Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[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.

[jrb]

[greengeek]

[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.

[jrb]

[drblock2]

jrb wrote:

[L18L]

[jrb]

[don570]

I downloaded the free version and de-archived in /root
and ran the install script (answering yes to all questions)

Next I installed my Rightclick package
and it worked properly

The .tmd native format seems to have changed from earlier versions???


_______________________________________

[drblock2]

Thanks for the suggestions!

Adding the dummy file portable.txt to the freeoffice directory eliminates the need for the symbolic links. This is a significant improvement as it simplifies the installation of the stand-alone freeoffice, but it does not solve the problem with the German spell checker.

I also tried changing the OUTPUT_CHARSET variable. With Wary 5.4.90, which has the problem, the standard value is UTF-8, I changed this with export (as described above) to ISO8859-1 - the value listed in the de.aff file of the hunspeller. No improvement.

I then tried the opposite tack - I changed the value in de.aff to UTF-8 to match the environmental variable - still no go.

Interestingly, Wary 5.3.90 (with the same kernel as Wary 5.4.90) and the same standard value for the character set works just fine!

[jakfish]

While I've purchased multiple SMs--mostly for phone and PDA--I decided to play with Softmaker 2010 FreeOffice and found it pretty stripped down--no saving in *.docx and no thesaurus, to name two key missing features.

Ashampoo 2010 is also free, and appears to be a full version SoftMaker 2010 (and about 40 mbs larger than FreeOffice). The rub is, it appears to be Windows-only, so you need Wine--though it can be in a stand-alone directory (via a portable install to usb).

I did not find Ashampoo 2010 in Linux format, but if folks are willing to put up with wine, this may alleviate some of the issues noted in this thread, plus return the missing features.

Jake

[jrb]

[tuxtoo]

I have packaged SM Free Office 2012 and tried it on Puppy-412 and Saluki-023, although not extensively. It can be downloaded from http://412collection.co.uk/document.php#smo2012

[musher0]

[jakfish]

This week, SoftMaker is heavily discounting its full-version SoftMaker 2012, Linux or Windows.

I picked mine up on Monday for $19.99 USD. Since I run Wine, I got the Windows version. My real issue with SM in Linux is an un-adjustable menu font, etc since it's all pretty hard-coded. With Wine, obviously, users get more to tweak.

Jake