Ubuntu's Achilles Heel is MS Office Compatibility

I'm sure some disagree, but I believe if Ubuntu, and Linux in general, had a better answer for Microsoft Office compatibility it would open up the floodgates to adoption by the business community.  Until that time, the adoption rate within the business community will be slow.

I currently run Ubuntu 10.04 both at home, and at work.  I've been running Ubuntu Linux since 2007 when I began using Ubuntu Feisty Fawn (7.04).  Since that time I've gradually migrated all of my personal systems from Windows, with the exception of a couple of Macs.  I consider those migrations a major step for someone who started his career administering Windows servers and had an MCSE in Microsoft Windows NT 4.0.  At home I am able to work my way around the few minor annoyances that still come up.  I run a Windows XP virtual machine in order to run Apple's iTunes software.  Although the Music One store within Ubuntu has come a long way, it still does not measure up to the capability to create Genius mixes within iTunes and also leverage Genius in order to identify new music.  Additionally, functional iPod playlist management still seems to elude the developers of Rhythmbox, so I end up running Rhythmbox to purchase/download music or I download from the Amazon music store... then I run gtkpod to create and manage playlists.  Each of these issues are mildly annoying, but I am willing to deal with them given the many benefits of running Ubuntu Linux.

Similarly, I began running Ubuntu Linux on my work systems some years ago.  I own a small business, and I find it very advantageous to have free software that runs great on older systems without a ton of overhead, doesn't require constant monitoring for viruses/spyware, has great community support, and offers plenty of software with great functionality.  I have found many great open source software products  to do most everything I need... however a major issue for me continues to exist in the area of office applications.

I'm currently running Open Office 3.2, which comes with Ubuntu.  I've installed a number of Open Office plugins as well.  Although Open Office is great in working with documents in Open Office format, I have found sharing and collaborating with customers and partners who run Microsoft Office to be painful.  Whether it is dealing with Microsoft Word formatted contract documents with change tracking, sophisticated spreadsheets, or working together on an Microsoft PowerPoint formatted slide presentation, Open Office simply cannot deal with detailed formatting.  The same issue exists with Google Docs.  Although Google Docs is an excellent platform for sharing and collaborating, it does not handle detailed formatting in complex documents when exchanging multiple document versions with Microsoft Office users.  Unfortunately, in order to work effectively with both customers and partners, I've had no other choice than to purchase copies of MS Office.  Of course, I can run Microsoft Office on my Windows XP virtual machine, but at that point it starts to defeat the purpose of running Ubuntu Linux in the first place.

With version 11 release of Ubuntu (Natty Narwal) coming on Apr 28, Open Office is no longer the default office suite that comes with Ubuntu, it is now LibreOffice.  However, while LibreOffice does mark a break with the Sun/Oracle control of direction for the OpenOffice codebase, it does not offer any significant new functionality for open source software users at this time... at least not yet.

This is the reality of the business user community.  My customers and partners all run Microsoft Office, and although I anxiously await the day when this is no longer true... in order to work effectively with them I must have Microsoft Office.

pdftk - Awesome Tool for Working with PDF Files

PDFTK

I happened upon pdftk a few months back when searching for an open source tool for working with PDF files on Ubuntu 10.04.  pdftk is a command line tool that runs on many Linux variants, Mac OS, and Windows.  Although not a full fledged PDF editor, pdftk is a great tool for manipulating existing PDF documents via the command line.

 The main activities I've used pdftk for:

• merging multiple PDF documents
• splitting a PDF into multiple documents
• adding pages to a PDF
• rotating pages within a PDF

pdftk is very easy to use, and a quick glance at the examples is all it takes to get going.

PDF Import Extension for Open Office

The PDF import extension for Open Office has worked well in certain situations, however it does not do well with tables and a lot of custom formatting.  However, for editing and republishing PDFs with basic formatting, it works like a champ.

Open Office extensions are very easy to install via the Extension Manager.  However, here is a guide if this is your first time using Open Office extensions.

• How to Install Open Office Extensions

pdfedit

pdfedit is another option that I've seen referenced numerous times.  I've played with it only a little.  It looks to me like a rather technical tool for someone who has taken the time to really figure out their way around the internal structure of a PDF.  I'm sure pdfedit has it's advantages.  I'll post more once I've had a chance to really evaluate it.

Open Office 2 Google Docs Extension on Ubuntu 10.04

As I've seen in numerous posts elsewhere, I had issues installing the OO2GDocs extension for Open Office.  I am running Open Office 3.2 on Ubuntu 10.04.  I got the following error message:

ubuntu 10.04 error: (com.sun.star.registry.CannotRegisterImplementationException??) {{ Message = "", Context = (com.sun.star.uno.XInterface) @0}}

After digging around for a while, I tried installing just the openoffice.org-java-common package from the command line.  After installing that and then restarting Open Office, the OO2GDocs extension installed.  However, much to my dismay, the OO2GDocs extension was non-functional.

Then I did the following:

• Removed the OO2Docs extension from within the Extension Manager
• Shut down Open Office
• Installed the entire openoffice.org package from the command line
• Opened Open Office, and voila!

After doing this, I was able to install and use the gdocs_2.3.1.oxt extension in Open Office 3.2 without issue:

Removing image borders in Impress

This was an issue I'd come across on several occasions, which I found to be highly annoying. Basically, when I inserted an image into a slide in Impress, it would appear with a light gray-scale border. Sometimes the border would appear when in slide edit mode, and other times it would only appear when in slideshow mode.

I found reference to a number of different possible resolutions on various forums. The fix that worked for me was to disable hardware-acceleration under Tools->Options->View.

I did all of this on Ubuntu 10.04 with Open Office 3.2.