SoftMaker FreeOffice 2016

Evening, all.

Normally a staunch Libre Office user, following a discussion on murga-linux.com early yesterday, I decided to have a look at FreeOffice 2016, by SoftMaker GmbH.

Personally, I don't have the problem of needing compatibility with M$ Word formats, but I know many folks do. And this is one of FreeOffice's strengths; it handles .doc and .docx just fine. The spreadsheet component will happily handle .xls and .xlsx formats.

It doesn't comprise as many components as L.Office; you get a word processor, spreadsheet, and slideshow/presentations stuff.....and that's it. But that's OK; I'm probably correct in saying that most Linux users want that compatibility with WORD.....and not much else. Not too many using spreadsheets all day long, or using (and maintaining) large databases, etc. If they do, they're probably using expensive, paid-for, professional software anyway.

It's also almost a 'clone' of M$ Office, in terms of appearance & layout.

For a free suite, this isn't at all bad.....and at a total of around 80MB all-in, is a 'featherweight' compared to the 'heavy-duty' Libre Office.

You can find it at the link in my siggy. Navigate to the 'SoftMaker FreeOffice' directory, and help yourselves.

Enjoy.


Mike.

You da man,/ dog ,MW.

Why, thank you, Roky.

I think you know me by now. The Puppy maxim has always been 'choice in all things'.

I believe in offering that choice...

[*shrug*]


Mike.

I didn't make it clear above, but in fact these packages will happily run in 64-bit Pups if the '32-bit_Compat_libs' SFS is loaded.

SoftMaker themselves only provide a single .deb package for both architectures. I believe this is to do with the 'multi-arch' thing. I have no idea whether .rpm-based systems have anything similar.


Mike.

Good job

Hello Mike_Walsh

I have found what I want on the Murga Forum.

Thank you very much.

Best regards

Chelsea80

Working on maybe getting FreeOffice 2018 working? While it looks and works the same, there are some fairly decent amounts of improvements (been a SoftMaker Office/SoftMaker FreeOffice user since 2008 version).

In fact, Tim, the packages ARE updated to the 2018 release with the 2019 anniversary 'Service Pack' SoftMaker put out. I've even turned the 'TextMaker' module into a standalone WP for the Puppy community, since most only ever use the WP anyway.....

Access to Murga-Linux is slightly problematic ATM. Following John de Murga's death in May last year, and the setting-up of the 'experimental' forum as the main one, our admin Rockedge is currently in the process of amalgamating ALL the various Puppy sites under a single domain 'umbrella', including Murga-Linux as a giant 'read-only' archive.....with the inevitable result that some of the various URLs are occasionally inaccessible. Especially given that the old Forum was running such an ancient version of phpBB; the upgrade 'path' has been long & convoluted, to say the least!

(Rockedge is very much a hands-on admin; JM was something of an 'absentee landlord', and we often wouldn't see him for years at a time. It was a miracle the Forum didn't have more down-time, TBH.)

This IS only a temporary situation, and should be resolved by the middle to end of July at the very latest.


Mike.