Looking for recommendations on beginner-friendly #Linux distributions.

I don't need any novice help, this is for a friend who wants to move away from Windows.

They need the usual productivity software, web browser, mail, Word, Excel, etc. which will probably be easy to replace. I advised them to start working with #LibreOffice now, to see if they feel comfortable with it. They also need some more exotic software, but I'm confident it will work fine with Wine. We'll test that out soon.
They're also very privacy-sensitive, so I'm currently discounting #Ubuntu.

What would you suggest and why?