| Textmaker for Linux reviewed |
(Apr. 28, 2003)
SoftMaker is just a week or so away from the official release of the first component in their Office Suite, the word processor, TextMaker for Linux. DesktopLinux.com reviews their latest beta release to determine how the product performs in real world use. The product promises to deliver true Microsoft Word functionality for the LinuxOS. DesktopLinux.com tested the first release candidate with a variety of complex files to discover if the program lives up to the company's promises -- and our expectations.
TextMaker's installation was flawless under Red Hat Linux. Once the program is set up, anyone familiar with desktop word-processing programs will feel right at home. All of the controls and options we are familiar with from previous destop publishing or word processing programs are in the expected places.
The Textmaker Interface
Toolbar shortcuts and heavily used functions also have one-click buttons on the toolbar. Other commands are available via menu selection or familiar keyboard shortcuts. Users can even add buttons to customize their own preferred shortcuts on the menu.
Customize the toolbar.
Textmaker supports popular image formats, headers/footers, page numbering, table of contents generation, search tool, chapters, tables, forms, bookmarks, unlimited undo/redo function, calculations, symbols, thesaurus and spell-checker -- full features to say the least for any desktop publishing program! Document formatting supports full color, fonts, borders, shading, and more, at the touch of a button.
Text and images can be put into frames, allowing greater control over their placement in the document. The frames are free floating and can be placed within or outside margins very easily. This is a great feature that gives the user an easy interface to add updates or design a layout. Text boxes are easily rotated to give different looks. Drawing tools allow predefined shapes such as circles, squares, and ellipses.
Add and manipulate images in frames.
The program also hosts predefined labels and templates for designing lists, business cards, and other layouts with ease.
Textmaker loads very fast, with no hesitancy on our test system (a 133 MHz Pentium II). This seems to be due in part to Softmaker's decision to use its own class library, rather than either the Gtk or Qt toolkits. The product takes up little resources, and full versions are available for mobile devices such as the Pocket PC.
The program ran with very few problems. While we did have Textmaker crash inexplicably twice while leaning on it for our testing purposes, we were pleased to see Textmaker prompt us with an option for recovering our in-progress document after restart.
We had no problems importing very detailed 35 to 110 page native MS Word documents with rich images, charts, symbols, and more without fail. The same document, saved as a '.doc' from StarOffice also imported into Textmaker without any issue.
Image support was very consistent in our testing. Pictures were loaded quickly and easily resized both in and outside of frames. Tables were generated quickly and effortlessly. Even preloaded fonts were preserved from Word documents we tested and looked good on screen and in print.
What problems did we encounter? The only downside that we experienced was an occasional failure when loading '.html' documents and one document's image did not appear in Textmaker, but was represented by a gray box.
One interesting note is that TextMaker’s default format is not Word’s ‘.doc’. Instead, SoftMaker uses its own ‘.tmd’ format. TextMaker does handle Microsoft Word, Pocket Word, RTF, and text documents adeptly. TextMaker integrates nicely with the Internet by allowing integrated emailing of Textmaker documents.
Developed by Germany's Softmaker, TextMaker also includes multiple language support. The program, along with dictionaries and thesauri are all available in a wide range of European languages.
Availability
TextMaker is available as a beta download now from SoftMaker's website as a prerelease for 49.95 EUR or $39.95 USD for a limited time. That offer ends after May 31, 2003. The program reads and writes Microsoft Word 6/95/97/2000/XP files and ships in a wide variety of European languages.
All components of SoftMaker Office will be ported to Linux successively, according to the company. TextMaker, the word processor, is the first program to be ported. Successive releases include PlanMaker for spreadsheets, DataMaker database, and a document management system that also hosts groupware functions.
Conclusion
TextMaker is a word processor that provides provides complete file compatibility with long and complex MS Word documents. It has a familiar interface and poses few problems importing images, text, and other pre-formatted layouts. The program loads fast and offers easy tools to help you lay out your document. Does it live up to Softmaker's billing? It sure does. Our advice: download the product as a great Office replacement for MS Word on Linux. Textmaker delivers a stable, and capable, word processor for the Desktop Linux user.
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