Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[Jasper]

Hi steve_s,

If you haven't already seen, it might be worth a look at http://sudosys.be/?q=office2007_wine (even though with different versions of Linux, Wine and MS Office - Excel was said to work).

Also, I wonder if it might be worth trying the Wine Application Configuration (just for Excel) as say, 98 or Vista.

Also, if you haven't tried, I wonder if might it be worth running a process manager in Windows when running Excel to see which dlls are used.

I don't hold out much hope with the above, but I'll be both surprised and sorry if you do not find your answer. Anyways, good luck!

My regards

[steve_s]

This post works wonders for fixing that choppy looking font effect in Wine. Great job, vovchik!

[steve_s]

[steve_s]

Ok...now I've got 'em all working, including Excel.

I got it to work like this: I reinserted the Office 2003 disk, ran it, and select Repair/Install and then had it go through the "repair" process.

Then I had seen this trick on another mailing list website, and don't know if it is significant, but it works now, so maybe it is: when I start Excel for the first time it asks for the Owner name (or company or something) and it has "root" as the default option. I changed it to ".wine" without the quotes and for initials I put "PL" (I don't think changing the initials matter...thought Puppy Linux would do fine).

Now it runs great.

**EDIT**: nevermind, crashed again. I'll reboot and try again later.

[Jasper]

Hi steve_s,

Seems as though you're dangerously close to success.

If you open the Wine configuration file Applications tab and click the "Add application" button then navigate to "excel.exe" (assuming that is the correct launch name) then from the drop down list choose which Windows version you want to use (just for Excel) and click OK.

The time here is 27 minutes past midnight.

My regards

[steve_s]

[steve_s]

Ok, got it to work more consistently this time without crashing, Excel that is.

Following Sir Jasper's suggestion I checked out Excel.exe in the applications window of winecfg. I had done this before but, with Excel.exe selected, I poked around some more.

Under the graphics tab gives you the option of setting a "Virtual Desktop." This seems to be sort of a platform for Excel/Office to run in. I set the Virtual Desktop for Excel as 800x600, then clicked "Apply."

Excel runs great within the Virtual Desktop. I don't like the Virtual Desktop overall so I've left it off of the other ones.

For the record, I'll probably use gnumeric or OOffice for spreadsheets, but I just needed to get Excel to work. Now it does.

[steve_s]

Ok, with MSOffice in it, the .wine folder is 742MB!

Even trimming this Puppy down, it would still be too big for a cd.

A DVD iso burn?

...or make an sfs of Microsoft Office? It would only work on this version of Puppy, so it would take a remaster then a separate sfs.

What do you think is the most efficient way to make this portable? Everyone, what do you recommend...

[Jasper]

Hi Steve,

Do I correctly understand that you can Emulate a virtual desktop just for Excel (as opposed to for all Wine programs)? I have a minor problem with my tray icons (for inactive Wine programs) whether in Full Screen or Virtual mode and I wonder if you have a similar display problem with any of your programs? Your eyesight is doubtless good, but I would set my virtual box larger than 800 x 600.

I have an sfs of OO (and there is a portable Linux version of it which has all the OO programs - not just the main three). There is also a Portable Windows version of OO 3.2 which is from PortableApps.com and it runs under Wine (and may not have Gold status, but seemed fine to me from a cursory check).

With Lucid Puppy Gnumeric loads (for me) instantaneously whereas OO is quite slow, but OO can save with MSOffice extensions so there is total portability of data (except for some macros) between Linux and Windows.

I have not investigated if Gnumeric can import/export from/to MSOffice formats.

As regards size and portability perhaps a USB stick might be the answer (especially for boxes with USB 2 or 3) - perhaps in conjunction with a CD for older machines (like mine) which cannot boot from a USB stick.

Congratulations on your win and thanks again.

[steve_s]

[steve_s]

All right. Regarding portability, went with a livecd of Puppy 4.0 and a usb flash drive that has a save file on it and a wine sfs file. Thanks to Puppy if I want to use Office where ever on any computer I'm good.

[steve_s]

Ha! Just got it to work on KDPUP too...[insert evil Puppian laugh, aka mad genius]

[steve_s]

Some follow up: I got this running on both KDPup and KDPup lite but on BOTH all works fine except for Publisher which crashes as soon as you try and do anything with it, like open a document, etc.

All others, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, seem quite stable in those versions.

The ONLY one that I've got going so far that is very, very stable is Puppy 4.0 with the first version of wine that I posted with the initial instructions and the Excel variation of virtual screen.

AND I've gotten that Puppy 4.0 with MSOffice onto an ISO of 477MB. By Puppy standards its huge but it really is just the stuff from this thread and Opera added to Puppy 4.0.

Obviously I can't post the ISO but I'll post more results on testing that iso out along with pic's later this weekend.

All you Americans enjoy the Labor day weekend!

[ttuuxxx]

I had ms office 2003 working on wifes PC last year, actually ran nice. But the only issue I had is the font rendering wasn't all that great, Even after I used MS fonts. She didn't like the font look either and decided not to use puppy, grrrrrrrr took me forever to set her up. Oh well
ttuuxxx

[steve_s]