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Koffice 1.3 Released
perbert writes "On January 27th, the KDE Project released KOffice 1.3 for Linux and Unix operating systems. KOffice is a free set of office applications that integrate with the award winning KDE desktop. KOffice is a light-weight yet feature rich office solution and provides a variety of filters to interoperate with other popular office suites such as OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office."
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.
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?
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
"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?
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.
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
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.
---Flame retardant suit is on!
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
"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.
Eric Sarjeant
eric[@]sarjeant.com
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