Arch Linux

pecan

Member

Registered: 2007-04-06

Posts: 93

Microsoft Word

Is there any way to get a legal Microsoft Word, any version after 2000, to run on linux. I was hoping wine would do it, but I checked out the wine app db and most of the comments stated it wouldn't run. Anyone had any experience with getting word to run? I understand Koffice and openoffice are both great, but I need to be able to share my assignments easily with other members of my groups and I'd rather not risk anything going wrong. Any advice?

bones

Member

From: Brisbane

Registered: 2006-03-24

Posts: 322

Website

Re: Microsoft Word

If nobody else is going to add anything to the copy you send to people you could always do what I do and that is send everything as PDF, Everybody seems to have some sort of pdf reader software on their computer. I suppose it's a throw back to one of my old jobs. Nothing went out the door unless it was converted to that format.

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"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."

pecan

Member

Registered: 2007-04-06

Posts: 93

Re: Microsoft Word

Unfortunately other people need to contribute to the documents and that's fine for simple stuff but it uses a lot of iffy things like the headers for the table of contents and graphics which always seem to be touch and go for openoffice.

psyBSD

Member

From: The Netherlands

Registered: 2007-03-01

Posts: 25

Re: Microsoft Word

I wonder why they won't just use OO.o (and thus ODF), it is a matter of you CAN'T and they WON'T... they should adept (imho).

kishd

Member

Registered: 2006-06-14

Posts: 401

Re: Microsoft Word

You could try Crossover Office www.codeweavers.com/products/ It is commercial software but they put a lot back into wine.

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---for there is nothing either good or bad, but only thinking makes it so....
Hamlet, W Shakespeare

Janax

Member

From: Iowa

Registered: 2007-05-21

Posts: 86

Re: Microsoft Word

I'm not really and Office power user per se, but I have been using OpenOffice for 3+ years now without any real issues.  The conversions are usually very good.  I've even heard that people will use OpenOffice to convert .doc files between different versions of Word - it apparently does a better job than Word itself does in some cases!  I haven't ever verified that fact for myself though - my company uses 'ancient' stuff like Windows 2000, Exchange 5.5, and Office 97.  The hardware here is ancient too (P-III with 512MB is very high-end), which is why I use my own laptop (and thus OO).

Good luck!

mouse256

Member

From: Antwerpen, Belgium

Registered: 2005-08-24

Posts: 247

Re: Microsoft Word

Well, about Microsoft office 2003 and wine: I tried it just a week ago. The installer from office crashed at the end and office did not work. So I ran the installer again, chose repair and now it completed. I'm able to run word, powerpoint and excel now. I only really tried powerpoint because I had a presentation to make. It works, but the painting of images is rather slow, and the sidebar on the right is completely white... But it does work (a little) :-)