SoftMaker Office 2010 for Linux Public Beta Free

Business software, financial software, etc.
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mikeslr
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SoftMaker Office 2010 for Linux Public Beta Free

#1 Post by mikeslr »

Hi to anyone interested:

Edited 3/8/10: When started first time, there's a message: expiration date 3/31/10. Sorry guys. See my later post.
Edit 3/17/10: Despite above expiration, strongly recommend obtaining it. See my later post here:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 857#401857


Below is the link for the free download of SoftMaker Office 2010 for Linux Public Beta. 140 MB. Choice of deb, rpm & script packaging. Per Softmaker's Website:
" Choose SoftMaker Office 2010 as your office suite, and you will get the job done in less time and with better results.
SoftMaker Office reads and writes Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files seamlessly – and costs only a fraction of Microsoft Office.
Everything speaks for SoftMaker Office 2010:
Powerful: Sophisticated office software for business and home users alike.
Compatible: Reads and writes all Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files seamlessly.
Fast: Starts and works blazingly fast. Slow is out.
Reliable: Does what you want. No nasty surprises.
SoftMaker Office 2010 comes with the following applications:
TextMaker 2010, the reliable and friendly word processor that reads and writes Microsoft Word files without a hitch.
PlanMaker 2010, the fully Excel-compatible spreadsheet that lets you create the most elaborate worksheets.
SoftMaker Presentations 2010, the presentation graphics program that simply creates better-looking presentations than Microsoft PowerPoint.
All programs are a perfect match. They not only provide consistent menu and dialog box arrangements, but can also exchange data smoothly with each other."
The advertised price for the final release will be € 69.95.

You have to provide an email address to receive a license to use the package. My experience is that Softmaker will thereafter infrequently email you, but importantly alert you to their next free beta release.

The download link is at the bottom right of the following webpage:
http://www.softmaker.com/english/ofl_en.htm

mikesLr
Last edited by mikeslr on Wed 17 Mar 2010, 15:54, edited 2 times in total.

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Iguleder
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#2 Post by Iguleder »

Ummmm ... nah.

I'm sure that can wait until they hand us the GPL'ified sources :wink:

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pa_mcclamrock
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#3 Post by pa_mcclamrock »

Iguleder wrote:I'm sure that can wait until they hand us the GPL'ified sources :wink:
You use AbiWord or some such thing if you want, I'll use SoftMaker Office. Every time I've compared "GPL'ified" office software to SoftMaker Office, the GPL stuff comes out behind--way behind. In particular, every time I've tried AbiWord over the years, some big bug or crash has sent me fleeing sooner or later (usually sooner). Even TextMaker 2002, the remote predecessor of SoftMaker Office 2010 (available for free, as in beer, from the Puppy 3 repository: ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributio ... 2_full.pet) has done things correctly for me that a much more recent version of AbiWord did incorrectly. I'm inspired to change my signature line accordingly (see below).

David McClamrock
It's stupid to use inferior software for ideological reasons.
--Linus Torvalds

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vovchik
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#4 Post by vovchik »

Dear puppians,

I am with David on this one. While I much prefer open source and prefer compiling things myself and often making my own little changes, Softmaker Office is very impressive and reliable. Moreover, the company offers free betas and seems to have a conscience - they have organized a number of campaigns to raise money for good causes (e.g. the recent Haiti earthquake), contributing a bit from each paid-for download. I haven't seen M$ - or anybody else - doing this.

With kind regards,
vovchik

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ttuuxxx
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#5 Post by ttuuxxx »

Really € 69.95 is just nuts, if it was like $10.00 I bet they would have 500times the amount people buying, But who would fork out $100 for a Office program when there are so many free ones, Open office, Koffice, Abiword, etc then there's wine and you can buy MS office for that price, really they are acting very greedy and like there office app is the only option for linux users, I don't mind testing it or making packages for it, but I'll never pay a dime for it, well If I was ever going to a have a Linux Office pc and not just building pc, I might be tempted if it was like $10, but never would I pay € 69.95 for it, That's one of the reason I left MS and moved over to linux, that and security and freedom.
Really I haven't came across many pay Linux programs, hmmm one which was really addictive on MS and also on Linux is My tribe http://grubbygames.com/mytribe/
It cost like $7.00 but its well worth it, basically you start off on a island and you have to build houses, gardens, go fishing, make offspring, and populate the island, even when the pc is turned off, they are walking around, build huts. boats etc, so when you log back-on the kids might now be teenagers and the parents might of died of old age, etc. but really I think anything for linux should be $10 or less. Really should be a motto. I haven't tried it on linux yet just MS.
ttuuxxx
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pa_mcclamrock
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#6 Post by pa_mcclamrock »

ttuuxxx wrote:Really € 69.95 is just nuts, if it was like $10.00 I bet they would have 500times the amount people buying, But who would fork out $100 for a Office program when there are so many free ones, Open office, Koffice, Abiword, etc
Nobody who was satisfied with TextMaker 2002, a very nice little program available for $0.00 (as I mentioned above). :D But I've tried OpenOffice, Koffice, Abiword, and I haven't really been satisfied with any of them (especially not with AbiWord). I do hope they'll listen to suggestions about the price; even if it doesn't go down to $10.00, they could probably more than double their sales by cutting the price in half. Fortunately, though, they say everyone who bought SoftMaker Office 2008 for Linux (as I did) will get a free upgrade to the final version of 2010!

David McClamrock
It's stupid to use inferior software for ideological reasons.
--Linus Torvalds

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mikeslr
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Softmaker -- Second Thoughts

#7 Post by mikeslr »

As noted in the edit of my first post, when you start softmaker the first time, it notes that it will expire on 3/31/10. I have to assume that means cease to function, as opposed to no longer being offered. But I won't delete it until April Fool's Day, just in case I'm wrong.

Softmaker's reputation is consistent with its advertisement. Compared to OpenOffice, its neither a diskspace nor a memory hog. If you run Linux and need to pass documents back and forth with people using MSOffice, it might well be worth $100, especially if you're in business and can write the expense off as a tax deduction.

Frankly, I don't see the difference between paying for software and paying for hardware. 3+ years ago, when I first discovered Puppy, I had a Netgear Wireless adapter which worked fine under XP. With it, Puppy couldn't access the internet. I googled to see if any Linux Distro could use it. None could. At that time, not many wireless adapters were reported on the forum as working. For about $14, I purchased an adapter several distro's reported as usable. It worked in Puppy. If I waited for Linux drivers --or even ndiswrapper-- to work with my Netgear, I'd still be waiting.

In 1997, when I was still in business I purchased a copy of WordPerfect7. It cost well over $100. From time to time, I upgraded. I'm probably familiar with all the wordprocessors which run under Linux and under Windows. Excluding its later versions, none are as customizable nor as functional as WordPerfect7. Its functionality, and the customizations I could make, expedited my getting work done. If a current Linux Version were available for a reasonable price --even though I'm retired and can no longer write it off-- I'd buy it without hesitation. It's just that good. And no, the old Corel Linux versions of WordPerfect aren't acceptable: the later ones ran under a early version of Wine, and the libraries of earlier ones are too outdated. It might be possible --copywrite concerns notwithstanding-- to rebuild Version 6 for Linux, but even if I knew what I was doing, the amount of time I'd have to spend wouldn't be worth the effort. And that, I think, is the real factor those who categorically oppose paying for software overlook:

Time, itself, has value.

Be good to our Devs who are eccentric enough to devote their time to Puppy.

Edit: I've been playing with Textmaker (while I still. (':lol:')). It is almost as good as WordPerfect7: better if you need multilanguage capabilities, as it apparently supports most European languages, even those using cyrillic character sets, including spell-check. There's an English Language Thesaurus. I don't know about others. What I particularly like is that you can customize the Toolbar: add icons for those functions you frequently use. The only thing WordPerfect had, which Textmaker doesn't, is the ability to add icons to the toolbar to open programs. Textmaker limits that ability to Softmaker's Spreadsheet and Presentation programs. Sorry if this read like an ad for Softmaker. Sorrier still that their not paying me.

mikesLr

jakfish
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#8 Post by jakfish »

Softmaker often runs generous sales, and also hawks their own software on ebay from time to time, often at a very discounted price.

Sitting tight until the price is right doesn't always work with users, but it helps.

And their recent giveaway of Office 2008, in all its flavors, was spectacular indeed.

Jake

John_C
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SoftMaker Office for years..

#9 Post by John_C »

I've used SoftMaker Office Suite for years -- I've NEVER paid the full price! Download something like a beta off their web site and leave your email address and you will get an offer to purchase at a great big discount.... you might wait a bit though.

When update time rolls around they always offer a super reduced price just before it is released to the public.

The 2010 version opens in a split second on any hardware or OS.

In this case it is good enough to pay for! Best compromise against any product. I think they deserve to get paid -- if you are cheap (like me) you can wait for a deal :D

daklander
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Re: SoftMaker Office for years..

#10 Post by daklander »

John_C wrote:.....
The 2010 version opens in a split second on any hardware or OS.

.....
Open Office opens on first boot after a complete system shutdown in under 10 seconds on this Dell Inspiron 6000 running PCLOS with 2GB ram and opens in under 15 seconds on a Dell Inspiron 4150 running PCLOS LXDE with 256 MB ram.
In our case, the time between (split second) and the short times we experience isn't worth any additional expenditure.
Now, when the laptops were running Windows, it was a whole 'nother ballgame with the application taking so long to load I could nearly go and brew a pot of coffee before it opened. :wink:

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#11 Post by John_C »

Never said I didn't like Open Office -- It is just too darn much for what I need it for.

Besides I like to take an "image" of my hard drives for backups which is especially important for Windows. Have to admit I search for the most compact Apps I can that will do the job, to keep my copying time (and space) as small as I can -- maybe that's why I like Puppy so much.

Dare I say Open Source had an opportunity with the release of Netbooks and I wouldn't dare to start a discussion of that lost opportunity :oops:

Don't care what you reply, I'm too old to get into that one!

disciple
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#12 Post by disciple »

The point in Softmaker Office is that it is not horrendously bloated and unstable like MS Office is these days, but it excellent MS compatibility, at least for the old binary MS formats. Nothing else compares (except maybe Corel Office?). I think I'd prefer OOo... but not if I need compatibility with MS binary formats.
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dejan555
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#13 Post by dejan555 »

I saw some thread before about some earlier version (maybe 2008?) free for linux and was about to try it and mirror but forgot about it. Will have to try out.

Propietary programs are not always bad. Big fees for them can be but as long as there are free cutdown versions some users may still use it or go to some of open source alternatives, it's all about choice really.

I don't use word processors that much but I also noticed bugs and incompatibility and having more alternatives can't be bad. We can hope that they release their code under GPL once but if it doesn't happen other projects are always evolving and improving...

In the end it's all about personal preference and we will always have our free (as in speach and price) alternatives.
puppy.b0x.me stuff mirrored [url=https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_Mb589v0iCXNnhSZWRwd3R2UWs]HERE[/url] or [url=http://archive.org/details/Puppy_Linux_puppy.b0x.me_mirror]HERE[/url]

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#14 Post by ttuuxxx »

Ya it would be cool if software manufactures looked at it this way, Charge top dollar win win&mac users since they like paying for Software, and make Linux versions free, after a few years we would have sooo many Linux users, could you image a version of Adobe CS Suite free for linux users and like $4000.00 for MS/Mac users, lol
ttuuxxx
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#15 Post by jakfish »

I've followed Softmaker's releases as closely as I can, ever since I bought Textmaker 2002 for H/PCs, and I have to agree: their conversion filters are second to none. It's difficult to believe that even in 2010, abiword's *.doc is really *.rtf.

THERE'S an argument for commercial third-party software :)

Jake

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pemasu
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#16 Post by pemasu »

I have gotten now my SoftmakerSmall sfs to 33 Mb. So it is quite small for *. doc, *.rtf and *.docx compatible text editor and reader. And the app opening speed is spectacular.
Well I use it also because of finnish hyphenation. I dont have a clue howto install finnish hyphenation and spell checker to finnish linux openoffice. There even isnt any guide to do that. Only mention that it comes with distro from distro repo.

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mikeslr
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Softmaker Office for Windows runs under Wine

#17 Post by mikeslr »

Hi again,

I was lucky enough to obtain a free copy of Softmaker Office 2008 for XP when it was being given away. I also obtained 2008 for Linux but can't recall where I downloaded it to. Since I dual-boot XP & Puppy, I decided to explore the XP version. One of the neat things about it is that once you've installed it to your computer you can run its built in app to install it to a USB Key where it will reside in a folder. The USB Key version is fully portable: its folder can be copied back to the hard drive or anywhere else and will run from there.
The portablized version will run under Wine in Puppy, and appears to be fully functional (except, perhaps, as noted below). By the way, although Softmaker does not include a database program, there is a module under its Textmaker program to create (and use) databases. I haven't done more than start it, so I don't know its capabilities.
Also included in the suite is a programming language module advertised as being VB-like. Since I don't know Virtual Basic, I am not able to test it under Wine.
Despite that its 2010 beta freebee will probably become inoperable on March 31st, I strongly recommend obtaining it. Doing so puts you on Softmaker's mailing list to receive notice of specials, future offerings and freebees.

mikesLr

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#18 Post by jakfish »

Since in Puppy 4.31, I run both Softmaker 2008 Linux and XP/Wine, I find that I can only print wirelessly in SM Linux.

I don't know why (had the same problem with 2006), because I can print wirelessly in MS Word 97/Wine.

Jake

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mikeslr
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SM Office printing problem under Wine & Similar problems

#19 Post by mikeslr »

Thanks jakfish for pointing that out. I didn't check out printing. As my printer died, and I rarely used it anyway, on those rare occasions when printing is needed I transfer the files to my wife's setup > and she's stuck in the '90s using that other system.(':lol:')
So I don't know if the problem you experienced is related, but for the sake of completeness my understanding is that portable JAVA currently either doesn't work, or is almost impossible to set up. Ergo, JAVA functions --including, for example, Database under OpenOffice Portable-- are unavailable. If you run a portable under windows, it will access the installed Windows JAVA console. And, similarly, when running a Linux App it will access the Linux JAVA console. But a portable written for Windows running under Wine apparently can't use the Linux JAVA installation. If printing from a portable Windows app is dependent on JAVA, it apparently, currently can't be done.

mikesLr

jakfish
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#20 Post by jakfish »

mikesir,

That makes a great deal of sense, and would explain why I can print from antiquated MS Word 97, but not from more sophisticated Softmaker.

And since I run java 1.6 in Puppy, that may account for printing successfully in SM 2006/2008 Linux.

But I'm in no way certain. I know I printed wirelessly in Word 97 before ever installing java on Puppy.

Wine, however, allows for endless tinkering in menu font, etc, making SM much more attractive in a netbook screen. Weirdly, SM, for all its customizations, won't let you change anything in its actual GUI. (edit: in SM Linux)

That's the only reason why I even play with SM/Wine, and why I keep coming back to MS Word 97, which runs beautifully in Puppy and with great speed.

Jake

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