| MS Office arrives on the Linux desktop (Part 3) |
(continuation)
One giant leap for Linux
Fade to the present. A week ago, I got the opportunity to try out an early beta of CodeWeavers' next-generation Windows-on-Linux product: CrossOver Office.
As its name implies, this one lets you run Microsoft's Office suite on Linux. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access. The real thing. Even Internet Explorer and Outlook are on the roadmap for support. (I'm told the last two work now in certain system setups, to at least a limited extent -- but I haven't been able to get them working on my system, though I'm not really sure I want to.)
Seeing is believing. When you start CrossOver Office's setup utility, it prompts you to select what you want to install from its list (currently Microsoft Office, Lotus Notes, Internet Explorer 4.0, and Other) and even provides a button that you can click to eject your CDROM drive. After placing the installation CD in the drive, you click "OK" and the program does the rest. Assuming a successful install, you will see the identical messages that a Windows user would be presented with, and after the installation is complete you'll end up with a group of program icons added to your system menu.
Following the installation, I dragged each program icon of interest onto my KDE desktop, and proudly they took their place beside my Linux program icons.
I already had Word running under Wine, but was never quite satisfied with its operation. Little things weren't quite right, like problems with fonts and printing. But with CrossOver Office, Word acts and looks just like it does under Windows . . .
Word arrives on the KDE desktop
PowerPoint had never quite worked right under "ordinary Wine" on my system, but with CrossOver Office it now is "almost" perfect. Similarly, as far as I can tell from the limited time I've had to play with it, Excel works better than it ever has under "ordinary Wine" on my system, without any noticeable problems. I can even print from any of the Office programs!
And let's talk about speed. When I click on that Word icon on my KDE taskbar, Word is up and running within 3-4 seconds. That compares with 2 seconds for AbiWord, (ahem) 25 seconds for OpenOffice, and 12 seconds for Word under "ordinary Wine". 3-4 seconds to load the one program that I know will read a doc file reliably is temptingly fast! Excel and Powerpoint also load in 3-4 seconds. Scary!
--- Continued ---
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