Use Microsoft Office in Linux? You can now!

Running Microsoft Office



The default installation directory (when installed as a normal user) will be $USER/cxoffice (where $USER is a normal user, not root). Within the installation directory is the bin directory, which houses all of the executable binary files. Move to the $USER/cxoffice/bin directory and issue the command winword (again, do this as a normal user, not root). Voila. Microsoft Word will run (see Figure D).

Figure D
Crossover
With CrossOver Office, Microsoft Word runs as if it were under its native environment.

The executables for all of the Microsoft Office Suite can be found in the bin directory. There are also some executables you don't want to run. One executable, wineserver, shouldn't be run because it's called from within the execution of each application. By calling wineserver directly, the individual applications won't be able to run.

Gotchas

There are a few issues with the CrossOver Office tool. The first and most lethal is that if a previous installation of Wine is located on the machine, none of the Microsoft Office tools will run. To get around this, all of the files in /usr/lib/wine must be removed and the command rpm -e wine must be run as root. Once Wine has been successfully removed, CrossOver Office can be safely installed.

Another quirk of CrossOver Office, due to the use of Wine, is that the drop-down menus (within Microsoft's Office Suite) don't behave exactly as they do in the native Windows environment. When you click on a drop-down menu (such as File or Edit), you can't just move your mouse down to the target entry (such as Save or Save As...). Instead, once you click the left mouse button on File, you have to hold the mouse button down until the cursor reaches the target entry and then click on the entry. Once you release the mouse button within a drop-down menu, the menu goes away. The drop-down menu behaviour is a bit annoying at first but quickly becomes second nature.

Is it worth the $$$?

Ask yourself one question: Can you live without Microsoft Office? If you can't, then CrossOver Office is a must-have. Not only are you able to run Microsoft's Office Suite in a much more stable environment, but you no longer have to worry about such issues as Word macros taking down a system. That alone is worth $55.

Editorial disclaimer: The authors and editors have taken care in preparation of the content contained herein but make no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for any damages. Always have a verified backup before making any changes.

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Talkback 1 comments

    Been using this and it works g ...David B -- 19/08/02

    Been using this and it works great.

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