I have migrated 100% to Linux (Slackware) for my personal duties, and I'm trying to take the leap at work. The problem is that Open Office isn't 100% compatible with MS Office yet, and we abuse Excel and Access enough to make you sick! I know that Novell is working on a version of Open Office that is closer, but I need 100%.

I've been trying to install MS Office through wine, and it isn't going very well. The setup fails for versions 2000, XP, and 2003. I can't find a decent howto for this, but it sounds like people can at least get 2000 running. Some posts I've found reference installing IE6 first? I do run AutoCad and RipIt4Me via wine, so I understand the basics. Any advice here would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! ...Steve

PS - I know about CodeWeaver's CrossOver Linux, but I'd really like to be using wine.

Probably the best application I've seen to use MS Office in Linux is actually CodeWeavers Crossover. It's usually not free but does the job. But perhaps this is should give you good reason to start using a more open format without getting stuck using just MS products..

http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxoffice

Thanks for the feedback, and trust me, I would consider an open format if I could. Any success stories out there of running MS Office under wine? Thanks again! ...Steve

Really!!--Do you have any links?

My meager knowledge about WINE and Crossover is that WINE takes tweaking and CrossOver includes tweaks for certain things. I use both.....MSOffice 2000 works perfectly on CrossOver.

There are stories that Photoshop CS will work on WINE, but it does not work on CrossOver. The Codeweavers' story is that this has to do with copy protection. (I have NO CLUE what that is about..)

Follow this link to find out how to make M$ office install with wine. The problem is some of the files on the cd's are hidden, and you have unmount and remount the CDrom a certain way to unhide the files and then wine will go to town.

http://frankscorner.org/index.php?p=office2000

Or you can use a application called WineTools, very helpful in setting up Wine

Crossover runs office very well. However, I always had problems opening files from network drives. It took ages before the file open dialog would show the files if they were on a drive on the server.

Now I am running W2k under VMWare and that is a fully acceptable solution, and I can run one or two fully incompatible applications as well.

As for OpenOffice itself, oowriter is a very good program, I find it easier than Word, especially when using headings, styles and numbering. But it is not fully compatible. Paragraph spacing, frame placement etc, layout differ enough to get you into problems.

Oocalc simply is inadequate, both in compatibility and in functionality.

jlinkels