CHAPTER 28 (Web design tools) Running Microsoft Office
CHAPTER 28 Running Microsoft Office Under Ubuntu The title of this chapter might sound somewhat strange. How can a Windows program be run under Linux? The answer comes courtesy of the Wine project and the set of add-on programs it offers for Linux. Wine is an acronym for Wine Is Not an Emulator, which is a way of saying that the Wine software doesn t emulate Windows but instead re-creates certain parts of it called the Application Programming Interface (API). In theory, the vast majority of Windows program can be run using Wine. The reality is that some work easily, some require a little configuration to run, and others don t work at all. Getting a Windows program to run under Wine is rarely difficult, but essentially it s a hack a way of making something work when it s not intended to do so. Such hacks are the lifeblood of Linux, but this should serve as a warning to the less-experienced Ubuntu user: don t expect to be able to simply insert the Microsoft Office CD, click a few times, and have a working Office installation! A handful of preparatory steps are necessary. In this chapter, you ll learn how to install both Wine and Microsoft Office. Because the presence of Internet Explorer is critical to many pieces of Windows software nowadays, we also cover the installation of this web browser. Installing and Configuring Wine Wine isn t installed by default under Ubuntu. Although you usually should download new software from the Ubuntu repositories, in the case of Wine, it s a better idea to download it directly from the people behind the software. This is because Wine is constantly being updated and made more compatible with new Windows software, and you ll find the latest version at the SourceForge.net site. Downloading Wine To get the latest version of Wine, add a new download repository to the Synaptic Package Manager, as follows (see Chapter 8 for details on setting up the Synaptic Package Manager):