mercoledì 5 settembre 2012

Office XP on Linux? Yes, you can!

Maybe you need to run Word or Excel or PowerPoint on Linux.

I will not call into question this need.
Especially in a working environment, this can be necessary.

Maybe you don't know that this is possible!

The procedure to install it is a bit complicated, but after the programs run well and easily.
So let's see the steps you must follow.

1) Install wine package from your Linux distribution, at least 1.1 version (I used 1.1.42 backport for Debian Squeeze)

2) Now you need also another version of wine, with this patch
This patched version must be used JUST TO INSTALL OFFICE XP!

You can have it in two ways:
- download the wine source, apply the patch and compile wine, but don't install it!!!
- download the version I've built on my Debian Squeeze here in tar.gz format (22MB)

Now use this patched version to launch the Office XP setup program (Setup.exe).

3) Choose a custom install and install just Word, Excel and PowerPoint (Outlook and Access will not work)

4) At the end you can use Word, Excel and PowerPoint with the standard version of wine.

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NOTES:
I tested deeply just Word and it seems that everything works fine.
Excel and Powerpoint run and open xls and ppt files with no problem.
I don't know if the procedure above will work also with more modern versions of Office.