Can Kubuntu "read" Microsoft word documents

[Guest]

Before installing Kubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx (LTS), I wonder if this OS can "read" Microsoft word documents? And where can I get a word program for kubuntu? And can I play music Cd's and videos with Kubuntu (have only cd-rom drive and 5 usb ports)? And can I use USB memory sticks or flash drives (or whatever they call them) with kubuntu?

[ANOKNUSA]

Re: Can Kubuntu "read" Microsoft word documents

By default, (K)ubuntu can play FLAC and .ogg files, but doesn't come packaged with the codecs for listening to .mp3, .aac, .mp4 and the like, and can't play encrypted DVDs. This is only due to legal concerns held in some countries; you can still find this software online and install it easily.

The default office suite in Kubuntu both reads and writes to MSOffice files.

As for your hardware concerns...seems a bit odd that millions of people around the world would settle for Ubuntu if it couldn't handle a computer built after 1993.

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Can Kubuntu "read" Microsoft word documents

You can play your audio cds and files by adding the medibuntu repository and installing the kubuntu-restricted-extras package. See instructions here:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Me...20Repositories

OpenOffice.org is an open source productivity suite that has many of the features of MS Office, including a word processor similar in some ways to M$ Word. It can read SOME, but not ALL, of the formats that M$ Word can save, and via versa. I believe that if you save your word docs in word-2 or office-2003 format, OOo will read them. Excel files are another matter - not all of the embedded programs that work with Excel will work on OOo. Ordinary files read fine, but many commercial applications for Excel may not.

USB memory devices work fine in linux, kubuntu included. If you format the device as FAT, it will be readable and writable both by linux and windows. If you have it formatted as NTFS, you will need to install the ntfs-3g package, and hope for the best - it does not always work perfectly.

[askrieger]

Re: Can Kubuntu "read" Microsoft word documents

Please allow me to amplify the previous response to your questions.

(1) Yes, you can read, modify, and save documents in the M$ ".doc" format. There are two office suites available for (*)buntu. Koffice and Openoffice.org. Both of these read and write M$ formats (as well as other formats). Open up your favorite package manager (mine is Synaptic) and search for "office". You will find both of them. Personally, I prefer Oo.o, because I thought it was more polished back when I switched to Linux only (several years ago). But you should look at both of them and decide for yourself.

(2) Of course you can play at least as many different varieties of recorded music as there are. Not only the ogg and flac "free" formats, but also mp3, real audio, and M$ and Apple proprietary formats. To do this, you will have to add the Medibuntu repositories to your package manager. Please look at THIS PAGE at the Ubuntu User Documentation site.

*doctordruid is a faster typist than I.

[Telengard]

Re: Can Kubuntu "read" Microsoft word documents

There is also AbiWord, a much lighter solution than OOo or KOffice. There are abiword packages in the universe repo for Lucid and all the way back to Dapper.

Can AbiWord open Microsoft Word® documents?

AbiWord does a reasonably good job opening most Microsoft Word documents. However, no non-Microsoft word processor can be 100% Word compatible. Developing good MS Word filters is a very difficult process. With each new Word release, Microsoft also makes considerable changes to the Word file format.

If the Word document you're trying to open with AbiWord has complicated tables, text boxes, embedded spreadsheets, and so forth, it may not work as expected. Please bear with us as we work to improve AbiWord's MS Word compatibility. If you have a Word document which fails to load, please use our website's "Report a Bug" feature. Be sure to include the document with your report to help us analyze the problem.
Saving as .doc

AbiWord can currently save in a Word-compatible .doc format. This is done by saving in Rich Text Format (.rtf) with a .doc extension. This means the document may include styled text (specific fonts; bold, italic, and other styling; colors, and so forth), HTML, tables, and other standard formatting. Word has no trouble opening these files correctly.

Some people have suggested that this file-saving method is "cheating" and doesn't represent true Word compatibility. However, Microsoft itself has a history of considering Rich Text files "Word-compatible": In Windows 98, the Wordpad application includes the option to save files as Microsoft Word 6.0 .doc files. It turns out that these files are actually Rich Text files saved with the .doc extension.

Therefore, because the Rich Text format covers the great majority of users's formatting needs, we have no plans to enable AbiWord to create actual binary Word files (see Bug 2565.)
Saving Word documents you have edited

Many users have wondered why, when they try to Save a Microsoft Word document, the Save As window appears. This is because of the small possibility of losing some of the information contained in the original file. The last thing we want is for users to lose data, so we take this precaution to be sure that users do not inadvertently overwrite their original files. If they do so, they must deliberately choose to do so.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Can Kubuntu "read" Microsoft word documents

Just to add 2 points to the above admirable posts:

1. None of the applications referred to will ever cost you a penny, and

2. On installation of kubuntu you will find openoffice has already been installed, ready for use.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Can Kubuntu "read" Microsoft word documents

And, OpenOffice has several features that Word or Office does not have, the best being database integration. Watch this and some of the other videos on that page...


BTW, while OOo is part of the standard installation, you will have to add other OOo features, like Base, from the repository.

[14tjoyce]

Re: Can Kubuntu "read" Microsoft word documents

And, if you absolutely require M$ Office you can install it with PlayOnLinux and WINE. I have Office 2007 installed on my system and it works just fine.