Softmaker FreeOffice

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vicmz
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Joined: Sun 15 Jan 2012, 22:47

#41 Post by vicmz »

pemasu wrote:The lack of menu icons makes me suspect it is openbox provided by this pet:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/pet_pa ... nglish.pet
Yes, it is :lol:
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=76948]Puppy Linux en español[/url]

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tronkel
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#42 Post by tronkel »

SoftMaker runs fast on my hardware. Brother DCP-7030 printer seems OK as well.

The source is closed, so not an ideal choice for the fundamentalists. Richard Stallman would need to take more of his hypertension medication if he got to know that Puppy was using this.

How about just including TextMaker only and keeping Gnumeric as the spreadsheet? Don't know how easy itwould be to achieve the split though.

The menu and menu-bar fonts look too thin on my system and there seems no obvious way to adjust this.
Life is too short to spend it in front of a computer

hjb981
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Joined: Sat 25 Aug 2012, 16:33

Import not perfect

#43 Post by hjb981 »

I just installed the Windows version of Softmaker FreeOffice on my Windows computer. I opened two docx files, one with figures and one with a table containing double lines. Not all figures showed, and the double lines became single lines. I would judge the conversion better then LibreOffice, but still not correct. It then becomes necessary to double-check every critical document on a computer with Microsoft Office, which is what I would like to be able to avoid. It is still good that they are trying, but too bad it does not work completely. However, even with its flaws, it MAY be the best MS Office alternative available, and as such a good candidate for Puppy inclusion.

Please note that I have not tested the software any further than by opening those two files (I am always on the lookout for a Linux software that opens MS Office documents perfectly).

Bananarama

FreeOffice including donation to aid projects till 12-24

#44 Post by Bananarama »

Just wanted to tell everyone, till December 24 you can download FreeOffice for Linux at no charge and SoftMaker at the same time donates 10 Euro cents for each download to aid projects, have a look:

www.loadandhelp.com

I use FreeOffice since a few weeks and I´m very happy with it, works much better than LibreOffice in my opinion.

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L18L
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Location: www.eussenheim.de/

tooltip in menu

#45 Post by L18L »

technosaurus wrote:@L18L - how did you get the jwm menu to display a tooltip like this:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 279#671279
I didn't see any documentation on it... or is it a different wm?
Yes, it is a different wm :oops:
SFR wrote:I have it too, but it's LXPanel (+ROX/Compiz), not JWM...
my console wrote:# cat /etc/windowmanager
openbox#
#
# grep openbox $HOME/.packages/user-installed-packages
openbox_with_extras-005-english|openbox_with_extras|005-english||Desktop|8772K||openbox_with_extras-005-english.pet||Openbox 3.5 with add-ons. includes pkgs lxpanel 0.5.6, pupshutdown 1.8, wm switcher 0.18, desksetup 0.7. created by vicmz, refer puppy forum t=82800|ubuntu|precise||
#
so it is LXPANEL alone :!:

Okeh
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#46 Post by Okeh »

jrb wrote:Just for fun I took my portable FreeOffice and stripped it down to just US English.(No help files) Made a 20MB .tar.gz

Then I stripped out everything except TextMaker 9.3MB

Cheers, J
Do you have a list of the files that you retained for Textmaker alone?

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jrb
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#47 Post by jrb »

Okeh wrote:Do you have a list of the files that you retained for Textmaker alone?
I'm attaching a zipped text file containing the list. Note that this is a portable version (contains portable.txt) so that Textmaker knows to look for its configuration files in that folder. I ran each of the executables before stripping out the files. This setup the /Softmaker and /.softmaker folders in /freeoffice-textmaker. Ordinarily they would be setup in /root.

If I was to make an installable .pet I would leave in the /inst folder (which I deleted) which contains the files necessary to setup /root/Softmaker and /root/.softmaker.

Cheers, J
Attachments
freeoffice-textmaker.zip
Here's a zipped text file containing the list
(1.88 KiB) Downloaded 746 times

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technosaurus
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#48 Post by technosaurus »

I would think the appropriate place for packaging files that go in $HOME (/root in puppy) would be /etc/skel http://www.linfo.org/etc_skel.html
Then copy them to $HOME in pinstall.sh (though really petget should handle it)
That is if we ever want to have multiuser support
Check out my [url=https://github.com/technosaurus]github repositories[/url]. I may eventually get around to updating my [url=http://bashismal.blogspot.com]blogspot[/url].

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mavrothal
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#49 Post by mavrothal »

vicmz wrote:If I were a developer, I'd fork LibreOffice Writer into a single program separate from the other components in the office suite and make it independent from Java. It'd become a smaller word processor with more stability and functions than Abiword. :D
You may want to try OpenOffice-light.
It is not the writer only but at 80MB is pretty fast.
== [url=http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html]Here is how to solve your[/url] [url=https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html]Linux problems fast[/url] ==

mcewanw
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installed freeoffice into /mnt/home/freeoffice

#50 Post by mcewanw »

EDIT: Getting a startup error afterall... but don't have time to look into the reason at the moment:
"Error opening /root/%F.doc (Path not found)". Program works if I just ignore the error though. Probably just need to remove the %F in the Exec section of the desktop entries below (or maybe use something like "$@" instead of %F)

Finally got round to trying freeoffice using uncut tgz version on Precise 5.4.3 retro with JWM window manager.

After running the installfreeoffice script, instead of the default /usr/share/freeoffice, I chose /mnt/home/freeoffice as the directory where I wanted to install the applications. I just accepted the defaults for everything else.

After installation, I modified the installed desktop files provided for textmaker, planmaker, and presentations in /usr/share/applications. I then executed the command fixmenus in a terminal, and finally restarted JWM window manager from the desktop Menu start button. All seems to work fine using the following desktop file entries, which now point to the appropriate desktop icons in /mnt/home/freeoffice/icons. Only just checked all these program start up okay at this stage, and probably there are better ways to install. Works okay for me though...:

/usr/share/applications/textmaker-free.desktop:

Code: Select all

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Type=Application
GenericName=Word Processor
Comment=The TextMaker word processor lets you work on any type of document.
Comment[de]=Die Textverarbeitung TextMaker ermöglicht es Ihnen, beliebige Arten von Dokumenten zu erstellen und zu bearbeiten. 
Terminal=false
Categories=Application;Office;WordProcessor
MimeType=application/x-tmd;application/x-tmv;application/msword;application/vnd.ms-word;application/x-doc;text/rtf;application/rtf;application/rtf;application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text;application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text-template;application/vnd.stardivision.writer;application/vnd.sun.xml.writer;application/vnd.sun.xml.writer.template;application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document;application/vnd.ms-word.document.macroenabled.12;application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.template;application/vnd.ms-word.template.macroenabled.12;application/x-pocket-word;
Version=1.0
Name=FreeOffice TextMaker
Icon=/mnt/home/freeoffice/icons/tml_16.png
TryExec=/usr/bin/textmakerfree
Exec=/usr/bin/textmakerfree %F
Path=/mnt/home/freeoffice

/usr/share/applications/planmaker-free.desktop:

Code: Select all

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Type=Application
GenericName=Spreadsheet
Comment=PlanMaker lets you create all kinds of spreadsheets -- from simple ones to the most complex ones. Includes a high-caliber charting module.
Comment[de]=Mit PlanMaker können Sie alle Arten von Arbeitsblättern erstellen -- von ganz einfachen bis zu den komplexesten. Inklusive eines leistungsstarken Diagrammmoduls. 
Terminal=false
Categories=Application;Office;Spreadsheet
MimeType=application/x-pmd;application/x-pmv;application/excel;application/x-excel;application/x-ms-excel;application/x-msexcel;application/x-sylk;application/x-xls;application/xls;application/vnd.ms-excel;application/vnd.stardivision.calc;application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet;application/vnd.ms-excel.sheet.macroenabled.12;application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.template;application/vnd.ms-excel.template.macroenabled.12;
Version=1.0
Name=FreeOffice PlanMaker
Icon=/mnt/home/freeoffice/icons/pml_16.png
TryExec=/usr/bin/planmakerfree
Exec=/usr/bin/planmakerfree %F
Path=/mnt/home/freeoffice
/usr/share/applications/presentations-free.desktop:

Code: Select all

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Type=Application
GenericName=Presentation
Comment=The SoftMaker Presentations software lets you design any kind of presentation - even including special effects, animations, and transitions.
Comment[de]=SoftMaker Presentations lässt Sie beliebige Präsentationen gestalten - mit Effekten, Animationen und Transitionen. 
Terminal=false
Categories=Application;Office;Presentation
MimeType=application/x-prd;application/x-prv;application/x-prs;application/ppt;application/mspowerpoint;application/vnd.ms-powerpoint;application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation;application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.presentation.macroenabled.12;application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.template;application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.template.macroenabled.12;application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.slideshow.macroEnabled.12;application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.slideshow;
Version=1.0
Name=FreeOffice Presentations
Icon=/mnt/home/freeoffice/icons/prl_16.png
TryExec=/usr/bin/presentationsfree
Exec=/usr/bin/presentationsfree %F
Path=/mnt/home/freeoffice
EDIT2: Prior to first main use of textmaker, I personally prefer to first open and modify the document Templates2012/Normal.tmv followed by re-saving it. Generally, what I do is highlight the first character in Normal.tmv and change the font size to 12 (because I find default fontsize 10 too small)
github mcewanw

pchan
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#51 Post by pchan »

I have also been using Text maker freeoffice 2012 and presentation.

I love the program.

I find that the program works better if i turn off the auto backup every few minutes or so.

Softmaker presentation is slower than powerpoint office when editing slides but it has some great features that powerpoint doesn't have. After creating a 70 slides presentation using softmaker office, I now prefer using softmaker office over powerpoint.

Another thing i discover is that if i want to save slides created using softmaker to powerpoint format, i must save it to powerpoint 97 and not xp/2003 for better compatibility with powerpoint viewer. When I convert Slides created by softmaker office to powerpoint 97 , it turns out better in powerpoint viewer than when i convert slides created by libreoffice impress.

Textmaker is also great and I really like it because it opens up faster than Libreoffice. I ususally change the character style to default arial 12 pts for english western language and Mgothic 12 pts Japanese for eastern language. I then save it to textmaker templates so that net time i open up textmaker, it has my character style as default.

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greengeek
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#52 Post by greengeek »

jrb wrote:Then I stripped out everything except TextMaker 9.3MB
Even my textmaker file on it's own is 11MB, without anything else - what am I doing wrong? How could it be bigger on my system than yours? Any ideas?

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jrb
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#53 Post by jrb »

greengeek wrote:
jrb wrote:Then I stripped out everything except TextMaker 9.3MB
Even my textmaker file on it's own is 11MB, without anything else - what am I doing wrong? How could it be bigger on my system than yours? Any ideas?
I should have qualified that. It's 9.3MB compressed into a .tar.gz (.pet) package.

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greengeek
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#54 Post by greengeek »

I have now updated an earlier post I made detailing a couple of incidents of data loss I experienced while trialling FreeOffice Textmaker. Briefly what happens is this:

- When my laptop shuts off due to lack of battery charge I reboot and try to reopen my document but Textmaker decides that it must be corrupt and recovers it from its .bak backup copy (without asking me first...).

Unfortunately the .bak is out of date (probably because the power went off before a pupsave) and Textmaker SHOULD have left the actual file alone (because my manual saving of the file to a data partition before power went off means that the actual file is good...).

Until Textmaker is altered a little to handle backup recovery better in a pupsave environment I would recommend turning off the backup ability.

jakfish
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#55 Post by jakfish »

I've never been in love with TM's *.bak process, especially when default saving docs in *.doc format.

Did you play with the autosave settings instead? Or perhaps by storing docs on a fat32 partition outside of puppy altogether may make for safer recoveries.

Jake

drblock2
Posts: 153
Joined: Mon 19 Jan 2009, 12:38

freeoffice - strange spell-checker problem

#56 Post by drblock2 »

I did a "custom" stand-alone installation of freeoffice as follows:

I downloaded the "freeoffice.tgz" file and unpacked it to /mnt/home/freeoffice/. The reason for this is that I have a number of Puppy Linux distributions installed and I would like to use freeoffice in all of them, which requires only an installation to the hard disk and a few appropriate symbolic links.

The first time I started Textmaker, it created two folders: /.softmaker and /root/SoftMaker. Since large directories in root fill up the pupsave file, I moved the folders to /mnt/home/freeoffice and created symbolic links back to the expected locations. I installed the German templates next to English (US) templates and erased a lot of localization files that I would never need. (I was careful not to erase anything with "de" in it.) I created a desktop link for Textmaker and everything worked perfectly - except for a peculiar error in the German spell checker.

The German spell checker rejects all words containing one of the German special characters (umlaut ä, ö, ü, etc. and ß), but otherwise seems to operate correctly, even underlining old spellings like "daß" in blue.

Planmaker and Presentations also worked perfectly when launched from the command line, but with the same spell-checker problem.

Insofar as I can offer an clue to the solution of the problem, it seems to me that freeofficeand hunspell are not on the same (code) page, but I have no idea where to change the necessary setting.

SoftMaker Support could not duplicate the problem or suggest a solution.

Further experimentation revealed that this problem does not affect all Puppies.
The spell checker works properly with the following:

Puppy Lucid 5.28 (2.6.33.2)
Slacko Puppy 5.3.2.7 (3.1.10)
Wary Puppy 5.3.90 (2.6.32.59)
The spell-checker error appears with:

PuppyPrecise 5.4 (3.2.29)
Slacko Puppy 5.3.6.5 (3.4.14)
I have not tried this with other localizations that use characters beyond the original ASCII 128, Clearly, this would be a problem for adopting Textmaker as a replacement for abiword, which I would, otherwise, heartily recommend.

Anyone have a suggestion?

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jrb
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Re: freeoffice - strange spell-checker problem

#57 Post by jrb »

drblock2 wrote:Further experimentation revealed that this problem does not affect all Puppies.
Since it doesn't affect all Puppies I would guess that something in the built in /usr/bin/hunspell or /usr/share/hunspell is conflicting with FreeOffice. Check in /root/.packages/builtin_files for a complete list of hunspell files.

Try deleting them and see if the problem disappears. On a frugal, CD or USB Puppy you can get them back by deleting /initrd/pup_rw/usr/bin/.wh.hunspell, etc. On a Full install you could move them out of the file system and then copy them back in.

Hope that helps, J

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greengeek
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#58 Post by greengeek »

jakfish wrote:Did you play with the autosave settings instead?
No, I decided that it was ok to leave the autosave setting turned on - because that was ensuring a valid save of the actual data. I figured that turning of the "create backup files" was all that was required so that Textmaker doesn't go comparing my saved data with it's own (potentially) out-of-date .bak copy.
Or perhaps by storing docs on a fat32 partition outside of puppy altogether may make for safer recoveries.
I'm actually storing my real file on a separate ext2 partition. Textmaker was keeping it's .bak files there too. Do you mean that Textmaker may do a better job of comparing the actual file with it's .bak file if the actual file is kept on FAT32? I'm guessing probably not in this case - I think the issue was that puppy had not saved the latest .bak file or else - more likely - that there is a flag somewhere that forces Textmaker to use the .bak file, regardless of whether it is old or new. I dont know why Textmaker would "recover" from a .bak file that had an older timestamp than the actual file though. It would seem more sensible to either reject the older .bak, or else offer some options or sample recoveries to the user.

I will see what happens now with backups turned off.

drblock2
Posts: 153
Joined: Mon 19 Jan 2009, 12:38

German spell checker

#59 Post by drblock2 »

@jrb

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried deleting the native hunspell files, but this did not solve the problem. (I was able to restore them following your instructions - so now I have learned a new trick!)

The odd thing is that only the special characters - ä,ö,ü, ß, etc., are rejected, but the German spell checker works normally otherwise.

I also have a stand-alone installation of Opera 12.13, which uses what appear to be the identical hunspell files (same byte size), but does not have the problem.

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jrb
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Re: German spell checker

#60 Post by jrb »

drblock2 wrote:@jrb

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried deleting the native hunspell files, but this did not solve the problem. (I was able to restore them following your instructions - so now I have learned a new trick!)

The odd thing is that only the special characters - ä,ö,ü, ß, etc., are rejected, but the German spell checker works normally otherwise.

I also have a stand-alone installation of Opera 12.13, which uses what appear to be the identical hunspell files (same byte size), but does not have the problem.
Have you tried posting this problem at the Softmaker forum? I can't see them not being interested after all, sie sind Deutsche!

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