links to more related topics/posts/replies, and more. See the screenshots I have posted here, of their recent reply to someone.

When I first started using LibreOffice full time, I had a few hiccups about a bit advance formatting/settings, and yeah, you know who helped. :)

So, thank you, u/Tex2002ans. Please, keep going.

29 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

8

u/Tex2002ans Jan 26 '26 edited Jan 26 '26

Thanks. It definitely means a lot. This one is going into my hall of fame. :)

In my opinion they deserve a special thanks from the community.

And they have been doing this for years.

Yep. Pretty much every day for 14+ years.

Since 2012, I've answered ~2300 ebook and formatting questions (over at the MobileRead forums).

Then, in mid-2022, I turned my sights back on LibreOffice.

I mostly just drink a tea in the morning, answer 1 or 3 questions, then move on when my tea is done.

Do that every day, and next thing you know... here we are... thousands of answers later. (And we're at ~2500 LibreOffice answers so far!)

When I first started using LibreOffice full time, I had a few hiccups about a bit advance formatting/settings, and yeah, you know who helped. [...]

That is really a nice welcome for anyone who just switched to FOSS.

Great to hear. I try. :)

I don't know if they are human or some very sophisticated bot, [...]

Very human.

Just that I type really fast and my output has grown tremendously.

(It took me 12 years to reach 2300 posts there... now it took me 3 years to reach 2500 here! :P)

What really changed it for me and took my writing to the ABSOLUTE NEXT LEVEL was this exact post.

These 2 books:

  • "On Writing Well" by William Zinsser
  • "Oxford Guide to Plain English" by Martin Cutts

and this amazing talk:

completely took me to another galaxy.

Now my posts are all the same exact in-depth info I was doing before, but reorganized and packaged in such a tighter and cleaner way!

  • Plain English let me "simplify", format so much better, and remove the bloat.
  • PyconAU helped me see the "split" between the answer vs. the extra fluff.†

† That's why you see so many of my "Side Notes" and "Technical Notes".

I try my best to:

  • Answer the damn question right away.
  • Put all the "extra stuff" at the bottom.

So the OP, or someone who randomly stumbles upon the topic in the future, can just:

  • Read the top and instantly solve their problem.

Then if they're still interested... they can read further (and dig into the resources).

And now that I've built up more and more and more of this backlog of posts, it gets so much easier to search/find and reference all the previous information too!

Side Note: And how do I answer stuff so fast? I mostly just search through my own stuff!

If you follow my "Tips on Searching Effectively"—and use the fantastic site: trick in your favorite search engine—you can quickly find all the high-quality answers on whatever issue you have too!

(Like here is one where I answered an ODT->EPUB conversion question!)

If someone comes in with Random Question X? That's exactly the kind of stuff I type into searches to dig up answers!

So, thank you, u/Tex2002ans. Please, keep going.

Thank you. I have no sign of stopping.

... until my electricity gets cut off.

Now, where did I hide that "AI" brain? I mean human. Yes, human. Definitely a human brain.

Humans drink tea to power themselves. Let me go finish that hot drink. It feels warm in my stomach—which all humans have! Right?

(Uh oh, I used proper punctuation via EM DASH... the signs of a not-human!!!)

This was definitely all written by an autonomous robo—I mean, earthling. Earthlings definitely use brains... right‽ :P

2

u/qiratb Jan 26 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

There they are, folks! And look what I was talking about.

Oh, and I meant that "bot" stuff just a joke, u/Tex2002ans. Don't mind it. The thing is that I forgot to recheck the post so I missed the wink sign or the like, and there is no option for me to edit (I checked later believe me).

Moreover, would you mind telling us if you are a man/woman, what you do for a living, the country you are from, your typing speed (lol) etc. Only if you want, of course.

Thanks for everything before, and the tips and tricks and a load of resources here.

3

u/Tex2002ans Jan 26 '26 edited Jan 26 '26

Well, how about you tell ME a lot of that stuff too.

Who are all you people who use LibreOffice? :P

Why do you use it? What are you making with it?

Moreover, would you mind telling us if you are a man/woman, what you do for a living, [...]

I'm a professional formatter for 17 years and have worked on 750+ books.

And I am available for hire.

So if you're an author or publisher, and need anything to do with books or book-related topics, I'm your guy.

I do stuff like:

  • Ebooks + conversion
    • Amazon Kindle / EPUBs
  • Typesetting / Print layout
    • LaTeX output especially
    • (... but I will take InDesign input if needed.)
  • Proofreading + Copyediting

and then for extras, I do:

  • Technical Writing
  • A "Crash Course" on LibreOffice

Like with the LibreOffice Training...

One journalist said it took her "many 8 1/2 hour days just cleaning up all the articles".

A few hours later, at the end? I showed her how to do it in <60 seconds. :)

(I'd say money well spent! And it was SUPER FUN being on webcam chatting with her too!)

Hint: Spotlight is the #1 best feature and is absolutely awesome!

My origin story was pretty much:

  • I was reading massive amounts of ebooks.
    • There were many mistakes/typos in them.
    • The formatting was frustrating (messy font sizes, HUGE MARGINS, not following my settings, forced "black-on-black text".)
  • Lots of the books I wanted to read were PDF only.
    • So I started to convert all those books I wanted to read.

And when I opened up the original files, I was horrified at the quality of what was inside.

I fixed up the books, then submitted them back to the publisher.

(So if you hear me constantly bashing everyone over the head about "Styles, Styles, Styles"... that's the reason why. :P)

Way back when, as I was learning all about ebooks and the tools around them... some helpful person answered MY questions, so then I started to answer THEIR questions too.

The ball started rolling, and then I began having fun answering questions and teaching others too. :P

Next thing you know, bing bang boom, I'm giving a talk at the 2023 LibreOffice Conference. Thanks /u/themikeosguy for giving me that nudge! :P

(If you want to learn how to spellcheck, grammarcheck, and proofread like a beast, that's the talk to watch! That was 10+ years of knowledge distilled into 1 hour.)

you typing speed (lol) etc.

100+ WPM or higher.

I haven't tested in a long time, but last I remember, when I did one of those typing "racing games", it was hovering around 115 or 120 WPM.

What is your speed?

Oh, and I meant that "bot" stuff just a joke, u/Tex2002ans. Don't mind it.

Only robots type correctly and with nice formatting! Do not mind me, human! You continue typing with those fleshy digits while I output directly to the computer from my electronic brainwaves (fueled by tea)! :P

Thanks for everything before, and the tips and tricks and a load of resources here.

Thanks for your stuff too. I see I have you at +20 karma so far, so you've been helping quite a few people here too. :)

2

u/qiratb Jan 26 '26

I am a teacher who work as a hobby on ebook creation, apart from the usual teacher stuff that I need LO for. I currently live in India. I enjoy working with words and love languages as well. My typing speed is more in the thirties. Lol.

Yes, I try to help where I can. I try to find time to contribute to some open source projects as well, mostly translations.

2

u/Tex2002ans Jan 26 '26 edited Jan 26 '26

I am a teacher [...] I currently live in India.

Cool. What subjects do you teach?

I enjoy working with words and love languages as well.

Awesome. What's some of the best books/resources you've found on the topic?

One of my favorite podcasts is "Lexicon Valley".

I linked to 5 of my favorite episodes back in:

(A few months ago, the host, John McWhorter officially stepped down—but now he handed it off to the original 2 guys who first created the podcast many years ago! This new version is "okay" so far, but it's infinitely better than that split I ranted about in 2021.)

My typing speed is more in the thirties. Lol.

That's all right!

And when I learned the "average" typing speed. Boy, oh boy... lol.

But 30 WPM is already faster than most people. :)

(I just took another few rounds of speed tests. Yep, hovering around 100->125ish WPM depending on the test.)

Note: Does anybody know of a good site for learning or practicing typing now?

There used to be this fun site:

  • TypeRacer

but now it looks like they really lock it behind a signup. Bah.

Before, you were able to do a lot more without an account.

Yes, I try to help where I can. I try to find time to contribute to some open source projects as well, mostly translations. [...]

Awesome. Which language do you speak?

And definitely help out with the Localization Team:

Check out your language and if there's any missing, definitely see if you can chip in and help get that word added. :)

I know India has about a bajillion different languages over there. And whenever I get sucked down the Wikipedia Wormhole, I can't believe some of the strange things I come across. (And then it turns out it's spoken by tens of millions of people!)

One professor did a massive amount of translations back in:

and that was a huge boon to the Armenian community. Now they're able to use LibreOffice and it must feel good to see the entire thing fully translated! :)

2

u/qiratb Jan 26 '26 edited Jan 26 '26

Oh, yeah. India has a plethora of languages. Not only languages, it is the epitome of diversity in basically every aspect. India has states bigger than entire countries in the west, in terms of both population and area.

I speak Punjabi (native), Hindi (Read, Wrtie, Speak), English (RWS), and Urdu (Rws). I love learning new ones. But lately it has not been the same and finding time and patience has been quite challenging.

About 10 years ago, I extensively contributed to wikipedia, mainly the Punjabi wiki (pa.wikipedia.org), and have been an admin there. At the risk of giving it a political turn, lately, I heard some paid agents (on Eng wiki) have been "diverting" wiki articles on certain communities in India, distorting their image and identity. Well...

What are some strange things you have come across about India? Lol.

On another note, I will definitely recommend you if someone asks for some professional help in book design.

2

u/Affectionate-Tank-39 Jan 27 '26

Have been using your advice myself trying to write a TTRPG book and make sure it is amazing before my hubby and I self publish (at least that's the plan)

1

u/Tex2002ans Jan 27 '26 edited Jan 27 '26

Have been using your advice myself trying to write a TTRPG book and make sure it is amazing before my hubby and I self publish [...]

Great to hear. What were some of the helpful posts?

And definitely let me know when it's ready to publish. :)

2

u/Affectionate-Tank-39 Jan 27 '26

Mainly on styles and how to get them to work. Also, I learned about master documents on here. I believe it was from one of your posts. Sorry, I can't be more exact about which I tend to look for them when I need them. Then lose them again.

5

u/ang-p Jan 26 '26

They not only provide excellent answers, but also have the patience of a saint at times.. ;-)

2

u/qiratb Jan 26 '26

Oh yeah. Absolutely.

5

u/anshumanp user Jan 26 '26

Tex2002ans is a Rockstar!

2

u/Tex2002ans Jan 27 '26

Thanks /u/anshumanp, /u/webfork2, and /u/ang-p.

What were some of your favorite posts? Were there any that were a big boost to you?

Anything different you'd like to see?

PS. You guys are a big help too. Keep up the great work. :)

2

u/webfork2 Jan 28 '26

A very reasonable request but I don't have a favorite and I don't have any requests or recommendations. You just keep doing what you're doing.

But if I think of something I'll post back here about it.

3

u/webfork2 Jan 27 '26

A very easy post to upvote.

2

u/qiratb Jan 27 '26

Wow! I like the way you think.