Posts Tagged ‘open office’

How to Enable Open files with Microsoft Office Word 2003 in GNOME nautilus on Linux

Saturday, November 24th, 2012

how to addmicrosoft office to linux gui ms word logo with linux tux mascot in GNOME desktop nautiilus

Do you work with Linux and need communicate via e-mail with people sending you Microsoft Doc files created with Microsoft Office Word?

Do you end up with crappy (not identicaly looking) .doc files, after editing with Open Office and mailing back to Windows users, using Microsoft Office (Word)?

I experienced this many time and though it is not completely Open Office fault it is hard to explain or convince others to simply switch to Libre Office and distribute text in .ODT. Also pitily,  most computer users are much below the avarege level and too used to MS Office, so it is hardly possible  to change their bad habits (I try that with my co-students in Anrhem Business School) and I tell you from experience it is not possible …

I use GNU / Linux  as main Desktop operating system for  10 years now and for my work and studying, it is common the colleagues send me files in MS Word .DOC format. Usually I use OpenOffice to read and edit them and send back. However, not all formatted .doc files looks later nice in MS Word 2003 / 2007. Thus I have also a Native Microsoft Office 2003 installed on my Debian Linux running through – WINE Windows emulator.

Often, when I want to be sure a received MS .DOC file should be displaying exactly the same on MS Windows OS – to (avoid collegues criticism). I open the document using wine emulated Microsoft Office 2003.

Most of the MS .doc files are received over e-mail (I use as pop3 client Icedove- Mozilla Thunderbird), so I save them further on my hard disk and need to read / modifythem.
It is rather inconvenient and time inefficient to start Microsoft Office from gnome-terminal and type in below long command in order to edit .docs:

wine ~/.wine/drive_c/"Program Files"/"Microsoft Office"/OFFICE11/WINWORD.EXE

Thus I wanted a more convenient, easy way to be able to directly open .doc files with emulated Microsoft Word from GUI on my Debian Linux notebook.
This is possible using a nautilus plugin tool called nautilus-scripts-manager. Earlier I blogged about how to make extracting PDF to images possible with nautilus-scripts-manager, in the exactly same manner of logic is possible to add as many processing scripts to be available for invokement via the Scriptsnautilus scripts Properties menu.

Here is how to add MS Word to nautilus GNOME menus:

1. Install nautilus-scripts-manager (if not already installed)

debian:~# apt-get install --yes nautilus-scripts-manager

2. Create ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/ directory

(~/ is shortcut for /home/yourusername/) – To add it globally for all users, one has to create the same .gnome2/nautilus-scripts/ directory with respective scripts for all existing users on host.

mkdir ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/

3. Create ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/word.sh MS Word launcher script

  Edit ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/word.sh and add  like following 2 liners script: (note the paths to WINWORD.EXE might vary depending on exact Microsoft Office installed version:

#!/bin/sh
wine ~/.wine/drive_c/"Program Files"/"Microsoft Office"/OFFICE11/WINWORD.EXE "$1"

You can also download nautilus word.sh script here

Further on once placed, make word.sh script executable:

noah:~$ chmod +x ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/word.sh

Onwards it is possible to open .doc files from Nautilus Scripts Manager menu press on the .doc file with last mouse button and choose Scripts :

open doc files with Microsoft Word 2003 nautilus script manager on GNU Linux and FreeBSD My GNOME env is configured in Bulgarian language so on below script you see the bulgarian translated word for Scripts (Скриптове).

screenshot of random open doc file with microsoft word 2003 nautilus script manager on my Debian GNU / Linux

Right now I don't have at hand FreeBSD, and I'm not sure if nautilus-scripts-manager is available with FreeBSD gnome so, if someone has tested this and can confirm this works on FreeBSD drop a comment please.

Well that's all enjoy easily opening your .doc files with Microsoft Office on Linux.

How to: Open Office view / edit .doc , .odt document in Full Screen mode

Tuesday, January 8th, 2013

Most programs, like Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Evince etc. etc. have as a default set F11 to bring the program to full screen.  It seems logical that the Linux substitute for Microsoft Office – Open Office should also go full screen while the user press F11, but weirdly it doesn't.

Pressing F11 in Open Office on my current Debian Squeeze (6.0.5) Stable Linux with OpenOffice.org 3 brings to screen Styles and Formatting customization dialog.

openoffice.org 3 debian linux F11 key press Styles and Formatting dialog screenshot

I'm not sure why openoffice is behaving like this, but one of my guess is cause OpenOffice was multiple times upgraded whenever I upgraded my Debian to latest stable with apt-get update && apt-get upgrade thus most likely still some keyboard bindings from older OO versions are affecting it. There are two ways to make OpenOffice display in Full-Screen.

1. Using OO menus

Use View -> Full Screen (F11)

As I said it is possible, the F11 key assignment is still reacting to old config assignment as in dialog for full screen the Shortcut key said to bring OO full-screen is F11.

2. Making OpenOffice FullScreen through keyboard

Keyboard config to bring OpenOffice to Full-Screen mode is a simultaneous key-press of:

CTRL + SHIFT + J

Pressing Ctrl + Shift + J again brings OO to its standard window.

Openoffice / Libreoffice run in full screen screenshot pic Debian squeeze Linux

Though I'm not sure I assume in newer OpenOffice versions now distributed under the LibreOffice name (cause of some Patents and Licensing issues), CTRL + SHIFT + J should bring up LibreOffice in Full-Screen too. I don't have at hand installed version of LibreOffice, so if someone can confirm for sure of Ctrl + Shift + J makes LibreOffice go FullScreen? Please drop comment.

Cheers 😉
 

How to convert Adobe PDF file format to Microsoft Word DOC on MS Windows 2000 / XP / Vista / 7

Tuesday, July 24th, 2012

How to convert PDF to DOC on Microsoft Windows XP, MS Windows 7, Win Vista convert PDF to MS DOC 2003, ABBYY Covert Page
I had to convert Adobe PDF file to Microsoft Word ( .doc) file on Microsoft Windows OS for a friend. There is plenty of software available to convert PDF to DOC on Windows, as well as few web-site services claiming to convert correcly PDF to DOC. Converting PDF to DOC is easy and can be done with Open Office, however the reverse process is a real pain in the ass. I tried a dozen of free web serviecs to convert an ancient Latin writting PDF to DOC but none of them couldn’t properly convert it. Failing with the web services as a tool to convert, I’ve turned to seeking a tool that will do the trick. After trying few PDF to DOC converters which failed to produce a properly structed edittable DOC from the PDF file, I’ve come across ABBYY PDF Transformer 2.0. Abbyy PDF Transformer finally did it …

I’ve tried hard to look for a free software good PDF to DOC converter alternative for Windows but it seems as of time of writing this post there is no GPLed free software that does properly convert PDFs to MS WORD DOC ….

Using Abbyy PDF Transformer 2.0 is a piece of cake all I had to do is select the PDF file (pressing Open PDF) and then click on Convert (in right bottom corner). Below is a shot of Abby PDF transformer in action.

How to convert PDF to DOC on Microsoft Windows XP, MS Windows 7, Win Vista convert PDF to MS DOC 2003, abby pdf converter in action

Create PNG, JPG, GIF pictures / images from PDF on Linux

Saturday, February 25th, 2012

I've received a PDF file with a plan for development of a bundle of projects, My task was to evaluate this plan and give feeback on the 44 pages PDF document.

Since don't know of program to directly be able edit PDF files on GNU / Linux ?, my initial idea was to open and convert the PDF to ODT / DOC with OpenOffice (Libre Office) and then edit the ODT file.
Unfortunately Open Office oowrite program was unable to open / visualize the PDF file. My assumption is OO failure to open the PDF is because the PDF was generated on Microsoft Windows with Adobe illustrator or smth.

The idea that came to my mind as alternative, way to edit the PDF file was to convert it in pictures edit and then convert the pictures to PDF.
In other words to follow these 3 steps:
1. Convert the PDF document to multiple images
2. Edit each of the images with GIMP or Inkscape
3. Convert back all images to a single PDF file

Some time ago, I've written an article how to create PDF file from many image files in JPEG, PNG or GIF on Linux

. This prior article was exactly describing how to complete Step 3.Therefore all left was to find a way to convert the PDF file to multiple JPEG / PNG / GIF images.

convert command to convert PDF document to multiple pictures which you can take from my earlier article is:

$ convert *.jpg outputpdffile.pdf
Actually in Step 1 I was aiming to do the opposite of what I've previously done.

Hence, in order to convert the singe Project.PDF file to multiple PNG images, I just switched convert IN / OUT arguments order.

hipo@noah:~/project-pdf-to-images$ convert Project.pdf Project.png
...

I've done the PDF to pictures conversion on my notebook running Debian Squeeze (6.0.2) GNU / Linux.Convertion of the PDF file to 44 images, took 25 seconds on my dual core 1.8 Ghz / 2GB RAM Thinkpad r61.
Afterwards, I've had at hand 44 PNG files generated, e.g.:

hipo@noah:~/project-pdf-to-images$ ls -al Project-*.png |wc -l
44

convert was also smart enough to produce correct file naming. The output file names were:
Project-1.png
Project-2.png
etc.

Nicely each number (-1.png) was corresponding to the respective PDF page. For instance Project-10.png was corresponding to page 10 of the Projects.PDF file

Rather ironically, after convertion of the PDF to pictures, while opening the Project-1.png, I've noticed The GIMP – (The GNU Image Manipulation Program) is capable of directly reading PDF files. GIMP has both the option to open files in layers or separate images 😉
Anyways even if GIMP is used to modify the different PDF pages as layers, once completed GIMP doesn't have the ability to save the file as PDF and therefore once saved the file if merging of layers is done the resulting picture becomes ONE BIG MESS.
Therefore it seems my the 3 steps way e.g.:

1. convertion PDF to pictures
2. picture edit with GIMP or Inkscape
3. convertion of pictures back to PDF

is still the only way to "modify PDF" in Linux or BSDs. I will be glad to hear if someone has come up with a better solution?

 

Adding a nice advanced text editor to make wordpress wp-admin have Microsoft Word like edit functionality

Friday, September 16th, 2011

By the default wordpress does not have support for changing the exact font, therefore copying and pasting a text made in Open Office or MS Word often places in the Post or Page wp edit fonts different from the default one set for articles.
Hence some articles after being published on a wordpress blog show up with improper font and the only way to fix that is to change the font first in Open Office and then copy back to wordpress instead of simply being able to change the font from within the wordpress article.

To get around this problem, there is a nice plugin fckeditor-for-wordpress-plugin which aids wordpress with an awesome Word like edit functionalities.
, downhload location for FCKEdit for WordPress is here

Here is a screenshot of the extra nice functionality the FCKEditor for wordpress providces.

FCKEDitor for wordpress extra functionality screenshot

Installing the plugin is like installing any other wordpress plugin and comes easily to:

debian:/~# cd /var/www/blog/wp-content/plugins
debian:/plugins# wget http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/fckeditor-for-wordpress-plugin.3.3.1.zip
...
debian:/plugins# unzip fckeditor-for-wordpress-plugin.3.3.1.zip
...
debian:/plugins# cd fckeditor-for-wordpress-plugin/

And further enabling the plugin from:

Plugins -> Inactive -> (Dean's FCKEditor For WordPress) Enable

fckeditor for wordpress will replace the default wordpress editor TinyMCE straight after being enabled.
 I’ve done also a mirror of the current version as of time of writting of this article, one can  download the fckeditor for wordpress mirrored here 
Now really file editting inside wordpress admin panel is way easier and convenient 😉 Cheers