Ubuntu

ms office compatibility

Asked by Leif Petersen

Hi
I work in an office environment surrounded by evil MS Office users. We put together big, technical reports and presentations. I am therefore bound to MS Office products. I found that OO was 90% compatible but the 10% difference on a 100 page technical document is NIGHTMARE!!! My compatriates are not going to change to Linux despite my protestations.... SO, Is there any way I can run a sneaky windows emulator or something that will allow me to have the best of both worlds - Ubuntu and MS Office together? Otherwise I have to surrender back to Windows.... please save me this fate...!

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Leif Petersen
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Elfy (elfy) said : 		#1

depends what version of office you need - you could use wine from older versions, not sure about others - check out the wine site

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=31

you could also look into running a virtual copy of win

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Leif Petersen (ratsgalore) said : 		#2

Thanks forest pixie! this is what I want to hear....
So, tell me about this 'virtual copy' of windows?!?
in the meanwhile I shall review your link
thanks

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Vojtěch Trefný (vojtech.trefny) said : 		#3

"So, tell me about this 'virtual copy' of windows?!?"
→ I think forestpixie means virtualization -- https://help.ubuntu.com/community/VirtualMachines

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Bhavani Shankar (bhavi) said : 		#4

Bhavani Shankar suggests this article as an answer to your question:
FAQ #64: “Using wine in ubuntu”.

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Elfy (elfy) said : 		#5

sorry - meant to leave message yesterday - but lost the net all night - damn AOL and their useless UK service - 4 months and counting :)

as vojtech said I was talking about virtualisation - I used virtual box http://www.virtualbox.org/
or with vmwware you can get a tool from the site (not the buntu repos) that will allow you to use an existing install of windows

http://www.vmware.com/download/server/
http://www.vmware.com/download/converter/

to use the server you need a serial number - which you get from same page, but it's free
seemed to be ok, but you won't get 3d at all

wine works ok with office 2k - but other versions have problems it seems

I would say that the best bet would be to use a virtual machine

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Elfy (elfy) said : 		#6

and vmware player

http://www.vmware.com/download/player/

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Leif Petersen (ratsgalore) said : 		#7

thanks everyone, I am going to do some investigations....!