MS Office in Linux

[OldgoodSheo]

Hi! Is there any way to use MS office in Linux through Wine or smth? But it must work flawlessly. One of the reasons i have to dual-boot Windows is a need in MS Word, which i use for a job. I have tried a various Linux text-editors and all of them have some compatibility issues with MS WOrd, it is ok for regular texts, but sometimes it is important legal documents, and every line must be the same. I can't use online MS Office solutions also..(

[MikeNovember]

Hi,

There is no MS Office version for Linux.

Possibilities are the following:
- Use MS Office with Wine, to be tested.
- Use MS Office online, it works with any browser, but may be limited compared to "full" MS Office.
- Use a compatible suite; LibreOffice is compatible with MS Office, can read/write Word / Excel / PowerPoint formats. Limitations are in macros and their programming languages, full compatibility is not warranted.
- Use MS Office in a Windows guest running in a virtual machine software. You need VirtualBox, or VMware Workstation Player, or qemu / kvm, or gnome boxes; a Windows license; a Windows ISO; you install Windows in your virtual machine software, then MS Office on Windows.

Regards,

MN

[AZgl1800]

I paid for CodeWeavers to run MS Office in Linux.

worked with it for a year, and it gave piss poor results.

end result, I now only work with LO and threw 'MS' out the window

[AZgl1800]

Install windows with VirtualBox

then install MS Office, that way you can Alt-Tab between Linux and Windows w/o issue

however,

if you use LO Writer and create a blank document.docx
close and reopen it, it works a lot like MS word.... and you can send/receive files from other Windows users... I do it that way.

BUT,
if you are used to the MS Office menu format, it is horrible, and LO's menus are corrupted awful

[OldgoodSheo]

Thanks for your replies! I will look into Virtual machine solution.

if you use LO Writer and create a blank document.docx
close and reopen it, it works a lot like MS word....

I have experience with LO, but with odt. Why should i close and reopen? Is there a bug?

[AZgl1800]

Thanks for your replies! I will look into Virtual machine solution.

if you use LO Writer and create a blank document.docx
close and reopen it, it works a lot like MS word....

I have experience with LO, but with odt. Why should i close and reopen? Is there a bug?

odt looses all of the compatibility features with MS Office.
discovered that the hard way.

it will NOT retain Images that you have inserted.

you must force it to Save As *.docx if you wish for it to stay compatible with MS Word.

Unfortunately, it will NOT retain the .docx format as the Default, even though you have Edited the Preferences to force it to do that.... it ignores Preferences...

that is why, I open XED and save as name.docx
then close that, and reopen and up comes LO Writer in MS Office Mode

I have XED pinned to the panel, so it is a quick 3 second operation.

XED.jpg (6.42 KiB) Viewed 5352 times

[OldgoodSheo]

you must force it to Save As *.docx if you wish for it to stay compatible with MS Word.

Hm, ok. I remember that i used to work with docx in LO without problems, but not much, i will be careful, thx

[AndyMH]

I run word/excel2013 under crossover and also have a win7 WM with office2016. Rendering under crossover is not as good as native win, so if it's a 'big' job I'll fire up the VM and use word/excel in that.

[mikeflan]

odt looses all of the compatibility features with MS Office.
discovered that the hard way.

it will NOT retain Images that you have inserted.

This statement is not true for everybody. I insert images in ODT files all the time, dozens and dozens of them, and they stay put.
I can leave it as ODT, which is normally done, or I can convert it to doc or docx. The images say put in all 3 formats.

[bin]

Hi! Is there any way to use MS office in Linux through Wine or smth? But it must work flawlessly. One of the reasons i have to dual-boot Windows is a need in MS Word, which i use for a job. I have tried a various Linux text-editors and all of them have some compatibility issues with MS WOrd, it is ok for regular texts, but sometimes it is important legal documents, and every line must be the same. I can't use online MS Office solutions also..(

Softmaker Office is the answer. https://www.softmaker.com/en/softmaker-office
I had to work with a number of horrendous Word docs that needed complicated tables with cell alignment issues and all sorts of pain.
LO just vomited garbage all over the screen.
Softmaker just opened them exactly as they appeared in Word. Edit, mess around, embed images, link images, save as docx or doc end send to Windows users who were none the wiser. The Pro version is worth the money, upgrades within a version/release are free, major version changes there's a cost.

Office 2007 is known to run OK under WINE or Crossover Office.

[Hoser Rob]

... One of the reasons i have to dual-boot Windows is a need in MS Word, which i use for a job....

So keep dual booting. WIne et al just are not reliable enough, they never have been and never will be. It's s dumb hack that fails more often then not.

[stevengarland]

Why not just use open source Libre Office? I have done this for years with both Linux and Windows without regrets.

[AZgl1800]

Why not just use open source Libre Office? I have done this for years with both Linux and Windows without regrets.

if one is fluent in using MS Word, nothing else even gets close.

the menu structure in LO Writer pisses me off every time I have to use it.

the Stability of LO office doesn't hold a candle to MS Office, sadly.

[linux-rox]

... need in MS Word, which i use for a job.

In that case, Windows in a virtual machine likely is the only answer you will find acceptable. It's what I do.

[AndyMH]

Softmaker Office is the answer. https://www.softmaker.com/en/softmaker-office

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll be having a look.

[Florian]

For best interoperability of word documents with libreoffice you want to make sure to have the package ttf-mscorefonts-installer installed.

That being said, installing word on windows (either vm or dual-boot is fine) still has the highest chance of success.

[Pierre]

You have three ways to run Microsoft's industry-defining office software on a Linux computer:

1. Use Microsoft Office on the web in a Linux browser
2. Install Microsoft Office using PlayOnLinux
3. Use Microsoft Office on a Windows virtual machine

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/install-u ... ice-linux/

the best way, is via Option 1.

[AZgl1800]

You have three ways to run Microsoft's industry-defining office software on a Linux computer:

1. Use Microsoft Office on the web in a Linux browser
2. Install Microsoft Office using PlayOnLinux
3. Use Microsoft Office on a Windows virtual machine

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/install-u ... ice-linux/

the best way, is via Option 1.

I refuse to use #1

#2 did not work for me at all

#3 works, but it is hard to open the Local files on the native LM21.1 PC....

gave it up...

[linux-rox]

3. Use Microsoft Office on a Windows virtual machine

#3 works, but it is hard to open the Local files on the native LM21.1 PC....

It's called shared folders and I have no difficulty, at all. Meanwhile, be fair, you struggle with VirtualBox on several points.

To be clear, Sheo, there are issues with the VM solution. You need relatively robust hardware (especially RAM and CPU), you need a Windows license (your OEM license usually won't work), and there are some hassles jumping back-and-forth between host and guest. It's how I run my machine, day-in day-out, day after day, but took some work and some retraining of muscle memory on shortcut keys. YMMV.

[nooblinx]

office 2007 works fine for me using wine. virtualbox is also good solution