Softmaker FreeOffice

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Henry
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My wordprocessing

#31 Post by Henry »

I've been using word pocessing professionally for writing and publishing for over 25 years.

First I used WordPerfect 5 dos then windows. Then I moved completely to Puppy around 2006. Tried Abiword - inferior then and apparently still is. Used WordPerfect with Win 2000 Virtualbox for a time awkwordly. Got used to OpenOffice Write, finally painfully abandoning WorfPerfect. Then came LibreOffice, which is where I am probably for the duration. Currently v. 3.64.

LibreOffice is large, but it's in /mnt/home in my frugal PreciseNop and I still have small bulletproof save files. Updating is easy. I also moved the .config file to /mnt/home so (with spell dictionary, etc.) that remains current for whatever save file I use. (Same approach with Opera). After the first run LibreOffice is FAST.

Of course I was interested in and tried FreeOffice. Yes, it's relatvely small but limited compared to LibreOffice. And I hate the introduction of another set of file types. LibreOffice and FreeOffice play awkwardly together (in my experience, but who would want both?). LibreOffice is open and maintained.

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vicmz
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#32 Post by vicmz »

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
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smokey01
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#33 Post by smokey01 »

smokey01 wrote:
vicmz wrote:
smokey01 wrote:I didn't notice a 64 bit version.

Is one available?

Yes, there is. After registration I received an email message with my serial number and download links including 32bit and 64bit, .rpm and .deb packages.
Thanks I must have missed that.

Another download coming up.
Well I downloaded the 64bit deb version and guess what, all the binaries are 32bit and wouldn't run on Fatdog. I tried it in Dpup Exprimo, it worked but the menu entry graphics are pretty crappy. It may be smaller than LibreOffice but it won't take it's place here.

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greengeek
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#34 Post by greengeek »

vicmz wrote:If I were a developer, I'd ......make it independent from Java. It'd become a smaller word processor with more stability and functions than Abiword. :D
Yes, good point. That's the other reason I gave up on Libreoffice - kept getting java errors and didn't see any reason for the Java, given that I wasn't using database functions. I don't feel that Java is safe, so why have it unless you absolutely need it?

Puppyt
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#35 Post by Puppyt »

Henry's earlier comment had me reminiscing about WP5.1/DOS. Curse the loss of the "Reveal Codes" function, with subsequent word processors following the style-over-substance format route of MS Office. I regret not having looked at SMO's Function Key allocation more closely - just found a wealth of features - such as options to hide the toolbars to have SMO look pretty similar to the popular FocusWriter, it appears to me. There are plenty of options to modify the F-keys with Atl/Shift/Ctrl combos with personalised keyboard mapping shortcuts, so I guess I could emulate my ol' WordPerfect, to a degree (e.g., http://studymore.org.uk/wp51.htm).
Smokey01 has a good point - the menu dialogue text and icons are a bit grainy, and I haven't found how to customise that to my liking. SMO2008 I think had a good dialog font like Arial or Sans Serif, but since SMO2010 have opted for a dot-matrix type of font, for unknown reasons. Hasn't been a show-stopper for me, though I would like to see an option to change this. Perhaps via GTK theme preferences ("Linux (system)" under Tools>Options>Appearance>Dialog style), if SMO can find Puppy's GTK libraries automatically? Am I just dreaming?
Hmmm I think TextMaker2008 also had a "open at last working point" feature that was very useful for working intermittently on large documents. Nowadays when you resume to work on such a document, you open at the start of page1. I think that SoftMaker are working to restore this in SMO2012+, but if it could be default (or selectable) in Puppy FreeOffice, it would be a big plus I think.
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ozsouth
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Libreoffice - Java

#36 Post by ozsouth »

I turn Java off in Libreoffice options, & apart from the odd error message, no problems. Much better without Java & fast after the first run in a session (is cached).

jakfish
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#37 Post by jakfish »

Puppyt brings up an excellent point about TM's ability to open the document at the place where you last typed. I can't recall that being available on any SM desktop--I've only seen it on TM on my Android phone and Windows Mobile.

Softmaker on WinMo is absolutely first-rate, a desktop replica, while TM on Android doesn't impress me much; in fact, I use QuickOffice, which is also limited but has better zoom and other things.

My problem with Softmaker on Linux is that it is resource-hungry--you get a significant bump in cpu use and temperature rise.

Even running puppy 4.32 on an aging Vaio Picturebook with 114mb RAM, Wine/MS Word 97 runs at a lower cost than an SM 2008 sfs.

I find the same SM resource issue in Lubuntu 12.04, and on Lubuntu as well, I run MS Word 97, still the best word processor IMHO with regard to ability vs resource.

When a user can run Wine, then a program within Wine, and still get better cpu/temp response than a straight-up Linux program, well, I'm not a developer, but something's up.

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technosaurus
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#38 Post by technosaurus »

@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?
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pemasu
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#39 Post by pemasu »

The lack of menu icons makes me suspect it is openbox provided by this pet:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/pet_pa ... nglish.pet

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SFR
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#40 Post by SFR »

I have it too, but it's LXPanel (+ROX/Compiz), not JWM...

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vicmz
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#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:
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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.
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hjb981
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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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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
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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
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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.
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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)
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