Re: [tlug] CrossOver Office

[Drew Poulin <poulin@example.com>]

> No, the "but" is that it lets you run Office and IE, which is hard to view
> as much of a good thing in itself, or as good for the advancement of
> native Linux apps.   Why would I want to run MS Word when I can choose
> Kword or Abiword, or others?  Why run IE when I can use Konqueror or Mozilla?
> We have good alternatives that work, and are cheap/free/Free.


I humbly submit that the CrossOver developers have recognized that there are many 
people like me:  those who prefer to work in a Linux environment but are forced to 
use MS Office applications, particularly MS Word, to ensure seamless file exchanges 
with clients.  As far as I know, there are no Linux office applications that can even 
preserve the formatting of a table created in MS Word, which makes such applications 
useless for people like me.  I've tried StarOffice, AbiWord, and Kword, and none are 
acceptably compatible with MS Word when it comes to graphics and fonts.  And the 
problem is worse if you need Japanese capability.

So CrossOver Office is good news to People Like Me. (thanks to Michael Engel for the 
notice).  I'd gladly shell out $65 for the chance to dump Windows for good.  That's 
much less than VMware costs, and I would guess that Office apps run much faster under 
CrossOver Office than under VMware, since Crossover Office is not emulating the 
entire Windows OS.  I doubt if it runs the Japanese version of MS Office yet, but it 
sounds like a big step in the right direction.

FWIW,
Drew Poulin