KOffice 1.1.1 Ships

Dre writes: "The KOffice team has announced the release of KOffice 1.1.1. It's mainly a performance, printing fixes (particularly in KWord) and stability release, but see the ChangeLog for the full scoop. Lots of binary packages are listed in the announcement this time. The dot is suggesting this might be the last KOffice release before KDE 3.0, which is almost on track for a late-February stable release (the first beta is being released this week)."

Comments

Imagine

[rks404]

It would be nice if KOffice and StarOffice and all the other free Office platforms had some standard document formats that were interoperable. Maybe if they got more popular, we would see something strange like the latest version of MicroSoft Office trumpeting "Compatible with StarOffice and KOffice" as their latest marketing bullet-point.

Re:It's about time!

[Bronster]

I sincerely hope that KOffice (and other alternatives) severely push MS-Office from being dominant...

Compatability with other Office Suites is #1 in my point of view.

Especially file format (and even bug) compatibility *sigh*.

I receive far too many documents in M$ Word format for work, and there is no choice but to use Word on Windows if I want to see it as the sender intended. When you're dealing with layouts of forms that have been printed and are in the field, you need to have the exact same form in front of your for data entry system design - and in many other fields it's exactly the same.

To replace Word and Excel you really need something that can handle 99% of all files from those applications, and a way to deal with the others that doesn't leave people who've stored a lot of things in those formats out in the cold.

Powerpoint files?

[MiTEG]

This is great, but will the new version be able to open Powerpoint 2002 files? I don't think so. People are using Powerpoint 2000/02 files now, which are not compatible with Powerpoint 97. So you'll still have to fork over a bundle of money if you work on presentations with people who use M$ products. Current price for Powerpoint 2002: $93.95. Good deal!

My experiences with KWord

[Eloquence]

I have tested the previous version of KWord and was quite impressed. Some have argued that KOffice merely duplicates Microsoft's efforts, but that is not true: Unlike MS Word, KWord uses a very simple and efficient frame concept, which makes it quite easy to create complex layouts. For example I was able to create a letter layout with two columns in a couple of minutes with no prior knowledge of the program.

You just draw frames where you want to have text and type in them (if you use frames, you can also use KWord without them like a normal word processor). You can connect frames so that text flows between them, and they are automatically extended to subsequent pages.

Things I haven't yet tested are data connectivity (which is essential for business stuff) and very large documents. But general writing functionality was quite impressive already. The biggest problem I had was printing: I didn't get the result to look like the preview. Reading the summary, I doubt this is fixed, but I'll be pleased to find out I'm wrong. Generally, KWord is on the right track.

Re:My experiences with KWord

[iso]

You just draw frames where you want to have text and type in them (if you use frames, you can also use KWord without them like a normal word processor). You can connect frames so that text flows between them, and they are automatically extended to subsequent pages.

This is how any good page layout program does things; Quark Express, InDesign, FrameMaker. After using any decent layout application I find it an absolute chore to do anything besides memos in Word. It's really unfortunate that most people don't realize that there are vastly superior alternatives.

I always knew Word was bad at anything but the absolute basics, but it was made blatantly obvious to me when I did my my latest resume in InDesign. When it comes to layout, Word is quite possibly the worst program for the job, but only a handful of companies will accept my resume in .PDF format. This is despite the fact that I have yet to find one single reason why .DOC would be a better choice than .PDF.

Oh well, that's nothing new. The world is full of frustrating inefficiencies because of the Microsoft monopoly.

- j

KWord can be a good rival to Framemaker /Publisher

[deadmantalking]

I may be talking off my head here, but the last time i saw KWord, it looked like it was inspored by Framemaker. As a technical Writer, Framemaker is the word processor of choice to use, Word does not even come close. Abiword and the word processor shipped with StarOffice are also aimed at the general user, not someone who creates long complex documents for a living.
KWord was a pleasant surprise, then. With KOffice 1.0, it was not ready for primetime use, but the direction it was headed showed that it will sooner or later make it easy for people like me to switch from the pain of FM (yes, it may be the best in the world for tech editing, but it still sucks royally) to something better.

A4 paper?

[innocent_white_lamb]

I must be missing something here.

I want to set Kword to default to "US letter" size paper, and it doesn't "take". Every time it comes up as A4 size.

Does anyone know how in the world one can change the default paper size?

Re:A4 paper?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone know how in the world one can change the default paper size?

Move to Europe.

Re:KWord can be a good rival to Framemaker /Publis

[NightWhistler]

Personally I still prefer LyX for large technical documents... I'm nearing the end of my internship now, and I've written all my reports in it. I'll be using it for my end paper as well...

OK, it absolutely took some getting used to, but once I got the hang of it I was suprised at how easy it was to create good looking documents... Most free Office utilities try to mimic the behaviour of commercial applications, while in my opinion the strong point of Linux is the fact that it takes a different approach... on that works...

Same thing goes for document formatting... LyX with LaTex as it's backend may be different from commerical apps, it works like a charm, and I'm definately never going back to the pain of WYSIWYG word processors...

I have spoken! ;-)

Re:It's about time!

[iso]

I receive far too many documents in M$ Word format for work, and there is no choice but to use Word on Windows if I want to see it as the sender intended. When you're dealing with layouts of forms that have been printed and are in the field, you need to have the exact same form in front of your for data entry system design - and in many other fields it's exactly the same.

That's going to be extremely difficult--even Word has problems with exact positioning between versions. The root cause is that the DOC file format was never meant for layout data, and most of the layout is dependant on how Word decides to format the content.

This is why if layout is important, people need to use a layout-centric file format like PDF. Open source programmers need to decide on a file format for word processing, and if they're not going to use PDF (an open specification, albeit controlled by Adobe), then they should invent an alternative. XML is great for content, but like HTML and SGML there's really no layout data, which can be important for many documents. Perhaps some type of style-sheets over XML? I've been really impressed with PDF v1.3, but are there (more) open alternatives?

At any rate, the DOC format desperately needs to be replaced. Not only because it's viciously controlled by Microsoft, but also because it's simply an absolute garbage hack of a file format. Either that or DOC should only be used when layout isn't terribly important.

- j

Solution to the eternal document-format-problem

[claes]

This is maybe offtopic, but anyways...

We never will get rid of complaints that the newest free office suite can not read the newest MS Office file formats. This is quite natural, but what can be done about it?

I was thinking that maybe it is possible to write a Windows application that automates the task of converting documents by using Word itself. I don't know VB or VB for applications, but is this possible? Is it not true that scriptability is one of the major features of MS Office applications?

If this is technically possible, and Office licensing allows it, then companies could dedicate a server with this program and an Office installation to become a document-transformer. Lets say it reads .doc-files in a directory on the network and converts it do .rtf and writes it to another directory.

Then no MS Office installation is neccessary on the workstations, but converting documents to Koffice/StarOffice/whatever is still easy.

Switch - you'll like it

[Wee]

My windows

So you paid for Windows and now you feel like they're all yours and nobody else's, eh? :-)

on my zoomin' fast 700mhz box crapped and I'm sitting here with a copy of windows 2k, xp, rh 7.1, caldera 2.3.. Interesting dilemma.

Well, I can tell you what I would do. But you already know what I would do. This is Slashdot, after all. Answer: Install Debian.

Seriously, I think you'd get a lot more out of RH 7.1 than 2K or XP. Why? I've used Linux as a desktop OS for years now, and I made the complete switch last May. I haven't been to Fry's once. So I've saved lots of money. My machine has been up continuously since then, BTW. And I play Tribes2 and RtCW quite a bit. (But I also use Star Office a lot). Now, I've had to ssh into it from another machine in my office to kill -9 a game or whatever, but I never reboot.

As far as the Caldera - RH argument, it's a matter of choice really. RH might be more "dynamic" maybe. It's certainly being updated more. Quite a few RPMs out there too. Go with what you know. Of course, real men use a Linux with apt-get, yada yada yada... (They make you say good things about Debian on /. regardless of the fact that it's all Linux and all good. :-)

(writing this on my 486 laptop running win95 WOOT!)

Ugh. Maybe Linux there as well? RH 5.0 runs fine on my P100 laptop. XMMS streams to the stereo. I tried WinAMP and Win95 on it and it wouldn't even run.

So... What should I go to? I got a better box for games, and I really don't like playing around with linux on a 200mhz 64mb ram machine with a 2 mb vid card.

Oddly enough, you have a machine which is almost perfect for Linux. It's not powerful enough to run the latest MS (or other) apps, yet you could run a minimal Linux install and get added life out of that box as a word processor. Since the box is old, there should be very little wrestling with drivers. As far as GUIs bringing you down, try Blackbox. It's very minimal (yet very full-featured) and should serve you well.

From those who have - how is koffice compared to the standard MS suite?

Well, I use Star Office 6 even at work now. Guy says he wants "powerpoint", I give him slides. Need to look at Excel sheets, I open scalc. As far as KOffice, I don't know. I've had more than once experience where KWord just quit on me. Vanished. No core file, no syslog error, nothing. Just gone. I save a lot when using either it or KWrite (which is worse; KWrite goes down more than a White House intern). I'm using older versions, sure, but I was not too impressed with the stability. Now Kate... wow. There's an editor. Sure, it's plain text, but it's a real good example of a stable app. At least in my experience these last few months. Does syntax highlighting fo0r Perl, C and SQL, too, so that's a big plus. Of course, I've turned in memos/meeting notes, whatever printed two-to-a-sheet with enscript or with line numbers before, so...

What about file compatibility problems (can I take stuff to school?)

You should be able to move files between home and school. Make sure to save in native format (Star Office will ask what format you want to save it in). I've exchanged Word 2000 docs with Star Office 6 and back again. Every once in a while I get a document that saves to like 8MB (when it should be like 400K). A resave helps sometimes.

I haven't been able to get simple Word or Excel macros running. I haven't tried, though. I don't want to run macros if I can help it.

Speed - how is star offices speed - I'm assuming x is a lot faster on this box than on the 200, but are there any issues?

Star Office 5 is about as fast as a wounded prawn. It will literally suck the life force out through your face. One should be paid to use it. The Star Office Beta 6, however, rocks. Worlds better. It has warts, sure, but it's beta. (Do you really think any software -- which had a ship date -- that came out of either Redmond or Mountain View had anything like the QA it should have had?) I've been using beta 6 since it came out and haven't noticed anything overly weird (except a deep-seated and possibly misguided reliance on Java). Me and a few other gus use it for work, so it's good enough I guess.

Any "major psycotic hatreds"?

Visio. I hate Visio. And sometimes I hate project managers, too.

Any comments / advice from people who have done the switch?

I've been using nothing but Linux for months now -- like I said -- and I wouldn't go back. Hell, I couldn't. Deal with XP and it's sugary GUI and nasty licensing/copy "protection"? Not a chance. Pay for Apple hardware? I'll save for my kids college funds instead and run Linux on older hardware. And why not? Linux runs great for me. I love being able to right-click on the desktop and get an xterm where I can write a shell script that goes into cron. Networking works, I have every compiler I'd ever want, a choice of GUIs, lots of customizing, I use ssh tunnels, scp is fine, samba keeps me and the wife in sync, games are fine and I just don't spend any more time or money on the upgrade mill. And BTW, check out Opera for Linux. I've paid for the Win32 and Linux versions of Opera. Everyone who's taken time to look at Opera has loved it, at least in my experience (which is predominantly IE users).

-B

Open File Formats

[dunstan]

Well, given the discussion about KWord's use of frames, I can't see that it will be that simple to import KWord into a non frame aware package.

Where things should be better is where there's a closer overlap in functionality between different packages. The first step - where we are now - is to have office packages working on *published* file formats. Following on, a degree of component sharing would make sense (as with the Gecko engine).

At this point the benefit of using free software kicks in with a vengeance, as interoperability issues are of interest to *both* parties rather than a cat and mouse game based around reverse engineering. Extending Bob Young's analogy, you would then find Ford helping BMW to transplant in their engine, rather than suing them for cutting through the welds which hold the bonnet (hood) shut.

Right now Microsoft's most valuable asset is probably the huge and growing base of documents in proprietary file formats, a pernicious form of enslavement. Our blow for freedom must be the use of open formats such as plain text and comma separated lists.

Dunstan

Re:It's about time!

[Hanno]

I use Microsoft's Word Viewer to view and print the documents coming in, but refuse to use a full-blown Word installation to create them. So far, no problems, although you do do get some funny looks from clients when you tell them that (and why) you don't use Word on your office PC.

Re:more interesting...

[radja]

for comparison, you'd also need the same numbers for Office.. I have KOffice, but use it only very very rarely... just like I only typed 1 or 2 letters in Word. Also computers often come bundled with WinXP and Office. How many of those users actually use it?

My guess is that daily usage/download will actually be lower than 10%

//rdj

Who here is using KOffice as your primary suite?

[sandler]

My only experiences with KWord (admittedly limited) have been bad. I've opened a few Word docs in KWord and found them to be a disaster (whereas StarOffice did a 99% good job).

Also, the one time I typed a homework in KOffice and saved as HTML, as soon as I opened the HTML file in vi, I found that it contained nothing but "<html>". If I can't assume that pressing "Save" will save my file, then it's really not so useful to me.

huge documents and lyx

[hawk]

Most folks in my department used word for theses and dissertations. It typically took at least a week, full time, to browbeat the document into compliance with the graduate office rules.

I used lyx, and found an existing isu.sty program. My time? Less than 10 minutes . . .

hawk