[BozemanLUG] SoftMaker Office 2008 for Windows and Linux for free (as in beer)

[Scott Dowdle]

Greetings,

Just wanted to pass on that SoftMaker is giving away SoftMaker Office 2008 for both Windows and Linux until Dec. 31st.  With ever download they are donating 0.10 Euros to charity.  You can find more info here:

http://www.softmaker.com/english/index_en.htm

What is it?  A word processor, a spread sheet, and a presentation program.  But you already have that in OpenOffice.org, right?  Yes, you do... although SoftMaker Office 2008 is a lot lighter-weight, faster and more compatible with <= Microsoft Office 2003 documents... and does a much better job retaining the original formatting of MS Office documents.  They have it available for Linux as a rpm, a deb or a tar.gz with install script so it is an easy install on most Linux disros.  The only offer i386 packages though and on my 64-bit Fedora system I had to install one i386 support library from the stock Fedora repos.

I generally don't like proprietary apps... but in this case I really like SoftMaker Office.  The 2010 version (which isn't free and the Linux version is a few months off) is compatible with the MS Office 2007 .docx formats and can even write them as opposed to OOo that can only import.  SoftMaker Office also does ODF format as well as export to PDF.

If you use office apps, I think you'll like it... and don't forget they are giving away money for each free download.

Anyone who gives it a try, feel free to email your comments to the list.

I originally wrote about SoftMaker Office in 2006:
http://www.montanalinux.org/a-different-office-suite.html

TYL,
-- 
Scott Dowdle
704 Church Street
Belgrade, MT 59714
(406)388-0827 [home]
(406)994-3931 [work]