LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Freeman, Peter (ERHS) <Freeman.Peter@saugov.sa.gov.au>
  To  : <bdanilko@acm.org>
  Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 13:42:40 +1030

RE: Advice on Word processing / Browsing / Spreadsheets

>I am in an office that uses Linux for all engineering tasks without a
>problem - 

way to go Brian! :o)

>unfortunately office tasks aren't quite as smooth. How are
>others fairing in this regard?
>
>Basically we need non-engineering staff to do word processing, browse
>the web and create and interact with spreadsheets. Nothing 
>fancy but we need it
>to be solid!

Could you elaborate a little more here. 
Do you need to interact heavily with outside sources who use MS based file
formats?
Or are you wanting it primarily for internal use, with only the occasional
need
to export/import MS formats?

Apparently Abiword has improved quite a bit recently, I haven't tried the 
later releases so someone else may like to comment on it.  Gnumeric seems
quite good recently, tho I haven't attempted much in the way of
import/export
to Excel formats as yet.

As for web browsing, mozilla or konqueror seem to be the favorites, or
netscape
if you feel the need to drag your PCs performance down ;o)  Personally I use
konqueror most of the time, tho i still have some trouble loading some of
the
sites that use a lot of java :(


>We have been using star office 5.2 but are having robustness
>problems. We aren't stuck on this solution (personally I think it is
>overkill) so any ideas/experiences would be appreciated. We have a
>robust OS, we just need robust office apps to make it a killer 
>platform. 

SO 5.2 is very clunky.  Adequate, but not what I'd consider usable as an
always-on office platform.
Staroffice 6, though in beta still, seems to have improved considerably,
as has the ability to import/export to/from MS formats, though its still
not 100% perfect in this regard (what are beta releases for :o)


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