LibreOffice 4?

[hughtmccullough]

The version of LibreOffice available in the repositories set up for WattOS R8 is 3.5.4 (in my installation anyway).  This is now rather old.  Is there a way of safely installing LibreOffice 4?  Do I have to wait for R9 or some other (Debian?) milestone to be able to get v4?

[Maroman]

as a matter of fact there are three versions in repos. two old ones and one new (4.3.3.2). the last one is in wheezy backports. backported applications are installed only manually (to install or upgrade from backport you need "manual action").
you can use either synaptic (go to package > force version and choose the last one) or command line writing

Code: [Select]

sudo apt-get -t wheezy-backports install libreofficethat's all. but if LO is not installed (case hare in wattos) you can manually install open office (AOO) instead. some people prefare AOO over LO. you have a choice.

if more info needed try to google with keywords like libreoffice, backports and debian for example. for sure there is plenty in the net.

cheers,

[hughtmccullough]

My repositories only have one of the two old versions you mention.  However, thanks for your help - they do have the new one!  I didn't know about that trick.

I also spent a bit of time investigating the differences between Libreoffice and AOO.

It seems that the main trade-offs are that Libreoffice can be a bit more buggy than AOO but has newer features and is a bit more compatible with Microsoft Office.  Unfortunately, even Libreoffice 4 still isn't very good at importing Microsoft formatted documents.  I have had all sorts of formatting problems where the original formatting of the document gets screwed up by Libreoffice.  In the most recent, a spreadsheet had the row headers overlapping on top of the of the leftmost column.  This meant that the row headers and the cells in the first column were fighting each other to be displayed.  I was able to sort out the problem by first of all opening the document in WPS (aka Kingsoft Office), re-saving it and then opening it in Libreoffice but that is a major nuisance.  WPS isn't perfect either because it doesn't draw charts and graphs.

Those people who say it is easy to get a Microsoft Office compatible office suite in Linux need to stop marketing and get in touch with the real world.  The Libreoffice empire is put to shame by a very small WPS team!

[Maroman]

My repositories only have one of the two old versions you mention.  However, thanks for your help - they do have the new one!  I didn't know about that trick.

a bit strange. I'm using wattos lxde 64b edition and wheezy-backports are natively present in the system. LO version 4 is in the said repository. however here I'm using AOO but not LO. on different computers I have also PointLinux with backports added and there are even four versions of LO (2 from debian, 1 from backports and the last one from pointlinux repo). check your repositories. for debian you can always add backports and manually install needed LO version. but finally. do you really need forth version? the old one is really good.

Those people who say it is easy to get a Microsoft Office compatible office suite in Linux need to stop marketing and get in touch with the real world.  The Libreoffice empire is put to shame by a very small WPS team!

good point. the situation is even worst. some documents are not compatible between LO and AOO.

[cheiron]

Just an admin ramble on a slight variation.

Just going off on a tangent here on the office experience so bear with me..


There does lie an opportunity via wine (winetricks) or Crossover (Crossover Office) to actually use MS Office.


Yes you will need to pay for these, yes they are buggy... but it's a different approach.


There are rumours that MS will be backporting office in the future for *nix so keeping heads to the ground might be in order


In the meanwhile there is an online MS for *nix in the shape of Microsoft Web Apps  (please note this is an ubuntu link with a .deb download)


If anyone is interested in this, I may open a thread to discuss this further, or if anyone wants to probe and show their findings, then please do

[hughtmccullough]

Maroman,  I maybe wasn't clear in what I said.  I can get:

v3.5.4 (stable)
v4.3.3 (wheezy-backports)

Just those two - I don't see any other older version.

I take your point about v3.5 being good.  I actually still have it installed on WattOS (I was able to test a couple of v4.x on different distributions I have available but don't use very much).  As the formatting isn't significantly better in v4.x, there isn't so much to be gained from upgrading.

cheiron,  that's interesting information but if I really need to use MO, I would probably be as well using it on a Windows 7 installation I have.  I did once try Wine but it was a bad experience - too many bugs as you mention.

[Maroman]

I'm really happy with Both AOO and LO  . even in my last postgraduate study I intensively used them. personally for private use I do not need any MS software product. I stopped years ago at xp. however at my job I was forced to switch to MS  because of document format exchanging problems.

cheers,

[leenie]

Check this one out:
http://www.noobslab.com/2013/05/microsoft-office-alternative-kingsoft.html

[hughtmccullough]

I'm sorry I've been away from this for a few days but it maybe deserves a few replies:

Maroman, thanks.  When I open that window, I don't get the middle of the three versions that you get.  So, I'm not sure what is different about my system.  Like you I am a little sad that we still can't completely do without Microsoft.

leenie, thanks to you too.  That is the one I was referring to in my second post above.  As I said then, unfortunately it doesn't support graphs and charts in spreadsheets and that is quite important to me.  However, for those for whom that is not a problem, in my experience, file import/export compatibility with MSO formats is very good indeed.