Koffice 1.3 Released

Too many office choices on Linux now! by ChiralSoftware · 2004-01-27 09:46 · Score: 5, Insightful

Let's see, OpenOffice, Textmaker, Microsoft Office, KOffice, Kingsoft... what else? It seems that there are now more office choices for Linux than for Windows. Fortunately all except Microsoft Office seem to be moving towards the StarOffice XML format so we can have one file format that works on all of them.

Re:Too many office choices on Linux now! by grqb · 2004-01-27 10:39 · Score: 3, Interesting

As a fairly new Linux user, I find that too much choice makes it hard to learn and it's true for lots of other types of software too. I know competition is advantageous and all but I think it would help to focus development on say 2 office choices that were in competition...competition like that between gnome and kde is good.

This can only be a good thing by Tim_F · 2004-01-27 09:47 · Score: 5, Interesting

OpenOffice has sat alone at the top of the Free Office Suite application hill for too long. I have been using this product since its alpha stages, and can say without reservations that it has improved by leaps and bounds. The MS Word import filters are alone worth the price of admission (a quick compile on my Gentoo box). The KDE developpers have for a long time now been light years ahead of their open source counterparts. It's good to see that with this release KOffice will finally gain the recognition that it deserves. And with the forthcoming release of KDE 3.2 next week, what more do you need on your open source desktop?

Re:This can only be a good thing by gr8_phk · 2004-01-27 10:01 · Score: 2, Insightful

Oh sure. When people use or try to improve GNOME, they are flamed because KDE is obviously superior and has won the competition. Yet KDE fans are supposed to support KOffice when clearly OpenOffice.org has won that competition.
FANatics...
Re:This can only be a good thing by jrcamp · 2004-01-27 11:30 · Score: 4, Informative

OpenOffice has nothing to do with GNOME. It doesn't use any of their framework or integrate any more than it does with KDE. So why do GNOME claim it as their flagship office product? Stick with your Gnumeric et al. :)

RTF by Carnildo · 2004-01-27 09:47 · Score: 2, Interesting

Do they yet have a functional RTF import? That's the thing I've found missing from entirely too many Linux office suites and word processors.

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"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.

Re:RTF by Anonymous Coward · 2004-01-27 09:59 · Score: 2, Funny

Do they yet have a functional RTF import?
No, but I have working RTFM module as man pages viewer, if you are interested.
Re:RTF by Josh+Booth · 2004-01-27 10:36 · Score: 4, Funny

I agree. Once RTFA is better supported, maybe Slashdotters will actually RTFA when presented in the RTFA format. Wait, RTF, oh...

Re:been using openoffice by diersing · 2004-01-27 09:49 · Score: 2, Interesting

Agreed. I rather see the office suite developers of the world unite and improve OpenOffice. Personally, I've never like the KDE Office suite and most distro's include OO as the default.

Is this Redundant? by mauriatm · 2004-01-27 09:49 · Score: 3, Interesting

So which should I use? KDE Based OpenOffice or KOffice?

Previous versions of KOffice left a lot to be desired. And I was finding OO a bit too sluggish on old computers. Abiword seemed to be pretty decent though.

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KOffice vs Open Office by Anonymous Coward · 2004-01-27 09:49 · Score: 5, Informative

I find KO to be more user friendly and less buggy than OO. Too bad it lacks the MS compatibilty of OO for Power Point

Re:KOffice vs Open Office by bogie · 2004-01-27 15:50 · Score: 2, Informative

Buggy? Slow, Big YES. But buggy? No, not really. KOffice has the integration thing down, but its well behind OO functionality wise and isn't cross platform.

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Thats good and all... by cartzworth · 2004-01-27 09:50 · Score: 2, Funny

...until MS gets their Office XML patents. :|

Speculation by daeley · 2004-01-27 09:51 · Score: 4, Interesting

On a Mac OS X note, I'm hoping the speculation is true, that Apple might do with KOffice what it did with Konq/Safari and turn it into the next generation of AppleWorks.

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I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.

Re:Speculation by Anonymous Coward · 2004-01-27 10:07 · Score: 2, Interesting

Since KOffice is GPL, they would be forced to open the source code to their entire application. It couldn't be where they take the LGPL KHTML and link things to it, only publishing the changes to the core KHTML. Thus, Linux would benefit from having an "Apple-quality" office suite. Apple is most likely reluctant to pour many hours into GPL code... which others could copy to neutralize the gain on the Apple platform. But even if it did become a standard across PC and Mac, it would be better than having MS control the Mac productivity suite. Then, Apple would be controlling both worlds... similar to iTunes/Quicktime/etc. (of course, a QT port to windows has yet to be seen, and since QT is GPL'd... commercial QT applications must pay for a license. You don't have to buy a license for even MS application development. We really need a LGPL'd QT implementation)
Re:Speculation by Trillan · 2004-01-27 10:12 · Score: 3, Informative

I found a blog entry on a possible Aqua port, but it doesn't seem to be integrated into the builds yet.
Re:Speculation by Florian · 2004-01-27 11:11 · Score: 4, Insightful

I doubt that. Apple already has its own presentation program and therefore no use for KPresenter. Despite having greatly processed, KWord still doesn't feel like a production app, has an overally awkward user interface, much inferior import filters to OpenOffice and, at least in the past, insufficient stability. It is therefore not nearly as attractive as the base of a potential "iWord" as KHTML was for Safari. Abiword, which would be an alternative, also lacks reliability and compatibility, and OpenOffice is a monster that Apple would avoid for the same reasons it avoided Mozilla.
Also, KWord is built on top of KDE's component/toolkit architecture that is a world apart from MacOS X Carbon/Cocoa API. While Qt allows a native port to Aqua, it does not offer a native port to Carbon or Coca, and Apple is unlikely to establish a third desktop API on its platform just for the sake of getting a functionally rather limited word processor that, at the moment, has no dramatic advantage over the old Claris/AppleWorks offering.
And keep in mind that for Safari, Apple just used the engine (KHTML) of a free program, not the GUI application (konqueror) itself, in the same way it put its own (proprietary) GUI on top of Mach and BSD. From I experience, I doubt that KWord and Abiword are, in their present state, as attractive as "engines" as BSD and KHTML were. If it all, Abiword seems a more likely candidate since it's designed as a cross-plattform application and, quite in opposition to KWord, focuses on getting base functions and usability right before acquiring more nifty/hackerish features such as frame-based page layout and importing PDF files.
What makes your scenario very unlikely in the end are licensing issues. KOffice and Abiword are GPLed code and thus would require Apple to release any program based on them under the GPL. Which doesn't fit to the company's successful tactics of putting slick, but proprietary GUIs on top BSD- or LPGL-licensed hacker code like BSD and KHTML. A GPLed "iWord" that could be ported back to Linux and even Windows would, unlike the current i-apps, be no exclusive selling point for MacOS X.
-F

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Re:Speculation by LMCBoy · 2004-01-27 11:20 · Score: 4, Insightful

Since KOffice is GPL, they would be forced to open the source code to their entire application. It couldn't be where they take the LGPL KHTML and link things to it

I don't get it. Why are you so keen to allow a corporation to obtain hundreds of man-hours worth of high-quality code written by a volunteer community, and place that code into a proprietary application? The corporation gets a free (as in beer) codebase which they can then market and possibly make huge amounts of cash, while giving nothing back to the community from which they leeched.

Now, assuming you are not the CEO of the company, why exactly is this a desireable situation again? The above seems like an unequivocally bad deal for the community of developers, and I say, thank goodness the GPL prevents such shenanigans.

since QT is GPL'd... commercial QT applications must pay for a license

If people want to profit from code based on the excellent Qt toolkit, why should they not have to pay Trolltech for the privelige of using their excellent toolkit? TT is gracious enough to allow free (beer and speech) usage of Qt for noncommercial uses, and their commercial license fees are by most accounts very reasonable. It isn't as if they are starved for customers.

You don't have to buy a license for even MS application development

What the hell are you talking about? Assuming you aren't referring to illegal MS application development, can you please explain this? How do you obtain the MS API, core libraries, and development environment without buying a license to use at least soem flavor of Windows, and probably VB, or another MS-compatible IDE as well?

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Re:Speculation by squiggleslash · 2004-01-27 12:44 · Score: 3, Informative

If people want to profit from code based on the excellent Qt toolkit, why should they not have to pay Trolltech for the privelige of using their excellent toolkit? TT is gracious enough to allow free (beer and speech) usage of Qt for noncommercial uses, and their commercial license fees are by most accounts very reasonable. It isn't as if they are starved for customers.
Proprietary, not commercial. You can have open source/free commercial software, and non-commercial proprietary software.
Trolltech allows royalty-free use of QT under the conditions of the GPL. If you want to sell your GPL'd end-product, that's fine, as long as the terms of the GPL are adhered too.
Note I am not commenting on how viable commercial GPL software is, merely pointing out there's a difference.

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Fun for Gentoo by GweeDo · 2004-01-27 09:52 · Score: 4, Informative

Get the build here

Be sure to do: emerge koffice-1.3.ebuild digest

Then emerge it and enjoy :)

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Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck

Powerpoint by Anonymous Coward · 2004-01-27 09:53 · Score: 2, Interesting

KOffice 1.3's presenter offers much improved support for powerpoint features than previous versions. However, good support for links and enter/exit effects is still lacking. The inability to play powerpoint presentations reliably on anything but powerpoint is keeping us locked to MS Office and Windows.

Cross platform = :) by stfvon007 · 2004-01-27 09:53 · Score: 4, Interesting

I perfer the Open office because its cross platform, as I have a dual-boot machine(well 5x boot) and though I have MS office (needed to get the formatting perfect for those perfectionist profs that ding you for being 1/16 of an inch off in margins (prof required documents be submitted electronicly in .doc format), and for combinations of drawing+text wich open office still dosnt have good compatability with (the text stays in place while the images get all scrunched so they dont match up at all)Its been getting better but is not perfect.

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I don't quite get... by deitel99 · 2004-01-27 09:53 · Score: 5, Interesting

"Especially the support for Microsoft Word 95 and Microsoft Word 97 documents has become much better."

I'm no expert, but considering OpenOffice can already open these file formats quite well (they are old), why does KOffice lag behind? I can understand difficulty in writing these files, but for reading them it shouldn't be nearly as difficult. They wouldn't have to reverse engineer the formats from scratch; they can simply read using the method from the GPLed OpenOffice code. Why the difference exactly?

Re:I don't quite get... by Just+Some+Guy · 2004-01-27 10:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

My understanding is that it's not so much the file parsing that's difficult, it's fitting the resulting data into your application's object model. The KOffice people may have a good understand of the Office format, but it may not be a perfect fit onto their internal data structures.

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Re:I don't quite get... by not_cub · 2004-01-27 10:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

I'm no expert, but considering OpenOffice can already open these file formats quite well (they are old), why does KOffice lag behind? I can understand difficulty in writing these files, but for reading them it shouldn't be nearly as difficult. They wouldn't have to reverse engineer the formats from scratch; they can simply read using the method from the GPLed OpenOffice code. Why the difference exactly?
Perhaps reading the files themselves isn't as hard as mapping them onto your own representation of a document. OpenOffice seems to have been reasonably like Office from the time I first saw it around '99 I believe (as StarOffice). KDE is effectively a design from scratch, although various things come out working similarly, because they are reasonable design decisions. As a consequence, even though the open world knows the data format of Word files to a large extent, reading them into KOffice is still hard.
This wild guess bought to you by not_cub.

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KOffice for OS X still moving forward by abischof · 2004-01-27 09:55 · Score: 5, Informative

And, don't forget that Ranger Rick is still working on porting KOffice to OS X. There are now binaries available and if you're going to download all the KDE-on-OSX packages, you may as well use the all-packages torrent.

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KOffice is sweet ready for the Apple picking by LibrePensador · 2004-01-27 09:56 · Score: 5, Interesting

Were Apple to do for Koffice what they did for Khtml, and why wouldn't they, the KDE suite of applications would be very much complete.

Koffice, even if it doesn't attract all the attention of OpenOffice, is light-weight and architecturally sound. Koffice 1.3 is almost there, it just needs a little bit of loving care.

If you are convinced that Apple could be interested in Koffice, consider this.

*Qt applications can run natively under OS X.

*The Mac port of OpenOffice is seriously understaffed and very much behind.

* Koffice's code, due to its componentization, is much easier to maintain and to learn.

*It helps Apple maintain its open source credibility, an intangible asset, but one that shouldn't be dismissed.

*It provides a good trump card against Microsoft or at least some leverage to make sure that they continue to put out a Microsoft Office for the Mac.

*It gives Apple greater control over their destiny, which is one of the main reasons why they created Safari.

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Re:KOffice is sweet ready for the Apple picking by tyrione · 2004-01-27 10:53 · Score: 3, Interesting

Qt applications are only considered "native" because Apple has caved and renamed the Carbon API as native when, in truth, it's a transitional API that is not the direction of OS X.

Qt would become native if it were written with Objective-C/Cocoa integration, built-in, thus allowing a two-way roadway. Wrapping Qt with Objective-C++ would be a step in the right direction, but so far Qt uses only CARBON.

Apple won't use KOffice other than to study it and from there determine how their own Cocoa Tools may benefit from that experience(s), along-side the AppleWorks past.

Apple should focus on making sure it utilizes a document neutral format, thus XML as it has already done extensively and then provide an API in which pre-existing OSS applications can seemless exchange data while retaining how it operates on the data, uniquely to OS X.

Apple is not in the business of making Operating Systems that make Linux the best choice of Operating Systems, but they aren't in the business of using proprietary data format standards thus extending their past history of isolationism.

pdf read/write support by esarjeant · 2004-01-27 09:57 · Score: 5, Interesting

"Also new is the ability to import PDF files into KWord and make changes to the document. Support for Microsoft document- formats has improved as well."

Haven't tried it yet, but this feature definitely peaks my interest.

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Eric Sarjeant
eric[@]sarjeant.com

Re:pdf read/write support by Spy+Hunter · 2004-01-27 11:42 · Score: 2, Informative

Interesting. I just tried this feature, and unfortunately it completely messed up the layout of the two PDFs I tried it on. However, it did successfully import the text and pictures from both documents. It is unlikely that this feature will let you easily edit and re-save a PDF file, but it could be useful for extracting text and images from them.
KWord's MS Word filters have improved, but they still have a ways to go as well. I tried importing my resume, and found that the import filter doesn't support font embedding, so the layout was different, and the table I used was positioned wrong. I probably won't be using KWord as a .doc file viewer, but I am a fan of its light weight and clean interface. If it proves to be stable enough I may use it for a few documents to see how it fares in real usage.

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Re: my-kingdom-for-a-wordperfect-import-filter by Florian · 2004-01-27 09:58 · Score: 2, Interesting

Well, KWord has a WordPerfect import filter.

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MS Filters by Krafty+Koder · 2004-01-27 09:59 · Score: 2, Insightful

"the support for Microsoft Word 95 and Microsoft Word 97 documents has become much better." Guys (and girls) in the KOffice team - i'm not interested in those formats. I'm a KOffice fan big time, but I want MS Office 2000 filters at the very least. May I suggest that instead of adding features, the team focuses on filters for the next release. I can't understand why this hasnt been done - especially since OpenOffice can do it. I love the speed of KOffice on KDE - but I'm still stuck with OO as a result of this MS filter issue.

Re:MS Filters by Dr.Dubious+DDQ · 2004-01-27 10:43 · Score: 2, Informative

I want MS Office 2000 filters at the very least.
I believe that, supposedly, MS Blahblahblah97 and MS Blahblahblah2000 are effectively the same format. I would have sworn that I'd seen "MS Word 97/2000","MS Excel 97/2000" and so forth as options in some menus. (Even MS Office 2000 itself, perhaps?)

Granted that I wouldn't really be surprised if there WERE differences, but I hadn't heard that there were.

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Re:Lightweight ? by TechnologyX · 2004-01-27 10:00 · Score: 2, Funny

I think they call that a "productive" office suite

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Clueless semi-N00B question... by Eberlin · 2004-01-27 10:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

Ok, so I admit it (and continue to do so) -- I run Red Hat 9. Not exactly the KDE-loving distro out there. I feel like I lose out on a lot of the KDE goodness since I don't get a lot of KDE-related apps over RPM (nor APT for RPM).

What method is the easiest, most convenient way to get KDE stuff running on my machine? I always figured compiling from source and solving dependencies would be one of the final options. Not that I haven't done that before...as I try to mangle back some geek cred. I've also heard of an automation process that does the whole source thing but am not sure how well it works)

I'm looking for stuff like K3B, Komba (currently run nautilus:smb but it crawls), the latest KDE itself, Quanta, and maybe I'll try KOffice again (been using OOo 1.0)

I like my KDE but haven't brought myself to procuring downloadable ISOs of KDE-Friendlier distros. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one in this predicament.

Re:been using openoffice by $calar · 2004-01-27 10:04 · Score: 2, Insightful

Your opinion is the common one I think. But I think that OOo tends to be bloated and slow on my system. It's a great suite with many features, don't get me wrong, but I think that a more integrated solution is necessary. I have been using Abiword because it's pretty light on startup time and looks good with my GNOME interface. Yes, OOo is going to be having the native widget set, but will that lead to reduced startup times? Probably not.

Yeah, Abiword has its problems, but I think it's better in the long run (for me). I think KOffice isn't as mature as GNOME Office (Maybe with 1.3, this statement is wrong), but I think people are putting a lot of stock in OpenOffice and I'm not totally impressed.

Re:Openoffice file format by inc_x · 2004-01-27 10:05 · Score: 2, Informative

It's planned for KOffice 1.4 David Faure is part of the OASIS TC for the OO standard format.

Open Office Environment by Mod+Me+God · 2004-01-27 10:06 · Score: 2, Interesting

OO seems to have a foothold in xplatform (critical mass?) support.

But could someone outline the principal benefits of KOffice over OpenOffice or vice versa? In what way are these better than MS office (functionality not price) for an office product implementation?

Having a choice is great, but I'd prefer the best features, and as with all type-2 errors if I don't know what I'm missing, I don't miss it.

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-- FreeNET user? Comfortable with the adverse selection?

Re:Open Office Environment by JabberWokky · 2004-01-27 10:45 · Score: 4, Interesting

KSpread is fast. Far faster than OOC. It's also smaller. It's a spreadsheet, and there's not much other difference. You can embed KSpread sheets into other KDE apps and view them directly in Konqueror, but you can do that with OO documents as well (there's a kpart plugin for OO.o, although I'm noy 100% certain it's in the main distribution tree or 3rd party).
KWord is fast. WAY faster than OOW. It's also smaller. It is also a completely and totally different type of word processor. OO Writer is more of a MS Word style processor with similar limitations. It is page oriented. KWord is frame oriented, a la Quark and Framemaker. That means it does DTP much more naturally. At the same time it can just give you a repeating frame at the margins and be a pretty typical word processor. Each frame can contain various types of data. The "text" data, aka word processing type stuff, is nicely structured with styles and a style manager. Chapters can be autogenerated, spell check on the fly, and other typical features can be found.
When it comes to a comparison between the two big suites (MS Office, OpenOffice) there are some omissions of features in 1.3 that you might want to be aware of if you do them (stuff like mail merge). Niche office specific tasks. Of course, some of the items like that are missing from OpenOffice as well, and only Word will do. The one that I hear the most complaints about is the lack of a automatic bibliography feature, a la EndNotes. You can, of course, still type them in manually.
KOffice is younger, leaner, and depends on KDElibs for lots of stuff. That means it runs on *nix only... which does include OSX.
--
Evan

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Re:Open Office Environment by CedgeS · 2004-01-27 10:51 · Score: 5, Informative

Word Processor comparison:

Word Processors can be divided into 3 groups. Frame and style based word processors are the easiest to use, and the only acceptable methods for large documents. Some word processors include this architecture. Many fall behind, and are nothing more than a glorified typewriter with spell check and editing.

Frame and style based word processors:

Lotus Amipro (NeXT late 80s, Windows circa 1993):
Originally designed for NeXT, along with Lotus Improv as part of an office suite. This is probably the best word processor ever. It is based on frames and styles, and the user interface is esentially three parts: edit text, layout frames, edit styles. Few menus, a bunch of buttons. Surprisingly simple, easy to use, and powerful (comparable to Adobe FrameMaker). Very small, very fast. Puts everything since it to shame.
Annoyances: None
Missing features: Support for new file formats. Fancy text layouts like text on a path, dropshadows, and outlines.

Adobe FrameMaker
Professional desktop publishing program. As the name implies it is frame based. Along with AmiPro and LaTeX it is capable of really professional quality results.

KWord:
KWord lives on frames and styles. It allows text to flow between arbitrary frames. Very good for working with extremely large documents. The styles are one step removed from the user interface, if they came to the front it would be a professional contender.
Missing features: Macros

Lotus WordPro
The successor to AmiPro. Benefits include support for newer file formats, and some new features. The user interface was changed quite a bit to be more like WordPerfect or Word.
Anoyances: Somewhat sloppy UI design, merges are difficult. HTML output is not perfect.
Missing features: Fancy text layouts like text on a path, dropshadows, and outlines.

LyX / LaTeX:
LaTeX does styles extremely well. Is absolutely excellent for anything where you don't need frames (scientific papers, computer manuals, books, etc). HTML output is the absolute best.
Missing features: Frames essentially don't exist.

Word processors that can do frames and styles, but its difficult:

OpenOffice.org
The guiding design principal here seems to be "be as much like Microsoft Office as possible". In this it succeeds fairly well, with a few slight improvements. Styles and frames are far more accessible, but still hidden away a bit to far for my liking.
Anoyances: User interface is a lot like Microsoft Word

WordPerfect:
Frames and styles exist, but they are hidden out of view.

Word processors that can't do frames and styles:

AbiWord:
Last time I used it it was a glorified WordPad or RTF editor. Very simple to use for small documents. Lack of styles made it unaproachable for anything big.
Anoyances: No styles, no frames
Missing features: almost everything

Microsft Write (the dinky text editor):
Fewer features than Word. Easier to use. Results are just as good, and any other program can open it.
Missing features: spell check, almost everything

Microsoft Word:
This one wins the worst user interface award. It has support for styles and frame bassed document layout, but the user interface is designed towards formatting every gosh darn character / word / paragraph by hand. Most word documents are impossible to work with if they have any size. The user interface is so bad that these features might as well not exist
Anoyances: Almost everything. I've used a lot of word processors, from ancient WordStars and WordPerfects to AmiPro. Word has no guiding concepts to follow, either in document design or understanding the user interface. File format incompatibilities between Word versions make it miserable to deal with. Aweful HTML output.
Missing features: Acceptable user interface, functional file format
Re:Open Office Environment by Angst+Badger · 2004-01-27 11:15 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'd hate to see either OO or KOffice achieve dominance. Indeed, why would anyone see that as desirable? The goal is to have a common file format, not applications monoculture. We already have that with Microsoft.

The whole office suite idea is flawed and only serves to line the pockets of commercial office suite producers and to create a winner-takes-all (and user-gets-screwed) environment. If it suits my particular preferences and needs, I ought to be able to run the word processor from KOffice, the spreadsheet from OpenOffice, and some commercial charting program and have them all interoperate.

If we have interoperability based on open standards, then software competes on its merits. (With the understanding, often lost here on Slashdot, that the merits of software are a matter of individual needs and opinions.) Without open interoperability, we have vendor lock-in and monopolies.

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Re:Open Office Environment by starseeker · 2004-01-27 13:53 · Score: 2, Informative

KOffice:

Uses KDE environment to full potential, very smooth, fast and clean. Less features than the others last time I looked. Doesn't really handle MS Office docs well yet, again last time I looked.

OpenOffice

Multiplatform, full of features, loads Microsoft Office documents quite well. Downside is it is rather large and slow. Occasional quirk, but on the whole rock steady.

MS Office

Feature wise, MS Office still rules the roost. But the price there is closed document formats, an untrustworthy company holding the reigns, and no Linux version. I'd count those as downsides.

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Open Office Environment by Mod+Me+God · 2004-01-27 10:11 · Score: 2, Insightful

OO seems to have a foothold in xplatform (critical mass?) support, now a KOffice resurgence.

But could someone outline the principal benefits of KOffice over OpenOffice or vice versa? In what way are these better than MS Office (functionality not price) for an office product implementation?

Having a choice is great, but I'd prefer the best features, and as with all type-2 errors if I don't know what I'm missing, I don't miss it.

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-- FreeNET user? Comfortable with the adverse selection?

OOo filters?! by Chordonblue · 2004-01-27 10:16 · Score: 2, Interesting

Really? Wowsers! When did they do that - is that new to 1.3? Of course, it's not like trying to interoperate with a blinded format like .DOC.

I wonder if the .DOC deconstruction at OOo has in any way assisted other office competitors like KDE in providing filters.

--
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Try both. by Balinares · 2004-01-27 10:24 · Score: 4, Informative

I think their plan is to use OpenOffice as a stopgap, while keeping the work on KOffice. If you want to know, I used to believe that they were being stupid and should throw their technological knowledge at OO, like everybody else... But after actually giving the latest KOffice a try (I like to try stuff for myself, just to know what I'm talking about), I changed my mind.

I've basically switched to KOffice for my daily use, in fact. It is -NOT- yet as featureful as OO. However, it is so fast, lightweight and efficient (I'm in love with it's layout model) that I'm finding it a somewhat better tool for most of my daily tasks.

I'm not sure they'll ever be able to really compete with such a large, commercially-backed (by Sun) app as OpenOffice, but I must admit I now find myself darn glad they're trying. It'd be quite unlikely, but I wouldn't put it above them to pull a Konqueror in that market as well. You never know.

In the meanwhile, it's damn nice to have a KOffice to show to non-geek people -- especially those who won't switch to OO because of its massive weight and slowness. And if they don't manage it, well at least one can hope the competition will prod OO into getting lighter and faster...

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This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.

Re:Try both. by teslatug · 2004-01-27 12:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

One important thing that OOo has and that KOffice will probably never have is the chance to use essentially the same app across different platforms (Win32, Linux, SunOS, etc). It's sort of like Konqueror vs. Mozilla.

Re:wasted effort? by bluGill · 2004-01-27 10:35 · Score: 2, Informative

Read Fred Brooks classic The Mythical Man-Month.

It takes 9 months to make a baby no matter how many women you assign to the task.

kOffice and OpenOffice.org are intentionally designed differently. In the long run which will work out better is hard to say. They are different, and you can't just grab parts of one design and slap it on the other without creating a mess worse than everyone going about doing their own thing.

Here's why, from what I read. by Balinares · 2004-01-27 10:39 · Score: 2, Informative

Found the information a while back on dot.kde.org (can't find the link though, sorry).

The thing is that OO's input filters apparently load files directly into its memory structures, without an intermediate API. This makes it highly difficult for other projects to use them directly. So the best they can do is peek and poke at OO's code, try to understand what it does and why, and then use it in their own filter -- which they actually export as a library (libwv2) so that other projects can make use of it.

I -WISH- OO would have been more modular though. Would have saved loads of time...

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This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.

So, which one should I use? by Realistic_Dragon · 2004-01-27 10:52 · Score: 2, Informative

The answer is both, duh.

The best advantage of OSS software is that you can afford to run all of them. Who could afford to have MS Office and $COMPETITOR at $450 each? On the other hand OOo, KO and GnomeOffice have just cost me a little time and some donations that were my choice to make.

(IMO the best mix is AbiWord for editing, OO.o for conversion, Sodipodi for graphics... but hell, pick whatever you like.)

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and it sucks by Anonymous Coward · 2004-01-27 11:23 · Score: 2, Informative

I can't speak to the version of Kword that was released today. But after I read your comment I went and fired up the previous version under Mepis, and loaded in a WP 10 file I've been writing. About one in twenty words lacked a space before the next word. And all curly quotes and apostrophes got transferred over as squares.

Still, I'm eager to see if the new version has a better import filter. You'd have to be a masochist to use the previous version of Kword to import a lenthy WP file.

Re:Good conversion filters? by dont_think_twice · 2004-01-27 12:11 · Score: 2, Informative

I used to feel the same way, but I was absolutely amazed when I upgraded to 1.1. Just for fun, I tried opening a complex Word document. Everything was absolutely perfect. Every equation came out exactly right, the pictures were all correct, the formatting was right, even the images drawn in Word with multiple layers were right.

I am not suprised that they are still getting some things wrong (as you claim), since it is such a complicated thing to do well, but after seeing how amazing 1.1 was, I have no doubt that I will eventually be able to actually use OO interchangably with Word.

Re:Code base by fault0 · 2004-01-27 12:56 · Score: 2, Informative

> I was wondering: Is KOffice based off the Star Office code like Open Office, or is it new development?

Nope.. koffice predates the open-sourcing of StarOffice by a few years. However, historically, it hasn't been ready for primetime because of lack of developers and consistant rewrites (the core of kword being rewritten all the time, krita being rewritten 3 times over the last 4 years), certain apps gets dumped in favor of even more rewrites (killustrator versus karbon14,etc..)

> And is there significant difference in functionality, or is it mostly UI differences?

OpenOffice has a significantly greater mass of features, but koffice is lightweight. Until recently, I perferred using koffice more, but I actually used OpenOffice more. That's starting to change now though, koffice 1.3 is pretty nice.

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