Office Suites for Ubuntu


As we have mentioned earlier, OpenOffice.org is the default application suite for Ubuntu. However, with all things open source, there are plenty of alternatives should you find that OpenOffice.org does not meet your specific requirements. These include the popular GNOME Office and also KOffice, the default KDE productivity suite. You are more likely to hear more about OpenOffice.org, especially as more and more people wake up to the fact that it is compatible with Microsoft Office file formats. In fact, the state of Massachusetts recently elected to standardize on two file formats for use in government, the Adobe Acrobat PDF format and the OASIS OpenDocument format, both of which are supported natively in OpenOffice.org.

State-Sponsored Open Source

The decision by the state of Massachusetts to standardize on PDF and OpenDocument has huge ramifications for the open-source world. It is the first time that OpenDocument, an already-agreed open standard, has been specified in this way. What it means is that anyone who wants to do business with the state government must use OpenDocument-based file formats, and not the proprietary formats in use by Microsoft. Unfortunately for Microsoft, it does not have support for OpenDocument in any of its applications, making them useless to anyone wanting to work with the state government. This is despite Microsoft being a founding member of OASIS, who developed and ratified the OpenDocument standard!


Working with OpenOffice.org

For the majority of users of productivity suites, OpenOffice.org should fulfill most, if not all, of your requirements. However, the first hurdle you need to get over is not whether it can do what you require of it, but rather if it can successfully import and export to proprietary Microsoft formats. In the main, OpenOffice.org should import and export with minimal hassle, perhaps getting a bit stuck with some of the more esoteric Office formatting. Given that most users do not go much beyond tabs, columns, and tables, this level of compatibility should suffice.

However, you are strongly advised to round up a selection of documents that could potentially fall foul of the import/export filter and test them thoroughly (of course, keeping a backup of the originals!). There is nothing worse than for a system administrator who has deployed a new productivity suite to suddenly get users complaining that they cannot read their files. This would quickly destroy any benefits felt from the other useful functions within OpenOffice.org, and could even spell the return of proprietary formats and expensive office suites.

Many users do not mind switching to OpenOffice.org, largely because the user interface closely resembles that of similar Microsoft applications. This helps to settle users into their environment and dispel any fears they have about switching. Such similarity makes the transition to OpenOffice.org a lot easier. Of course, just looking similar to Microsoft applications is not the only direct benefit. OpenOffice.org supports a huge array of file formats and is capable of exporting to nearly 70 different types of documents. Such a wide variety of file formats means that you should be able to successfully use OpenOffice.org in nearly any environment.

What Is in OpenOffice.org?

OpenOffice.org contains a number of productivity applications for use in creating text documents, preparing spreadsheets, organizing presentations, managing projects, and more. The following components of the OpenOffice.org package are included with Ubuntu:

  • Writer This word processing program enables you to compose, format, and organize text documents. If you are accustomed to using Microsoft Word, the functionality of OpenOffice.org Writer will be familiar to you. The presentation of these functions in the application menus differs slightly from Microsoft Word, however, so you might have to hunt for familiar functions. Spell checking, a thesaurus, macros, styles, and a help facility are built in to Writer and work in a manner consistent with other word processors and applications. You will learn how to get up and running with Writer later in this chapter.

  • Calc This spreadsheet program enables you to manipulate numbers in a spreadsheet format. Support for all but the most esoteric Microsoft Excel functions means that trading spreadsheets with Excel users should be successful. Calc offers some limited compatibility with Excel macros, but those macros will generally have to be rewritten. Calc also supports data exchange formats such as the Data Interchange Format and dBASE format. We walk through setting up a basic spreadsheet with some formulas and show you how to build a basic Data Pilot later on in this chapter.

  • Impress This presentation program is similar to Microsoft PowerPoint and enables you to create slideshow presentations that include graphs, diagrams, and other graphics. Impress also works well with PowerPoint files. When it is opened, Impress starts with a wizard that steps you through the creation of a new presentation, lets you use an existing template (although none are provided), or allows you to open an existing presentation.

  • Math This math formula editor enables you to write mathematical formulas with a number of math fonts and symbols for inclusion in a word processing document. Such symbols are highly specialized and not easily included in the basic functionality of a word processor. It is of interest primarily to math and science writers, but Math can be useful to anyone who needs to include a complex formula in their text.

  • Base This database was introduced with the OpenOffice.org 2.0 suite, which is provided with Ubuntu. It provides a fully functional database application. When you open Base, you are asked to set up the database for use. The easy-to-use setup assistants take you through most of the hard work.

  • Draw This graphics application enables you to create images for inclusion in the documents produced with OpenOffice.org. It saves files only in OpenOffice.org format, but it can import most common image formats. It is not meant as a replacement for more general graphics applications, but it has enough features to meet most needs.

A Brief History of OpenOffice.org

The OpenOffice.org office suite is based on a commercial suite called StarOffice. Originally developed by a German company, StarOffice was purchased by Sun Microsystems in the United States. One of the biggest complaints about the old StarOffice was that all the component applications were integrated under a StarOffice "desktop" that looked very much like a Microsoft Windows desktop, including a Start button and menus. This meant that to edit a simple document, unneeded applications had to be loaded, making the office suite slow to load, slow to run, and quite demanding on system resources.

After the purchase of StarOffice, Sun Microsystems released a large part of the StarOffice code under the GPL, and development began on what has become OpenOffice.org, which is freely available under the GPL. Sun continued development on StarOffice and released a commercial version as StarOffice 6.0. The significant differences between the free and commercial versions of the software are that StarOffice provides more fonts and even more import/export file filters than OpenOffice.org (these filters cannot be provided in the GPL version because of licensing restrictions) and StarOffice provides its own relational database, Software AG's Adabas D database. The StarOffice counterpart to OpenOffice.org 2.0 is StarOffice 8.

Sun is still actively developing OpenOffice.org and continues to use it as the foundation of future releases of StarOffice.


Installing and Configuring OpenOffice.org

Ubuntu provides OpenOffice.org as standard, and its components can be found under the Applications, Office menu. The installation of OpenOffice.org is done on a systemwide basis, meaning that all users have access to it. However, each user has to go into OpenOffice.org to configure it for individual needs. This initial configuration happens transparently the first time you load any of the OpenOffice.org components, and might mean the application takes a little longer to load as a result. Be patient, and your desired application will appear.

Tip

OpenOffice.org is constantly improving its productivity applications. You can check the OpenOffice.org website (http://www.openoffice.org/) for the latest version. The website provides a link to download the source or a precompiled version of the most current working installation files. A more current version might offer the file format support that you need. Should you need a Windows compatible version, you will also find it at the website.


Figure 9.1 shows icons in the Office menu that represent the different components of OpenOffice.org as well as other applications. The icons themselves may vary from distribution to distribution, so if you have used Fedora or openSUSE, you may see different icons for the same applications.

Figure 9.1. The OpenOffice.org suite provided by Ubuntu is simple to configure and use.


As is the case with many Linux applications, you may be somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer number of configuration options available to you in OpenOffice.org. Thankfully, a lot of thought has gone into organizing these options, which are available by clicking the Tools menu and selection Options. It does not matter which program you use to get to this dialog box, it appears the same if summoned from Writer, Impress, or Calc. It acts as a central configuration management tool for all OpenOffice.org applications. You can use it to set global options for all OpenOffice.org applications, or specific options for each individual component. For instance, in Figure 9.2, you can change the user details and information, and this will be reflected across all OpenOffice.org applications.

Figure 9.2. You can set user details for all OpenOffice.org applications from this dialog.


OpenOffice.org is a constant work in progress, but the current release is on a par with the Sun version of StarOffice 8.0. You can browse to the OpenOffice.org website to get documentation and answers to frequently asked questions and to offer feedback.

Working with OpenOffice.org Writer

Out of all the applications that make up OpenOffice.org, the one that you are most likely to use on a regular basis is Writer, the OpenOffice.org word processor. With a visual style similar to Microsoft Word, Writer has a number of strengths over its commercial and vastly more expensive rival. In this section, you learn how to get started with Writer and make use of some of its powerful formatting and layout tools.

Getting Started

You can access Writer either through its shortcut on the panel or by going to the Applications, Office menu and selecting Word Processor. After a few seconds, Writer opens with a blank document and a blinking cursor awaiting your command. It can be tempting to just dive in and start typing your document, but it can be worthwhile doing some initial configuration before you get stuck in.

First, make sure that the options are set to your requirements. Click the Tools menu and select Options to bring up the Options dialog box shown in Figure 9.2. On the initial screen, you can personalize OpenOffice.org with your name, address, and contact details, but there are options to configure features that you might also want to alter. First, however, check that your default paths are correct by clicking the Paths option. You might want to alter the My Documents path, as shown in Figure 9.3, to something a little more specific than just your home directory.

Figure 9.3. Click the Edit button to choose your default documents directory.


You might also want to change OpenOffice.org so that it saves in Microsoft Word format by default, should you so require. You can do this under the Load/Save General options shown in Figure 9.4, and it is a good idea if you value your work to change the Autorecovery settings so that it saves every couple of minutes.

Figure 9.4. Make sure that you are working with the most appropriate file formats for you.


Figure 9.4 also shows a set of options specific to Writer. From top to bottom, they are as follows

  • General Specify options that affect the general use of Writer

  • View Specify what you want Writer to display

  • Formatting Aids Specify whether you want to see nonprinting characters

  • Grid Create a grid that you can use to snap frames and images in place

  • Basic Fonts Select your default fonts for your document here

  • Print Specify exactly what you want Writer to output when you print your document

  • Table Set options for drawing tables within Writer

  • Changes Define how Writer handles when it records changes to documents

  • Compatibility A set of rules that Writer uses to ensure close compatibility with earlier versions of Writer

  • AutoCaption Create automatic captions for images, charts, and other objects

  • Email Mail Merge Use Writer to create an email template that you can use to send a form letter to multiple contacts

A little bit of time working through these options can give you a highly personalized and extremely productive environment.

Working with Styles and Formatting

One of the significant benefits of using Writer is the ability to easily apply formatting and styles to extremely complex documents. Depending on the type of documents you work with, you might want to consider creating your own styles beyond the 20 included by default. Styles can be accessed either by the Style drop-down box in the toolbar, or by the Styles and Formatting window shown in Figure 9.5. If you cannot see the window, press the F11 key to display it.

Figure 9.5. Writer's quick and easy-to-use Styles and Formatting tool.


The easiest way to work with the Styles and Formatting tool is to highlight the text you want to style up and double-click the required style in the window. There are quite a few to choose from, but you might find them restrictive if you have more specialized needs. To start defining your own styles, press Ctrl+F11 to bring up the Style Catalog, shown in Figure 9.6, where you add, modify, and delete styles for pages, paragraphs, lists, characters, and frames.

Figure 9.6. Writer's powerful Style Catalog gives you control over every aspect of styling.


Working with OpenOffice.org Calc

The spreadsheet component of OpenOffice.org is named Calc, and is a capable Excel alternative. Earlier versions of Calc were limited to only 32,000 rows, but now Calc can support 65,656 rows, the same number as Excel.

Calc is used for storing numeric information that you need to analyze in some way. So, for instance, you could use it to help you budget month by month. It can take care of the calculations for you, as long as you tell Calc what you want it to do. Anyone with experience with Excel will feel right at home with Calc.

In this section, we show you how to get started with Calc, including entering formulas and formatting. We also take a look at some of the more advanced features of Calc, including the Data Pilot feature, which enables you to easily summarize information.

Getting Started

You can either click the shortcut icon located on the top GNOME panel or select Spreadsheet from the Office menu under the Applications main menu. Whichever route you take, the result is the same: Calc starts to load.

By default, Calc loads with a blank spreadsheet just waiting for you to enter information into it. In Figure 9.7, you can see that we have already started to enter some basic information into Calc.

Figure 9.7. Use Calc to store numeric and statistical information.


Calc's layout makes it easy to organize information into rows and columns. As you can see in the example, we have salespeople listed alongside the left column, customers in the second column, invoice date in the third column, and revenue in the fourth column. At the moment, no formulas are entered to help you interpret the data. Clicking the E21 cell selects it and allows you to enter in a formula in the top formula bar. If you enter in the equal sign, Calc knows that what you are entering is a formula and works accordingly.

In our example, we want to know the total revenue brought in up to now, so we need to enter in the formula =sum(E4:E20) and press Return. Calc automatically enters the result into cell E21. Now we want to see what the average order value was. To do this, we have to obtain how many orders there were. For this we can use the counta function to count the number of entries in a given list. This is usually used when you need to find out how many entries there are in a text list. So, in cell B21, enter =counta(B4:B20) and press Enter. Calc now counts the number of entries in the range and returns the total in B21. All that remains for us to do is divide the total revenue by the number of orders to find the average order value. So, in cell E22, enter the formula =E21/B21 to get the average order value.

Note

Calc offers some nifty features that you can use quickly if you need to. The handiest one in our opinion is the ability to select multiple cells and immediately see the total and average of the range. You will find these figures in the lower-right status bar. This feature has saved us numerous times when we have needed to get this information quickly!


Formatting Your Spreadsheets

Getting back to our example, it looks a little basic at the moment because no formatting is involved. For instance, which currency are we billing in? You can also see that the some of the cells have text that does not fit, which is highlighted by a small right arrow in the cell. We could also benefit by adding some labels and titles to our spreadsheet to make it more visually appealing.

To start off, let's make all the revenue figures into currency figures. To do this, select all the cells containing revenue information and click on the small icon shown in Figure 9.8. This immediately formats the cells so that they display the dollar sign and puts in a thousand separator to make the numbers easier to read.

Figure 9.8. Make numbers more meaningful with the Currency and Percentage icons.


Now we need to space all the cells so that we can read all the information! A quick and easy way to do this is to click the area immediately to the left of column A and immediately above row 1 to select the entire spreadsheet. Now all you have to do is double-click on the dividing lines; each column resizes according to its longest entry.

Next let's add a little color to our worksheet by using the icon in the toolbar that looks like a letter A with a shaded background. Select the range B2 to E2 with the cursor and click the Fill Background icon to bring up the Color window, as shown in Figure 9.9. Now select the color you want to use. Calc fills the cells with that color. You can also change the font color by using the icon immediately to the right in the same way.

Figure 9.9. Add a touch of color to an otherwise dull spreadsheet with the Fill Background icon.


Finally, we need to add a couple more finishing touches. The first one is to enlarge the font for the column headers. Select the range B2 to E2 again and click the font size in the toolbar to change it to something a little larger. You might also want to use the Bold and Italic options to emphasize them and also the totals some more.

If you have followed the steps as described, you should end up with a spreadsheet similar to the one in Figure 9.10.

Figure 9.10. The finished article, looking a lot better than before!


Summarizing Data with Calc

Calc includes a powerful tool that enables you to summarize large groups of data to help you when you come to carry out any analysis. This tool is called a Data Pilot, and you can use it to quickly summarize data that might normally take a long time to calculate manually.

Using the sample spreadsheet used earlier, we show you how to build a simple Data Pilot and explain how to analyze and manipulate long lists of data. Earlier we worked with a spreadsheet that showed salespeople, customers, date of invoice, and revenue. At the foot of the spreadsheet were a couple of formulas that enabled us to quickly see the total revenue earned and the average order value.

Now we want to find out how much revenue our salespeople have generated individually. Of course, you could add this up manually using a calculator, but that would defeat the point of using Calc. So, we need to create a Data Pilot to help us summarize the information.

First we need to select all the cells in our table because this is the data that we want to analyze. After these are selected, click on the Data menu and select Data Pilot, Start to open the Data Pilot Wizard. Figure 9.11 shows the first screen, defaulted to the current selection. Make sure that you choose this one to use the data in the selected range and click OK to continue.

Figure 9.11. Use either the current selection or an external data source to provide the Data Pilot with information.


On the next screen, you can lay out your Data Pilot as you want it. In this example, we want to have Sales Person in the left column marked Row Fields, so click and drag the Sales Person option from the list on the right and drop it onto the Row Fields area. We also need to drag the Revenue option onto the Data Fields area to select that we want to see the consolidated revenues for each salesperson. Finally, we want to find out the average number of units sold by each salesperson, so drag the Units option onto the Data Fields area and double-click the button that appears. Select the Average function to specify that the number that appears should be a consolidated average. You should end up with something like Figure 9.12, and you are now almost ready to display your Data Pilot.

Figure 9.12. Lay out your Data Pilot as you want it.


The final piece in the puzzle is to tell Calc where you want it to place the finished Data Pilot. To do this, click the More button to drop down some extra options, and select the Send Results To box to choose a new sheet. When you click OK now, Calc builds the Data Pilot and displays it on a new sheet in your workbook. Figure 9.13 shows the new Data Pilot.

Figure 9.13. Summarize large volumes of numeric data with ease using Calc's Data Pilot function.


Working with GNOME Office

The other office suite available for GNOME is GNOME Office, which is a collection of individual applications. Unlike OpenOffice.org, GNOME Office does not have a coherent suite of applications, meaning that you have to get used to using a word processor that offers no integration with a spreadsheet, and which cannot work directly with a presentation package. However, if you only need one or two components, it is worthwhile investigating GNOME Office.

The GTK Widget Set

Open-source developers are always trying to make it easier for people to build applications and help in development. To this end, there are a number of widgets or toolkits that other developers can use to rapidly create and deploy GUI applications. These widgets control things such as drop-down lists, Save As dialogs, window buttons, and general look and feel. Unfortunately, whereas Windows and Apple developers have to worry about only one set of widgets each, Linux has a plethora of different widgets, including GTK+, QT, and Motif. What is worse is that these widgets are incompatible with one another, making it difficult to easily move a finished application from one widget set to another.

GTK is an acronym for GIMP Tool Kit. The GIMP (The GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a graphics application similar to Adobe Photoshop. By using the GTK-based jargon, we save ourselves several hundred words of typing and help move along our discussion of GNOME Office. You might also see similar references to QT and Motif, as well as other widget sets, in these chapters.


Here are some of the primary components of the GNOME Office suite available in Ubuntu:

  • AbiWord This word processing program enables you to compose, format, and organize text documents and has some compatibility with the Microsoft Word file format. It uses plug-ins (programs that add functionality such as language translation) to enhance its functionality.

  • Gnumeric This spreadsheet program enables you to manipulate numbers in a spreadsheet format. Support for all but the most esoteric Microsoft Excel functions means that users should have little trouble trading spreadsheets with Excel users.

  • The GIMP This graphics application enables you to create images for general use. It can import and export all common graphic file formats. The GIMP is analogous to Adobe Photoshop application and is described in Chapter 10, "Multimedia Applications."

  • Evolution Evolution is a mail client with an interface similar to Microsoft Outlook, providing email, scheduling, and calendaring. It is described in Chapter 8, "On the Internet: Surfing the Web, Writing Email, and Reading the News."

  • Dia Dia is the open-source version of Visio, allowing you to create complex diagrams depending on your specific requirements. It supports a range of diagram standards, including the increasingly popular UML diagrams.

  • Planner This is a surprisingly powerful project management tool, allowing you create and manage projects through a simple interface.

  • Balsa This lightweight mail client is in the mold of Microsoft Outlook Express. It is described in Chapter 8.

The loose association of applications known as GNOME Office includes several additional applications that duplicate the functionality of applications already provided by Ubuntu. Those extra GNOME applications are not included in a default installation of Ubuntu to eliminate redundancy. They are all available through synaptic repositories, making installation easy. Both The GIMP and Evolution are available with Ubuntu by default.

AbiWord (shown in Figure 9.14) can import XML, Microsoft Word, RTF, UTF8, plain text, WordPerfect, KWord, and a few other formats. AbiWord is notable for its use of plug-ins, or integrated helper applications, that extend its capabilities. These plug-ins add language translation, HTML editing, a thesaurus, a Linux command shell, and an online dictionary, among other functions and features. If you just need a lightweight but powerful word processing application, you should examine AbiWord.

Figure 9.14. AbiWord is a word processing program for Ubuntu, GNOME, and X11. It handles some formats that OpenOffice.org cannot, but does not yet do well with Microsoft Word formats.


AbiWord is not installed by default in Ubuntu; instead, you need to use synaptic to retrieve it.

After Abiword has been retrieved and installed, it becomes available in the Applications menu, under the Office submenu. Simply click the icon to launch the application, or you can launch it from the command line, like this:

$ abiword &


If you are familiar with Microsoft Works, the AbiWord interface will be familiar to you because its designers based the interface upon Works.

You can use the Gnumeric spreadsheet application to perform financial calculations and to graph data, as shown in Figure 9.15. It can import comma- or tab-separated files, text, or files in the Gnumeric XML format, saving files only as XML or text. To launch Gnumeric from the menu, choose Office, More Office Applications, and then Gnumeric Spreadsheet. You can also launch the spreadsheet editor from the command line, as follows:

$ gnumeric &


Figure 9.15. GNOME's Gnumeric is a capable financial data editorhere working with the same spreadsheet in use earlier. OpenOffice.org also provides a spreadsheet application, as does KOffice.


After you press Enter, the main Gnumeric window appears. You enter data in the spreadsheet by clicking a cell and then typing in the text box. To create a graph, you click and drag over the spreadsheet cells to highlight the desired data, and then you click the Graph Wizard icon in Gnumeric's toolbar. Gnumeric's graphing component launches, and you are guided through a series of dialogs to create a graph. When you are finished, you can click and drag a blank area of your spreadsheet, and the graph appears.

The Project Planner application is useful for tracking the progress of projects, much like its Windows counterpart, Microsoft Project. When the main window displays, you can start a new project or import an existing project. The application provides three views: Resources, Gantt Chart, and Tasks.

Note

Some productivity applications fall into the category of groupware; these include shared calendars, files, notes, email, and the like. Chapter 8 covers the applications in detail.


Working with KOffice

The K Desktop Environment, known as KDE, is not the default desktop environment for Ubuntu. KDE comes with its own set of libraries, widgets, and a system of inter-application communication (drag and drop) that is incompatible with the default GNOME desktop environment. This does not mean that the KDE applications are not usable if you choose a GNOME desktop (or vice versa). Although KDE duplicates a lot of the functionality of the GNOME offerings, the KDE applications often present a unique approach to solving familiar problems and might be just what you are looking for.

The KDE office suite KOffice was developed to provide tight integration with the KDE desktop. Integration enables objects in one application to be inserted in other applications via drag and drop, and all the applications can communicate with each other, so a change in an object is instantly communicated to other applications. The application integration provided by KDE is a significant enhancement to productivity. (Some GNOME desktop applications share a similar communication facility with each other.) If you use the KDE desktop rather than the default GNOME desktop, you can enjoy the benefits of this integration, along with the Konqueror web and file browser.

The word processor for KOffice is KWord. KWord is a frames-based word processor, meaning that document pages can be formatted in framesets that hold text, graphics, and objects in enclosed areas. Framesets can be used to format text on a page that includes columnar text and images that the text needs to flow around, making KWord an excellent choice for creating documents other than standard business letters, such as newsletters and brochures.

KWord and other components of KOffice are still under development and lack all the polished features of OpenOffice.org and AbiWord, as well as the necessary Microsoft file format support. If Microsoft compatibility is unimportant to you and you and your associates use KDE rather than GNOME, KOffice is worth considering.

You can access the KOffice components from the More Office Applications submenu under the Office menu. You can also access them from the KOffice shell, which you can launch from the command line, like this:

$ koshell &


After you press Enter, you see the main window of KOffice shell, as shown in Figure 9.16. On the left are icons representing all the KOffice applications available to you. Clicking on one starts a dialog to open an existing file or begin work in a new file.

Figure 9.16. KDE's KOffice provides a workspace office suite environment, allowing quick access to individual components of the suite.


You can click on icons on the left side of the main window to launch the KWord word processing client, the KSpread spreadsheet program, and other components. You can also launch individual clients from the command line without using the KOffice workspace. For example, to use KWord, enter the following:

$ kword &


KWord then asks you to select a document for your session. The KWord client, shown in Figure 9.17, offers sophisticated editing capabilities, including desktop publishing.

Figure 9.17. The KOffice KWord word processing component is a sophisticated frames-based WYSIWYG editor that is suitable for light desktop publishing, supporting several formats, including WordPerfect.


The KOffice KSpread client is a functional spreadsheet program that offers graphing capabilities. Like KWord, KSpread can also be launched from the command line. After you use a command like this, you are asked to choose a type of document (new or previous document):

$ kspread &


KDE includes other productivity clients in its collection of KOffice and related applications. These clients include an address book, time tracker, calculator, notepad, and scheduler. One popular client is KOrganizer, which provides daily, weekly, workweek, and monthly views of tasks, to-do lists, and scheduled appointments with background alarms. A journal, or diary, function is also supported within it, and you can synchronize information with your Palm Pilot. You can launch this client from the KDE desktop panel's menu or from the command line, as follows:

$ korganizer &


Figure 9.18 shows a typical KOrganizer window.

Figure 9.18. KDE's KOrganizer client supports editing of tasks and schedules that you can sync with your PDA. Shown here is the address book, too.


Commercial Office Suites for Linux

Several commercial office suites are available for Ubuntu in addition to StarOffice, already mentioned. None of these commercial suites are provided with Ubuntu. Of note is Hancom Office. Using the same QT widget set found in the KDE desktop, Hancom Office scores well on Microsoft file format compatibility. The suite includes a word processor, a spreadsheet presentation tool, and a graphics application. Corel produced a version of its WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux before it discontinued the release of any new Linux products. It still offers a support page, but the software is no longer available, nor is the excellentbut whiskeredWordPerfect 8 for Linux.




Ubuntu Unleashed
Ubuntu Unleashed 2011 Edition: Covering 10.10 and 11.04 (6th Edition)
ISBN: 0672333449
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 318

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net