Run Microsoft Office on Linux

In an interesting twist on the normal efforts to port office suites to
Linux, CrossOver Office allows you to install and run Microsoft office
products on Linux.

Rather than duplicating the functionality in MS Office and supporting
Microsoft's ever-changing file formats (as many Linux office suites
do), you can run the real thing on Intel systems running Linux. That's
the theory anyway.

The reality is pretty good, but not perfect. Available from CodeWeavers
(http://www.codeweavers.com/products/office), CrossOver Office supports
Microsoft Office 97 and 2000 applications on Linux, specifically
Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, as well as Lotus Notes
from IBM.

The CrossOver Office product costs $54.95 US, a relatively small amount
for an easily installed real MS Office suite on Linux. Of course, you
also need a real MS Office distribution, such as a CD-ROM, to install.

CrossOver Office's main purpose it to ease the installation and set up,
and CodeWeavers have done a good job. Once installed, CrossOver Office
sets up icons to run the Microsoft applications from the GNOME or KDE
desktop environments. The CrossOver Office wizards also set up
associations for the MS Office file types for your email client, such
as Netscape.

CrossOver Office is built on top of WINE (http://www.winehq.com), a
platform to run Windows applications on Linux for Intel. You can use
WINE alone, which comes with most Linux distributions, to run Office
applications so you never really have to purchase products like
CrossOver Office. However, CrossOver Office does make the whole task of
setting things up much easier. And for the small price, this is
certainly worth it.

Furthermore, I was very pleasantly surprised to see the CrossOver
Office truth-in-advertising page at
http://www.codeweavers.com/products/office/the_real_dirt.php. This page
lists the product's limitations and describes real-world uses. I find
this type of disclosure very refreshing and it makes me feel much more
confident about purchasing products from CodeWeavers. Read this page to
decide whether this product will work for you.

» posted by ITworld staff

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