Hi all need your help again.

Can someone tell me how to get the extra menu on the left side ? (see screenshot below)

http://images.mandrakesoft.com/img/s...mdk91-scr7.jpg

and how do i get K menus like the picture so u can look true it ? (screenshot below)

http://images.mandrakesoft.com/img/s...mdk91-scr2.jpg


Thanks for your help.

Best regards,

Ben

These features are pretty much the same as you would do them as if they were in windows. Right clicking the taskbar > add menu // and going thru the settings and properties of stuff etc.

Ofcourse how dumb can a human be :S

Thanks dude !!!

np

Ok, don't get angry with me please!
I tried to search in this forum for an answer to my question and I couldn't find it (maybe this question is so silly...). Question is:
1) even without the KDE environment installed can one install and run KOffice?
Another one:
2) is there some sort of office suite that has math equations (or the ability to insert math symbols and formulas) in the word processor? I know OpenOffice will do the work but it's just too heavy for my system!

By the way, I have a 486 with 16 mb ram. I used to have window$ 95 but I start looking (real hard) for a linux distro (I was curious about it), I downloaded several:
- Mandrake 8.2 - out of the question to install this, my system doesn't match the requirements;
- Debian 3 - found real hard to understand what I was doing and gave up;
- Lycoris - found this really user friendly but never got to set properly the locales;
- Vector Linux - didn't tried yet;
- Damn Small Linux - I'm running this right now, light, got all hardware working well but, because of it's "light weight", I need more powerfull office applications!

So, could anyone advise me, what can I do in order to "recover" this old pc ... any suggestion would be really helpful.

Thanks
Zeca Pedra

I would guess that all you need to install KOffice is X and qt, but you may well need some of the kde libraries too. However, your best bet for word processing with mathematical formulae is definitely LaTeX. It has quite simply the best formula processing you will find. It's not a word processor however, it's a type setter. It basically takes a text file as input, with special commands in it, and outputs a lovely formatted ps file. It's not ideal if you want to easily control the format yourself, but even using the defaults it looks very professional. And like I say, the ability to use formulae is extremely powerful. Plus because you only need to supply a text file to it, it will run on a 486 easily.

If you fancy learning a lot about Linux, and spending a fair few days intalling everything you need, I can't recommend Linux from Scratch (http://linuxfromscratch.org) highly enough as a distro.
Guy

Hi guygriffiths!
Thank you very much for your suggestions (this is one thing I really like in "linuxworld" - there's a lot of people helping each other and the fast as they can!).

About LaTex, from what I've understood, it's not a real word processor so, if I want to set a header and a footer for a page, or make a left column with an image or anything else, it will be impossible, right?

I'm asking this because I'm a Math teacher (I teach kids from 11 to 16 years - 3 grades of the portuguese education system, sorry, don't know how to translate this properly), and I need to have a program such word that allow me to make the lessons plans, evaluation tests, exercices and so on!

I've tried out OpenOffice for windows and I like it, it does the job (a little bit different the menus, the floating boxes, but easy to learn and understand) and I've seen KOffice in action on a colleague's PC with BestLinux (I guess that's the name) installed!

That's why I post that help request, because right now I don't know any sort of program that can fit on my needs and, from what I know, OpenOffice requires 32MB RAM minimum and takes over almost 130 MB HD

I'll try to learn more about linuxfromscratch!

Anyway, thanks a lot, your suggestions help me, that's for sure!

Zeca Pedra

It wouldn't be impossible, but it might be difficult if you want to precisely control the output. Headers and footers are not a problem, although images are a bit tricky - you may need to download extra packages (small extension to LaTeX) to insert various formats. eps is supported, and I've heard that .png files can also go in quite easily.
When you say "a left colum with an image" I presume you mean something like this:

----------------
| Image | Text |
| Image | Text |
| Image | Text |
| Image | Text |
| Image | Text |
| Image | Text |
| Image | Text |
----------------
i.e. a whole column dedicated to an image? If you were to set the format to "twocolumn", and resize your picture you could do this, but both columns would need to be the same size.

I believe that most things can be done in LaTeX, but it's a case of having to learn how to do them. Alternatively, you could try LyX (http://www.lyx.org) which is a frontend to LaTeX. This makes it more like a word processor to use, and although I have no real idea (I've never used it), it will probably be pretty fast - certainly a lot faster than OOo.
The only other editors I know of is Abiword (IMO better than KOffice but worse than OpenOffice), but have a look here: http://linux.tucows.com/word_processors_default.html

Hope you find something that suits you.
Guy

Could someone tell me how to get my K menu transparant.

see the screen shot above.

From another Linux forum
Or try:
http://www.google.com/linux
http://kdelook.org

Thanks for your help!

Greetz,

Ben

Hi again guygriffiths!

Thanks for your great suggestions, they're just perfect!
I didn't knew nothing about lyx so I will try to learn something about it.

About the two columns question in LaTex, the image didn't had to be on the entire column, but those suggestions about eps and png format, I'll have to look at it! And I get the idea, thanks

Cheers,
Zeca

PS - BTW, is more correct to say word processors or word editors? I never quite understood the difference

say does anyone know if there is a way to get a translucent kicker in kde 3.1? I found one for kde 3.0 but it doesn't seem to work in 3.1. thanks.