Libreoffice on slackware
 

What is best way to install Libreoffice on Slackware? Its a large package so building it from Slackbuilds is likely to take long time on my slowish machine.

I use Alien Bob's Slackbuild. http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slac...s/libreoffice/

It's the easiest way I've found.

or use repackaged rpm binary from upstream in SBo: http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14...e/libreoffice/

How good is Libre Office compared to Open Office these days? The last time I used it was back in 2011 and I was not impressed with it then. Open Office was better then.

Rhetorical question coming.... Why does everyone always ask about LibreOffice, when Apache OpenOffice is the original open source product and works well on Slackware for 32 and 64 bit, also from http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14...penoffice.org/, OpenOffice the original open source alternative to that other massive proprietary suite.

Personal preference, but also more stable and less frequently updated. To me LibreOffice is too frequently updated and not as backward compatible with my original OpenOffice databases. The support on OpenOffice is still strong and they cleanup and update features regularly.

Really, this is a rhetorical question, I'm not looking for debate, just suggesting there is a smaller size OpenOffice suite, which is just as capable as LibreOffice and IMHO more stable. "Hey Mikey, Try it you'll like it!"

Because all the OpenOffice developers left the project and went to LibreOffice. If you want something rock-solid, use the stable version (currently 4.4.6). Otherwise, go for the latest (currently 5.0.3). The two versions are packaged in my repos: 4.4.6 in the 14.1 tree, 5.0.3 in the 14.2 tree.

Cheers,

Niki

I don't know about database support, but there is LibreOffice Still (slow release), and LibreOffice Fresh (fast release).

I know you said it is rhetorical, but it really didn't seem to be.

To build off what Niki said, Apache OpenOffice (what it is officially called) is also limited in license, in that it can't take from LibreOffice. LibreOffice is free to use code from OpenOffice, so they get the features they code, plus the features that OpenOffice introduces.

LibreOffice development moves much faster than OpenOffice's, but whether that is a good or bad thing is up to you to decide.

How-To Geek has a great article on it detailing the history and possible future of the two. Here is an excerpt covering the license issues:

I use LibreOffice because of better compatibility with Microsoft Office files. Also, I would recommend using AlienBob's stable package. The newest version (5.*) has some issues, for example not always showing figure legends.

Please note that the version of LibreOffice that can be installed using AlineBob packages depends on your Slackware version:

If you run Slackware 14.1, you can only install LibreOffice 4.4.5 (LibreOffice Still)
If you run Slackware -current, you can install LibreOffice 5.0.2 (LibreOffice Fresh) or 4.4.5 as AlienBob remarked in one of his blog post:

Alienbob's slackbuild for Libreoffice 5.0.2.2 builds on a clean fresh install of Slackware64-14.1 without issue. I update and re-compile each and every time Alien offers a new slackbuild.
HTH
John

IF you did a full standard install (as recommended) there is the installed KDE Suite which includes Calligra, Kexi, Krita, and other office applications, so you don't have to install LibreOffice or Apache OpenOffice. Calligra can read Microsoft documents and save to the opensource standards for Microsoft users to open. Or if you want to keep it locked you can always print to pdf file and send the pdf to them. Calligra can be used in any "X" based window manager or desktop environment.

Most people prefer the layout of Libre and OpenOffice rather than Calligra's, but honestly, just use the SBo package for easier dealings for LibreOffice.

Big fat caveat on DOCX files. If you modify them with LibreOffice, you might have some nasty surprises in the form of severe data loss. I had this problem with a couple of clients, and I'm not issuing warnings about this. On the other hand, the LibreOffice developers have already done a nice job, since DOCX is not exactly a documented format. :)

Here's LibreOffice 5.0.3 for either Slackware 14.1 or Slackware 14.2:

• LibreOffice 5.0.3 32-bit
• LibreOffice 5.0.3 64-bit

Language and helpfile packs for german and french are in the same repositories. I've simply repackaged LibreOffice.org's binaries for Slackware.

Cheers,

Niki

Yes. This is my method as well.

If I stick to using Linux, I do not really have much of a choice, do I?

I ran into issues with this about a year ago. My wife in the process of being offered a job, and the employer sent her some docx documents that she needed to fill out and print. I tried loading them into the latest libreoffice at the time and the formatting was all screwy. I tried for a while to get them to work, and every time I just ended up frustrated. I eventually decided to just load them in Microsoft's Google Docs equivalent online (Office 365? or is that some subscription?). This showed the format correctly, I was able to have my wife fill them out and print them (I think we saved them as pdf as well).

So, if you're running into issues with opening up docx on libreoffice, give Microsoft's free online office suite a try. I think it just requires a microsoft email (msn, hotmail, and probably others all work).

That being said, I still prefer using libreoffice, and I'll still try opening up docx files using that before I resort to online (it isn't very easy, because, IIRC, you have to first upload your document to Microsoft OneDrive, and then import it into Word).

I didn't personally like any of the available methods so I went and hacked together my own libreoffice from source slackbuild borrowing heavily from several other build scripts, it works well on current and probably does on 14.1 too, but it needs more testing there. If anyone wants to try it out there are several options so see the README. Additionally, there are slackbuilds for several optional dependencies not yet on SBo in the 'dependencies' directory.

LibreOffice-5.3.0.2
md5sum: 50a03ceb078791faccd0aac4b2cdeb1f

You do. Save your DOCX file in ODT format, then edit it.

That's how I do things. When I am done, I save it to docx again and send it. However, I used a colleague's computer with Microsoft office 2010 to check the layout of the document. It was almost perfect.

I spoke about this with our local school's director. When someone sends him a DOC or DOCX file, he just asks the person to "send a normal ODT file, or a PDF". :D

Unfortunately, that isn't always an option. Especially in my wife's case when she was trying to get a job at a bank. If I'm in a non-technical position and someone asked me that, I would be annoyed, not impressed. It would probably reflect on my decision to hire said person.

Luckily, I don't run into docx files often at home (I do all the time at work, since we are a Microsoft Office reliant company -- heh, if I asked someone to send me a ODT or PDF, I'd then have to walk through how to do that... even though we have Adobe Acrobat installed, people don't even know about printing as a pdf).

You can use the LibreOffice packaging from SlackBuilds itself. In fact, the SlackBuilds script does not compile the LibreOffice from source, as this would probably take a couple of hours, but it only repackages a compiled version into an SBo package compatible with your Slackware. It will not take that long. Just make sure that you know what architecture you are on (32-bit or x86_64).

I also use LibreOffice for compatibility reasons. Hopefully, in the future, people will use LibreOffice on MS Windows as well due to the ever rising price of Microsoft Office.

All the best.

That's how hiring works at the school. The director explained to me what he calls "the first step of selection". When someone sends him a résumé in DOC or DOCX format, he doesn't even look at it. A bit less than half of the job applicants send DOC or DOCX files, a bit more than half send either PDF (most of them) or ODT. But then, this is a FOSS-friendly school, running 100 % on free software (and 100 % on Slackware, by the way).

Is the required format stated clearly, so that applicants know? If not, this kind of attitude is really unprofessional.

Yea, with my 6 core amd cpu compiling with 6 jobs takes over 2 hours, but this is taxing on the cpu so I started compiling with only 1 job, that takes over 7 hours...