Office replacement?

[Lono]

What looked like MICROSOFT OFFICE on this impressive new Surface Pro 3
is really a link to a pay-as-you-go subscription service. And, my 12
year old edition of MSOffice won't work.

My requirement is WORD, POWERPOINT, and EXCEL - nothing more (or less) -
and my work is not very demanding or complicated.

Is there a reasonably compatible freeware or inexpensive solution
compatible with Windows 8.1?

Thanks!

[~BD~]

This should suit you, Lono!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org

[Shadow]

On Sun, 03 May 2015 13:06:38 -0700, Lono <londotp...@gmail.com>
wrote:

LibreOffice:

https://www.libreoffice.org/

In the download section you will find a link to portable
versions, which you can try without altering the laptop's
configuration. On install, click on "remove additional languages".
English is installed by default, so if you choose another language it
will install that AND English. (Maybe you are Italian ?)
[]'s
--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012

[s|b]

On Sun, 03 May 2015 17:37:37 -0300, Shadow wrote:

> LibreOffice:
>
> https://www.libreoffice.org/

+1

--
s|b

[The Hermit of Lake Baikal]

Do it by the numbers: (1) approach PC; (2) turn off the fucking killfile; (3) put on your glasses; (4) drink some coffee; (5) start; (6) use private search engine like startpagepage search engine etc.; (7) search term:
<<http://office.about.com/od/AltOfficeSuites/a/Tutorials-For-Office-Productivity-Suite-Programs.htm>>; (8) also use this search term: <<http://office.about.com/od/LibreOffice/>>; Libre Office is now in the cloud: read on:

LibreOffice finally to go online | ZDNet
www.zdnet.com/article/libreoffice-finally-to-go-online/ - View by Ixquick Proxy - Highlight
Mar 25, 2015 ... Meeks developed the proof of concept back in 2011 and will ... Another challenge is that the online collaboration market is under a tight vendor ...
LibreOffice Collaboration platform | LibreOfficeForum.org
en.libreofficeforum.org/node/6183 - View by Ixquick Proxy - Highlight
Posts: 1. Does Libreoffice have any plans for a cloud-based ... More news on the progress of developing the LibreOffice Online (LOOL) service:.
IceWarp and Collabora Are Working on LibreOffice Online ...
https://libreoffice-from-collabora.com/ icewarp-and-collabora-are-working-on-libreoffice-online-document-edit ing-an-open-source-alternative-to-google-apps-office-365/ - View by Ixquick Proxy - Highlight
Mar 25, 2015 ... By creating a free alternative that any provider can implement ... Another challenge is that the online collaboration market is under a tight ...
Document Foundation unveils LOOL project, an online collaborative ...
https://www.reddit.com/ r/ linux/ comments/ 308ze5/ document_foundation_unveils_lool_project_an/ - View by Ixquick Proxy - Highlight
Mar 25, 2015 ... IceWarp with its enterprise solutions background and over 14 years of expertise will help LibreOffice to accelerate the development towards a ...
LibreOffice goes Online | OCS-Mag
www.ocsmag.com/2015/03/25/libreoffice-goes-online/ - View by Ixquick Proxy - Highlight
Mar 25, 2015 ... LOOL will include collaborative editing of documents in a ... a public demo that will go online soon. all development will be carried out in public ...
Building LibreOffice Online >> Linux Magazine
www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Features/Building-LibreOffice-Online - View by Ixquick Proxy - Highlight
... up to create LibreOffice Online (LOOL) for online and collaborative document ... Asked if other LibreOffice applications will be ported, Meeks replies, "I don't ...
4 keys to success for LibreOffice as a service | InfoWorld
www.infoworld.com/ article/ 2901438/ open-source-software/ libreoffice-as-a-service-4-keys-to-success.html - View by Ixquick Proxy - Highlight
Mar 27, 2015 ... LibreOffice Online will offer the full flexibility to deploy in-house or hosted ... editing and collaboration, and it will use LibreOffice Online as the basis of a ... The company says a rendering engine was developed in 2011, and ...
Coming to LibreOffice: Collaborative Editing | PCWorld
www.pcworld.com/ article/ 252652/ coming_to_libreoffice_collaborative_editing.html - View by Ixquick Proxy - Highlight
Mar 27, 2012 ... Now in prototype form, this new capability will fill in one of the last ... architect at SUSE who coordinates LibreOffice development work, in a ...
Why LibreOffice Online is Different From Google Apps and Office ...
office.about.com/ od/ LibreOffice/ fl/ Why-LibreOffice-Online-is-Different-From-Google-Apps-and-Office-Onlin e.htm - View by Ixquick Proxy - Highlight
With the introduction of LibreOffice Online, users will be able to use the suite across more ... About the Collaborative Development Effort of LibreOffice Online.
Collaborative Editing - The Document Foundation Wiki
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Collaborative_Editing - View by Ixquick Proxy - Highlight
Jan 25, 2015 ... Also see LibreOffice Online and Track changes (which includes a ... towards development of collaborative editing features for LibreOffice. ... You'll need to get up to speed with the LibreOffice project and our development style:.
1 2345678910 Next >>

[Poutnik]

Dne 03/05/2015 v 23:13 Stormin' Norman napsal(a):
>
> I am very impressed with WPS Office, See:
> http://wps.com/

The advantage is being crossplatform,
having Android and Apple/iOS counterparts.

--
Poutnik the Wanderer

[John Corliss]

Surely you know about LibreOffice:

http://www.libreoffice.org

If not, you really owe it to yourself to check it out.

--
John Corliss BS206. No ad, CD, commercial, cripple, demo, nag, share,
spy, time-limited, trial or web wares. No warez for me either please:
just freeware -which I define as legally obtainable, local install or
portable computer programs that can be used indefinitely at no cost,
monetary or otherwise. I filter out anything coming from Google Groups.

[Susan Bugher]

On 5/3/2015 5:23 PM, Poutnik wrote:
> Dne 03/05/2015 v 23:13 Stormin' Norman napsal(a):

>> I am very impressed with WPS Office, See:
>> http://wps.com/

> The advantage is being crossplatform,
> having Android and Apple/iOS counterparts.

yahbut. . .

See the free vs. $$$ comparison chart here:
http://wps.com/wps-office-personal/
"Print With Watermark"
"Save to PDF With Watermark"
"VBA / Macro support" no

see this page for more things that don't come with the free version
http://wps.com/writer/
also "INCLUDES A 30-DAY TRIAL OF WPS OFFICE BUSINESS EDITION"

No thanks.

Susan
--

[Mark Warner]

On 05/03/2015 04:06 PM, Lono wrote:
> What looked like MICROSOFT OFFICE on this impressive new Surface Pro 3
> is really a link to a pay-as-you-go subscription service.

Welcome to Software as a Service. If you stick with Microsoft it will be
hard to avoid.

--
Mark Warner
MEPIS Linux
Registered Linux User #415318
...lose .inhibitions when replying

[Tommy]

"Lono" <londotp...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:mi5v1v$3lj$1...@dont-email.me...

Not that it is any use to you now

But if you still have the disc or the 25 digit code that came with your
'old' office then Digital RIver may have a copy.

I buy/bought a couple of licenced Office 2007 from 'Home and Student' -
when I changed machines, I reloaded onto a new machine, having kept the
receipted email from them -
I also request that when saving docs. excel etc that it gets saved as a
2003/2007.doc.xls etc

PS I can open and print practically anything with Libre Office
Cheers
Tommy

[Poutnik]

Dne 03/05/2015 v 23:46 Susan Bugher napsal(a):

Sure. I was not aware it is crippleware.

Note that I used that just few times on my phone,
for not serious things, as 4.3 in display
is not the best for Office applications.

Note also that VBA compatibility
of OpenOffice/Libreoffice is horrible.

--
Poutnik the Wanderer

[Poutnik]

Dne 03/05/2015 v 23:49 Mark Warner napsal(a):

> On 05/03/2015 04:06 PM, Lono wrote:
>> What looked like MICROSOFT OFFICE on this impressive new Surface Pro 3
>> is really a link to a pay-as-you-go subscription service.
>
> Welcome to Software as a Service. If you stick with Microsoft it will be
> hard to avoid.
>

Even worse if you want or have to stick with complex VBA code ...

--
Poutnik the Wanderer

[Poutnik]

Dne 04/05/2015 v 00:24 Tommy napsal(a):
>
> PS I can open and print practically anything with Libre Office.

Except if output depends on complex VBA code.

--
Poutnik the Wanderer

[~BD~]

A link! http://www.openoffice.org/product/index.html

[dadiOH]

I have tried OpenOffice, LibreOffice & Kingsoft Office. I prefer the
latter.
--

dadiOH
____________________________

Winters getting colder? Tired of the rat race?
Taxes out of hand? Maybe just ready for a change?
Check it out... http://www.floridaloghouse.net

[Poutnik]

Dne 04/05/2015 v 00:56 dadiOH napsal(a):

>
> I have tried OpenOffice, LibreOffice & Kingsoft Office. I prefer the
> latter.
>

Note that it seems WPS Office is just rebranded/sold(?) Kingsoft Office,
perhaps with changed licence policy.

I got my Sony Xperia Android smartphone preinstalled
with Kingsoft Office - or I installed it myself, I do not remember.

It was replaced by WPS Office
during one of its updates few months later.

--
Poutnik the Wanderer

[Thip]

"Stormin' Norman" <nor...@schwarzkopf.invalid> wrote in message
news:er3dka1ahvkhve1qj...@4ax.com...

> On Sun, 03 May 2015 13:06:38 -0700, Lono <londotp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

> I am very impressed with WPS Office, See:
>
> http://wps.com/

+1 on that. It starts out with all the features (read: stuff you don't
really need), then reverts to the free version. I like it, and I've tried
them all.

[George]

Shadow <S...@dow.br> wrote:

>On Sun, 03 May 2015 13:06:38 -0700, Lono <londotp...@gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>What looked like MICROSOFT OFFICE on this impressive new Surface Pro 3
>>is really a link to a pay-as-you-go subscription service. And, my 12
>>year old edition of MSOffice won't work.

[...]
>
> LibreOffice:
>
>https://www.libreoffice.org/

Seconded. The Document Foundation, publishers of LibreOffice,
took over development of OpenOffice in 2011. Since then, they've
been thinning out old code and generally improving the product.
Strongly recommended.

Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice

See the direct link (above) for compatibility, capabilities, etc.

[Lono]

Thanks!

Installed Libre Office and it seems to work well, though at my age the
transition is non-trivial. It's functional, compatible, and stable.

[»Q«]

While I was looking to see where Linux support stands (it's in alpha),
I ran across an announcement about the rebranding.

... searches browser history ...

We formally unified our brand. We will use the new logo - WPS. The
new logo expresses our new cognition of office productivity suite -
Easy, Collaborative and Joyful. We've launched our new official
website - www.wps.com. (The sites of communities remain the same.)
This is a new start for us. We hope that our products could bring
you happy.

That's from <http://wps-community.org/>.

AFAICT, the corporation is still called KINGSOFT Office, a
fully-owned subsidiary of tech giant Kingsoft Corp. According to
the corp site their very first product was branded "WPS 1.0", in 1989.

According to teh wikipedia, the big company is called
金山软件有限公司, which translates to "Gold Mountain Software", and WPS
stands for (or used to stand for "Word Processing System".

[VanguardLH]

Poutnik wrote:

> I got my Sony Xperia Android smartphone preinstalled with Kingsoft
> Office - or I installed it myself, I do not remember. It was replaced
> by WPS Office during one of its updates few months later.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/kingsoft-office-launches-all-new-wps-office-10-for-windows-pcs-2015-04-30

Look at http://wps.com/ and notice Kingsoft is listed at the bottom.
Then look at http://wps.com/wps-office-personal/.

You sure they didn't show you a prompt about the suite change for the
"update"?

[VanguardLH]

Oh, in that comparison chart, notice printouts have a watermark. I
don't remember if the old Kingsoft office Suite 2013 had a watermark.
Phucking up *my* documents regardless of what media contains it with
their watermark means I won't use it.

http://www.kingsoftstore.com/kingsoft-office-freeware.html

So it looks like Kingsoft Office Suite 2014 is the WPS product under
another name. Their page links to "Office Free 2013" end up on pages
describing WPS Office Free 2014. So I'll have to hunt around for the
prior 2013 version of Kingsoft Office Suite.

http://www.ksosoft.com/what-is-new-in-kingsoft-office-free-2013.html

which has 2014 (9.1.0.4759) as the latest version does not mention any
watermarking of print or PDF outputs. I was thinking I'd grab the 2014
and hope watermarking didn't pollute that free version. Alas, clicking
on their Download link takes me to their wps.com site which only has the
version 10 download (and which does have watermarking in the free
version).

Reading the reviews at download sites (e.g., Softpedia.com) about WPS
Office Free notes that it is a trial of the Pro version. There is
mention in their forums that the free version download is actually a
trial version that cripples itself after a month. After 30 days, many
of the features claimed become disabled, like their claim of "full
compatibility" with Microsoft's document format. After the trial
expires, users say support of .docx, .xsls, and other compressed archive
format will cease. After the trial expires, you will get prompted to
upgrade to the Pro version. One reviewer claims their start screen uses
a proxy to connect back to the Chinese company. All he provides is "I
say so" as evidence: no network log, no mention of which tools he used
to prove the network connection, and no proof that it wasn't phoning
home to check for updates (there is an auto-update check option you can
enable or disable).

https://kingsoftoffice.desk.com/customer/portal/questions/11369333-major-disappointment-leaving-

That has a user note how the download of WPS Office Free is not for a
free version but of a self-crippling trial of the Pro version. Even
stepping back to a prior version has the product being rude in adding
scheduled events for upgrade prompting to the Pro version. Apparently
Kingsoft has decided to cash in on the huge community of free version
users as a venue to advertise and generate revenue for their pay
version. Tis a shame but it happens too often with free products that
are actually to cultivate an audience and then lure them with crippling
and becoming adware.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/Office-suites/Kingsoft-Office-Free.shtml

While Softpedia will tag a product as adware, they went even further to
decry Kingsoft's claim that there is a "free" version of the product. I
haven't tried that version to check if the product does phuck up my
printouts with watermarks.

Softpedia says the download is 60.8 MB but my download is only 45.4 MB.
Not only will I not recommend Kingsoft as a MS Office alternative but I
will warn users against Kingsoft. My aunt has this installed on one of
her computers so I will have to warn her to disable its auto-update
function and NOT update the old free version she has. Meanwhile, I'll
look for other truly free office suite software, like maybe FreeOffice
(but I'll have to first check they don't pull the shenanigans that
Kingsoft did).

[~BD~]

Are you absolutely SURE about that, George?

*MY* installed Open Office is from Apache. This product is, as far as
I'm aware, the successor:

http://www.openoffice.org/product/index.html

--
David B.

[~BD~]

Here's a screenshot of the product on my computer, showing the name!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5btg0pqj2emf1nb/Open%20Office.png?dl=0

HTH

[Caver1]

LibreOffice was forked from OpenOffice. Apache is now owner of OpenOffice.

--
Caver1

[~BD~]

Please explain what YOU mean by "forked".

Thanks.

[burfordTjustice]

Damn you act stupid, cuntnugget

[p-0''0-h the cat (UK) - The voice of the Sheeple]

There's even a wikipedia page available. One Google search away. Either
he's too fucking lazy to Google it or he thinks this is twitter. I wonder
how long before ACF tires of this lazy kook's inane questions.

--
p-0.0-h the cat

Internet Terrorist, Mass sock puppeteer, Agent provocateur, Gutter rat,
Devil incarnate, Linux user#666, BaStarD hacker, Resident evil, Monkey Boy,
Certifiable criminal, Spineless cowardly scum, textbook Psychopath,
the SCOURGE, l33t p00h d3 tr0ll, p00h == lam3r, p00h == tr0ll, troll
infâme, the OVERCAT [The BEARPAIR are dead, and we are its
murderers], lowlife troll, shyster [pending approval by STATE_TERROR],
cripple, sociopath, kook, smug prick, smartarse, arsehole, moron, idiot,
imbecile, snittish scumbag, liar, total ******* retard, and shill.

Honorary SHYSTER and FRAUD awarded for services to Haberdashery.
By Appointment to God Frank-Lin.

Signature integrity check
md5 Checksum: be0b2a8c486d83ce7db9a459b26c4896

[Caver1]

What forked always means. A program is forked when a group of devs take
the source code of a
program start a new separate program from it.
In other words the LibreOffice devs took OpenOffice source code and made
LibreOffice from it.
They are now on divergent paths.
LibreOffice is the better of the two IMHO.

--
Caver1

[Susan Bugher]

On 5/4/2015 4:05 AM, VanguardLH wrote:

re WPS Office / Kingsoft Office
<snip>

> http://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/Office-suites/Kingsoft-Office-Free.shtml

> Softpedia says the download is 60.8 MB but my download is only 45.4 MB.

<snip>

I made a couple of downloads too.

<http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/kingsoft_office_suite_free_2012.html>
"WPS Office Free 2014 (Formerly Kingsoft Office) Beta 3 - 9.1.0.4758"
DL link
<http://www.majorgeeks.com/mg/getmirror/kingsoft_office_suite_free_2012,2.html>
wps_office_31.115.exe
Size: 63925776 bytes (60.9 MB) (That's the size of the file Softpedia
said you were going to get.)
File Version: 9.1.0.4758
MD5: 3CB3A4019079D6281239ACBD3B32801F

<http://wps.com/wps-office-personal/>
DL link
<http://downloads.wps.com/personal/wps_office_free.exe>
\wps_office_free.exe
Size: 58937040 bytes (56.2 MB)
File Version: 9,1,0,5050
MD5: 9DBCEADB8C50E348CF610B86A121A582

Dunno if any of those files match the installation files of people who
have said they use and like WPS/Kingsoft Office. Dunno if the versions
available today are better or worse.

Susan
--

[Poutnik]

On 05/04/2015 10:05 AM, VanguardLH wrote:

> VanguardLH wrote:
>
>> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/kingsoft-office-launches-all-new-wps-office-10-for-windows-pcs-2015-04-30
>>
>> Look at http://wps.com/ and notice Kingsoft is listed at the bottom.
>> Then look at http://wps.com/wps-office-personal/.
>>
>> You sure they didn't show you a prompt about the suite change for the
>> "update"?
>
> Oh, in that comparison chart, notice printouts have a watermark. I
> don't remember if the old Kingsoft office Suite 2013 had a watermark.
> Phucking up *my* documents regardless of what media contains it with
> their watermark means I won't use it.
>
> http://www.kingsoftstore.com/kingsoft-office-freeware.html
>
> So it looks like Kingsoft Office Suite 2014 is the WPS product under
> another name. Their page links to "Office Free 2013" end up on pages
> describing WPS Office Free 2014. So I'll have to hunt around for the
> prior 2013 version of Kingsoft Office Suite.

> ........

While I am a heavy MSO user, mainly Excel + VBA,
I have never used KSO/WPSO on PC, just on Android phone,
in fact just tried few times only.

I remember they did show the notice,
i just did not know if original KSO was preinstalled or not.


--
Poutnik

[burfordTjustice]

On Mon, 4 May 2015 13:04:13 +0100
"p-0''0-h the cat (UK) - The voice of the Sheeple"

perhaps you could use his post over on SE where he again mentions
he hides a 9mm pistol

[~BD~]

It's not a term I ever use! Looking here didn't help much either:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=forked

> A program is forked when a group of devs take
> the source code of a
> program start a new separate program from it.

Thank you for explaining matters so that there is no doubt. :-)

> In other words the LibreOffice devs took OpenOffice source code and made
> LibreOffice from it.
> They are now on divergent paths.
> LibreOffice is the better of the two IMHO.

I'm in no position to judge. Most folk responding in this thread appear
to agree with you. I'm pleased to note that the software is available
for Windows, Apple Mac OSX and GNU/Linux so I may try it out one day.

I appreciate your response, Caver1. Thanks again.

--
Say “May the 4th Be With You” out loud and you’ll hear the pun that Star
Wars fans worldwide have turned into a rallying cry to proclaim their
love of the saga. It’s the worldwide day to say “May the Force be with
you” to all, and celebrate the beloved Star Wars story that binds our
galaxy together.

[John Corliss (ES)]

~BD~ wrote:
> Caver1 wrote:
>> ~BD~ wrote:
>>> Caver1 wrote:
>>>> ~BD~ wrote:
>>>>> George wrote:
>>>>>> Shadow wrote:

Seems pretty easy to Google for:

program development fork

I just did it and immediately came up with:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_%28software_development%29
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/F/fork.html
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/fork

Not to be confused with a system call fork.

--
John Corliss BS206. No ad, CD, commercial, cripple, demo, nag, share,
spy, time-limited, trial or web wares. No warez for me either please:
just freeware -which I define as legally obtainable, local install or
portable computer programs that can be used indefinitely at no cost,
monetary or otherwise. I filter out anything coming from Google Groups.

[~BD~]

EVERYTHING is easy when you know *HOW*, John!

Some of the forks I previously knew of are garden forks and the sort
with which I eat my dinner! ;-)

D.

[Caver1]

Or tableware.

--
Caver1

[»Q«]

The distinction between between "X was forked from Y" and "Y was
forked from X" mostly just something which enables people to argue on
Usenet, IMO. It's like "A is divorced from B" or "B is divorced from
A" -- one of them had to be the one to actually file the divorce
paperwork, but who files is independent of was being good/bad/ugly
before the divorce.

When there is a fork, there are two branches, each of them starting
with the same code.¹ Each of the branches is a continuation of
or successor to the pre-fork project. Usually the top dogs of the
pre-fork project all belong to the same faction, and their faction gets
to keep the pre-fork name. If the top dogs are are split between the
factions, you get extra fighting, and whoever seems to have the a
better legal case and/or cares more about it controls who gets the
pre-fork name. (In this case, Oracle was clearly /the/ top dog in the
pre-fork project, and they had clear legal right to the name, which
they later transferred to Apache.) The side that gets the old name
uses it as a mantle of legitimacy. The other side picks a new name and
tries to tie "new" to "better".

Which side gets to use the pre-fork name doesn't have anything to do
with who did more work or better work within the pre-fork project or
who was right or wrong about any of the issues that led to the fork,
and it's no indicator of which branch will be more good/bad/ugly going
forward.

1 An oversimplification. At the time of *this* fork, LO started with
both the pre-fork OOo code and the Go-OO patches. Those patches had
been produced by OOo contributors. Early in Go-OO, the patches had
been submitted and rejected. Later in Go-OO, most of the people
involved didn't want to submit patches to OOo. The reasons for all
that were political or technical or even legal, depending on who you
listened to.

[s|b]

On Mon, 04 May 2015 07:04:36 -0400, Caver1 wrote:

> LibreOffice was forked from OpenOffice. Apache is now owner of OpenOffice.

AFAIK most OOo programmers abandoned OOo in favour of LO.

--
s|b

[»Q«]

> >> the LibreOffice devs took OpenOffice source code
> >> and made LibreOffice from it.

That's pretty good for a nutshell, but "took" could be misread to mean
that someone took something from someone else.

The LO devs used the OOo code to make LO.

The LO devs *were* OOo devs, so the code they took/used was their own
work along with the work of all the other OOo devs. And the other OOo
devs kept/used the code to make Apache OO.

[dadiOH]

VanguardLH wrote:
> VanguardLH wrote:
>
>> Poutnik wrote:
>>
>>> I got my Sony Xperia Android smartphone preinstalled with Kingsoft
>>> Office - or I installed it myself, I do not remember. It was
>>> replaced
>>> by WPS Office during one of its updates few months later.
>>
>> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/kingsoft-office-launches-all-new-wps-office-10-for-windows-pcs-2015-04-30
>>
>> Look at http://wps.com/ and notice Kingsoft is listed at the bottom.
>> Then look at http://wps.com/wps-office-personal/.
>>
>> You sure they didn't show you a prompt about the suite change for the
>> "update"?
>
> Oh, in that comparison chart, notice printouts have a watermark. I
> don't remember if the old Kingsoft office Suite 2013 had a watermark.
> Phucking up *my* documents regardless of what media contains it with
> their watermark means I won't use it.
>
> http://www.kingsoftstore.com/kingsoft-office-freeware.html
>
> So it looks like Kingsoft Office Suite 2014 is the WPS product under
> another name. Their page links to "Office Free 2013" end up on pages
> describing WPS Office Free 2014. So I'll have to hunt around for the
> prior 2013 version of Kingsoft Office Suite.

Here are three links...
http://www.filehippo.com/download_kingsoft_office_suite_free/
http://www.windows7download.com/win7-kingsoft-office-suite-free-2013/wpjaqbcu.html
http://www.kingsoftstore.com/office/download-office

On the link to Kingsoft Store (the last link), scroll down to the bottom of
the page.

All of those are for the entire suite...Writer, Spreadsheet & Presentation;
however, during the install, you can pick any or all.

The spreadsheet component at least "phones home"; that can be disabled by
renaming two files...wpsnotify.exe and wpsupdate.exe in the program's
"wtoolex" sub-directory. I just appended ".old" to the file name.

Additionally, when you save the SS it will pop up an offer to share on
Facebook. Annoying. Once you DO elect to share (by clicking "Share" on the
pop up) the pop up disappears forever (you don't actually have to share).

--

dadiOH
____________________________

Winters getting colder? Tired of the rat race?
Taxes out of hand? Maybe just ready for a change?
Check it out... http://www.floridaloghouse.net

[Mike Easter]

s|b wrote:
> Caver1 wrote:
>
>> LibreOffice was forked from OpenOffice. Apache is now owner of OpenOffice.
>
> AFAIK most OOo programmers abandoned OOo in favour of LO.

Where 'most' happened to be 'a slight majority' in number.

Currently, of the two branches of the fork, LO is much much more
vigorous developmentally than OO. Also OOo has lost important financial
support from IBM.

And then there is the story of the two foundations, TheDocument and
ApacheSoftware.

TDF's entire purpose being the issues related to the forked LO; whereas
ASF has a variety of softwares on the table, including OO name and code
handed to them by Oracle when it bailed. TDF advisors include some
heavy hitters. ASF is really all about developers and the Apache license.

I'm not crystal clear on how the LO licensing works; it is in part
LPGLv3 and part MPL while dealing with the ASF OO code license ownership
issue.

LPGL = GNU Lesser Public License
MPL = Mozilla Public License

It is much about FOSS and its developing and licensing 'nuances' besides
politics and developer conflicts.


--
Mike Easter

[p-0''0-h the cat (UK) - The voice of the Sheeple]

Can't find it. Have you got a MID?

[Poutnik]

On 05/04/2015 08:41 PM, Mike Easter wrote:
>
> Currently, of the two branches of the fork, LO is much much more
> vigorous developmentally than OO.

This is true.

> Also OOo has lost important financial support from IBM.

Are you sure ?

As when IBM abandoned its independent development
of Lotus(later IBM ) Symphony ( fork of Openoffice 1.3 ),

they provided Symphony code to Apache foundation to be merged to OO,
and chose Apache OO as Office suite for cost effective services.

IBM avoids LO due its different licence policy,
that would make creation
of the IBM fork with proprietary code difficult.

--
Poutnik

[burfordTjustice]

On Mon, 4 May 2015 19:58:50 +0100

Here ya go...

ath: eternal-september.org!mx02.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: ~BD~ <~BD~@nomail.afraid.org>
Newsgroups: alt.politics.scorched-earth
Subject: Re: Ping: Graham
Date: Mon, 04 May 2015 00:32:42 +0100
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 17
Message-ID: <mi6b4r$gkv$1...@dont-email.me>
References: <mi68n3$8aa$1...@echo.eternal-september.org> <mi693k$akv$2...@dont-email.me> <mi69n3$cfl$1...@echo.eternal-september.org> <mi6acf$e7h$1...@dont-email.me> <mi6akc$f4c$1...@echo.eternal-september.org>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Injection-Date: Sun, 3 May 2015 23:31:39 +0000 (UTC)
Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="5b5acf315576ec3f78fcc4b6cf4b7a93";
logging-data="17055"; mail-complaints-to="ab...@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/oywVyJOnsOMiuAAoh1fg41CN3DQb/lM0="
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.10; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.6.0
In-Reply-To: <mi6akc$f4c$1...@echo.eternal-september.org>
Cancel-Lock: sha1:meQWsOq/OSFmYBNWSVeEq7nQvtU=
Xref: mx02.eternal-september.org alt.politics.scorched-earth:329657

On 04/05/2015 00:24, Jenn wrote:
[....]
> I meant do you have your own pgp key that I could encrypt a msg to you?
> I was just playing with enigmail to see what worked and didn't work
> with ngs.

No, Jenn, I don't.

I had intended to learn about this along with you, but boating took
priority and my concentration lapsed.

It's use is also contrary to my open and honest, not-try-to-hide,
approach here on the Internet.. Everyone knows who I am and where I live
and I've absolutely nothing to hide (except, maybe, my 9mm pistol!)

'Tis my bed-time now! <wave> xx

[Mike Easter]

Poutnik wrote:

> Mike Easter wrote:

>> Also OOo has lost important financial support from IBM.
>
> Are you sure ?

Bruce Byfield has written a couple of articles imagining reunification
which address quite a bit of history and he said:

// Much of OpenOffice's recent decline may be due to IBM's withdrawal
from the project. OpenOffice 4.1.1. An anonymous informant alleges --
and web searches appear to confirm -- that IBM did nothing to publicize
OpenOffice 4.1.1 when it was released on August 21, and that, since
then, IBM developers have disappeared from the OpenOffice mailing lists //

http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Blogs/Off-the-Beat-Bruce-Byfield-s-Blog/LibreOffice-OpenOffice-and-rumors-of-unification
LibreOffice, OpenOffice, and rumors of unification (2014 Sep)

The article and the wikipedia also state that IBM developers provided
the support for OO at Apache, which is apparently evaporating.


--
Mike Easter

[Shadow]

Sounds dangerous. Do the police know about this potential
"terrorist" ?? What if he forgets to take his meds and forces a
***teen to have sex with him at gunpoint ?
[]'s

*** gender of "teen" left at reader's discretion.
--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012

[Caver1]

On 05/04/2015 02:00 PM, »Q« wrote:
>
>>>> the LibreOffice devs took OpenOffice source code
>>>> and made LibreOffice from it.
>
> That's pretty good for a nutshell, but "took" could be misread to mean
> that someone took something from someone else.

Took can mean many things. :)

>
> The LO devs used the OOo code to make LO.
>
> The LO devs *were* OOo devs, so the code they took/used was their own
> work along with the work of all the other OOo devs. And the other OOo
> devs kept/used the code to make Apache OO.
>
>
>
>
>

--
Caver1

[burfordTjustice]

How do we know that has not already happened.
After all the "bad guy" hunter does not go after
the muslims fucking children in Devon.

[VanguardLH]

dadiOH wrote:

> http://www.kingsoftstore.com/office/download-office
>
> On the link to Kingsoft Store (the last link), scroll down to the bottom of
> the page.

How did you find that page? None of the normal navigation from their
home page or download page led me to there. Maybe it's a page they kept
defined (with a link to the prior version) but they orphaned it by not
having an links to it in their other pages.

I know why Kingsoft went the adware/crippleware route: most users never
paid to upgrade to the Pro version because Kingsoft put so much
functionality in their free version that very few needed the Pro
version. They got greedy so they decided to degrade their free product
into lureware to generate more revenue. I suspect it may backfire on
them and repulse users to find a different solution.

> All of those are for the entire suite...Writer, Spreadsheet & Presentation;
> however, during the install, you can pick any or all.

I downloaded from the link you provided in the orphaned web page. That
file is the same 46.5 MB size as the one that I downloaded from
Softpedia (that said the download would be 60 MB).

At this point, yes, I could save the prior version without the adware
(and hopefully without watermarking of printouts) but I wonder if I even
want to bother. For a true freeware version (not a self-crippling trial
version), users would be stuck back on the 2013 version. That's not
necessary bad but it also means bugs in that version won't get fixed.

http://www.ksosoft.com/what-is-new-in-kingsoft-office-free-2013.html

That doesn't list all versions. The one from Softpedia is build 4550
and it is not in this changelog. Alas, their changelog only lists
changes or enhancements, very few bug fixes.

> The spreadsheet component at least "phones home"; that can be disabled by
> renaming two files...wpsnotify.exe and wpsupdate.exe in the program's
> "wtoolex" sub-directory. I just appended ".old" to the file name.

I figured the user that claimed the product was phoning home forgot
about the auto-update option.

http://static.binarynow.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Kingsoft_Office_Update_Settings.png

That isn't in the product any more? They don't let you disable checking
for updates, only whether or not they get automatically applied.

> Additionally, when you save the SS it will pop up an offer to share on
> Facebook. Annoying. Once you DO elect to share (by clicking "Share" on the
> pop up) the pop up disappears forever (you don't actually have to share).

Is that to share your spreadsheet or just that stupid postive-only
voting at Facebook? Last time I visit there, and similar to other
social network sites, they let users vote but only positively. That's
worthless as it doesn't let user vote negatively. Lop-sided voting is
deliberately misleading. Just more stupidity typical of social sites.

[p-0''0-h the cat (UK) - The voice of the Sheeple]

Merci buttercups!

[»Q«]

On Mon, 04 May 2015 21:07:09 +0200
Poutnik <Poutni...@gmail.com> wrote:

> they provided Symphony code to Apache foundation to be merged to OO,
> and chose Apache OO as Office suite for cost effective services.

I wish the Apache wing of it well, but I don't follow it much, so I
went looking for info and found this very well done graphic, showing
the relationships between all the things that trace their roots back to
StarOffice:

<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:StarOffice_major_derivatives.svg>

It matches everything I do know, so I'll trust it for what I don't.

[burfordTjustice]

On Mon, 4 May 2015 21:47:21 +0100

:-)))))))

[p-0''0-h the cat (UK) - The voice of the Sheeple]

They sure do. Aardvark reported him and they paid him a visit. Sounds like
a search warrant or two is in order.

--
p-0.0-h the cat

Internet Terrorist, Mass sock puppeteer, Agent provocateur, Gutter rat,
Devil incarnate, Linux user#666, BaStarD hacker, Resident evil, Monkey Boy,
Certifiable criminal, Spineless cowardly scum, textbook Psychopath,
the SCOURGE, l33t p00h d3 tr0ll, p00h == lam3r, p00h == tr0ll, troll

infāme, the OVERCAT [The BEARPAIR are dead, and we are its

[Caver1]

Good find. Thanks.

--
Caver1

[Thip]

"dadiOH" <dad...@invalid.com> wrote in message
news:mi8e1p$93n$1...@dont-email.me...

I just checked that out and mine didn't offer to phone anywhere. Is yours
still in the 30-day period where you get all the cool features you don't
need? Mine's expired.

[Mike Easter]

»Q« wrote:

> Poutnik wrote:
>
>> they provided Symphony code to Apache foundation to be merged to OO,
>> and chose Apache OO as Office suite for cost effective services.
>
> I wish the Apache wing of it well, but I don't follow it much, so I
> went looking for info and found this very well done graphic, showing
> the relationships between all the things that trace their roots back to
> StarOffice:
>
> <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:StarOffice_major_derivatives.svg>
>
> It matches everything I do know, so I'll trust it for what I don't.

The graphic's little yellow stream shows IBM's branch > Workplace >
Symphony which story and history the wikipedia develops
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Lotus_Symphony

and in 2013 Jan this article was in lwn.net
https://lwn.net/Articles/532665/ A discordant symphony

which drew a lot of comments over the next year and a half; 2 screenfuls
of article followed by 55 screenfuls of comments.



--
Mike Easter

[»Q«]

On Mon, 4 May 2015 15:46:22 -0500
VanguardLH <V...@nguard.LH> wrote:

> dadiOH wrote:

> > On Mon, 4 May 2015 03:05:36 -0500
> > VanguardLH <V...@nguard.LH> wrote:

> >> So I'll have to hunt around for the prior 2013 version of Kingsoft
> >> Office Suite.

> > http://www.kingsoftstore.com/office/download-office
> >
> > On the link to Kingsoft Store (the last link), scroll down to the
> > bottom of the page.
>
> How did you find that page?

I'm gonna guess he typed something like [ 2013 kingsoft office suite ]
into a web search engine. WFM, anyway -- top hit takes me to the root
URL, and from there it's easy to the download page.

[Poutnik]

Dne 04/05/2015 v 21:29 Mike Easter napsal(a):

Hm, I see.
This status is newer than I was aware of.

--
Poutnik the Wanderer

[Shadow]

On Mon, 04 May 2015 01:09:25 +0200, Poutnik <poutni...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>It was replaced by WPS Office
>during one of its updates few months later.

Apparently a new version was launched (today ?)

WPS Office 2015 9.1.0.5050 Free

http://www.softexia.com/office-tools/office-suites/wps-office/

I DID try the homepage, but it does not like my privacy stuff
and gives me a blank page.
Anyway, I'm a libreoffice guy.
[]'s

[»Q«]

On Mon, 04 May 2015 11:41:10 -0700
Mike Easter <Mi...@ster.invalid> wrote:

> I'm not crystal clear on how the LO licensing works; it is in part
> LPGLv3 and part MPL while dealing with the ASF OO code license
> ownership issue.

Instead of switching back and forth between "LO" and "TDF", I'll just
mostly just use "LO". Also IANAL, but I have the arrogance of one. ;)

LO includes a lot of stuff from different upstreams licensed under a
variety of free software licenses. Hunspell, fontconfig, libpng, on
and on. That kind of stuff they may or may not have modified, and they
don't change the license. But the bulk of LO, the code that's really
under the umbrella of TDF, they offer under the MPLv2.

I'm pretty far from crystal clear about most of the nitty-gritty,
but FWIW, here's the way I understand how the relicensing went:

At its inception, LibreOffice just offered its code under the the LPGL,
same as OOo. If they'd wanted to, they could have continued that
forever, but the LPGL does not have strong enough copyleft to make LO
happy.

When Oracle gave control of the OOo code to Apache, Apache then offered
the OOo code under the Apache 2 license. LO then ditched the (Oracle)
OOo codebase it had started and accepted the Apache OO codebase with the
Apache 2 terms. They ported all the changes they had made over to the
Apache OOo codebase and went from there. At that time, the Apache OOo
codebase was substantially the same the Oracle OOo codebase LO had
started out with, so the transition was not as awful as one might
imagine -- in most cases, 'porting' boiled down to changing a
file's headers.

From its inception, LO had been getting new contributions under an
MPL/GPL3+ license.

Apache 2 is permissive enough to let people who accept that license
modify and release the code under the MPLv2, which is what
essentially what LO did.

For a while, LO were using the phrase "MPLv2 on top of Adobe 2". AIUI,
Adobe 2 allows only modified files to be distributed under a new
license -- unmodified files must not have their licenses changed. So
the files LO had modified were offered under the MPLv2 and the ones
they hadn't were under Apache 2. Anyone accepting those license terms
and wanting to re-distribute under the MPLv2 would just need to change
the license of any Apache 2 file they modified, same as LO itself. So
for most practical purposes, at least ones LO cared about, this
situation was okay.

For ideological reasons, it was not okay -- LO didn't want to
redistribute *any* files without copyleft. I think all the files have
been modified and relicensed by now, but I'm not completely sure. The
Apache 2.0 license still appears in the big list of licenses that may
or may not apply to some of the files, but AFAIK licenses are never
removed from such a big may-or-may-not list.

You mentioned LPGLv3. I've left that part out entirely because I don't
understand it at all. I think it had something to do with Apache 2.0
being compatible with LPGL3 but not LPGL2.1, whereas the MPLv2 is
compatible with LPGL2.1+.

[dadiOH]

Thip wrote:
> I just checked that out and mine didn't offer to phone anywhere. Is
> yours still in the 30-day period where you get all the cool features you
> don't need? Mine's expired.

I never had a 30 day trial, it was always free. It didn't "offer" to phone,
it just did it. Silently.

[dadiOH]

VanguardLH wrote:
> dadiOH wrote:
>
>> http://www.kingsoftstore.com/office/download-office
>>
>> On the link to Kingsoft Store (the last link), scroll down to the
>> bottom of
>> the page.
>
> How did you find that page?

I don't recall, probably a Google search.
_____________________

> At this point, yes, I could save the prior version without the adware
> (and hopefully without watermarking of printouts) but I wonder if I even
> want to bother. For a true freeware version (not a self-crippling
> trial version), users would be stuck back on the 2013 version. That's not
> necessary bad but it also means bugs in that version won't get fixed.

It also means that no new ones will be introduced :)

I only use the spreadsheet, neen using it for about a year. I quite like it
and have found no proglems.
________________

> Is that to share your spreadsheet or just that stupid postive-only
> voting at Facebook?

No idea. I don't do Facebook. Twitter either or any others of that ilk.

[TPaye]

On 5/5/2015 9:16 AM, Yrrah wrote:
> Lono <londotp...@gmail.com>:
>
>> My requirement is WORD, POWERPOINT, and EXCEL - nothing more (or less) -
>> and my work is not very demanding or complicated.
>>
>> Is there a reasonably compatible freeware (...) compatible with Windows 8.1?
>
> Your "work is not very demanding or complicated"? In that case
> FreeOffice (for Windows and Linux) may be an option for you. It's a
> free version (registerware) of Softmaker's commercial office suite
> with fewer features than the payware package. One could argue that
> it's crippleware, but it's an OK office suite if your demands are
> relatively modest.
> Home:
> http://www.freeoffice.com/
>
> Yrrah
>

I use the 2012 "standard" paid version, and it is indeed an excellent
replacement. If the free version is not too crippled (based upon your
needs), you should definitely give it a try.

[Susan Bugher]

On 5/5/2015 2:31 PM, TPaye wrote:
> On 5/5/2015 9:16 AM, Yrrah wrote:

>> Home:
>> http://www.freeoffice.com/

> I use the 2012 "standard" paid version, and it is indeed an excellent
> replacement. If the free version is not too crippled (based upon your
> needs), you should definitely give it a try.

Features of the free version are listed here:
<http://www.freeoffice.com/en/features-freeoffice-textmaker>
<http://www.freeoffice.com/en/features-freeoffice-planmaker>
<http://www.freeoffice.com/en/features-freeoffice-presentations>

and a "comparison page" is here. It lists features that are ONLY found
in the $$$ware version:
<http://www.freeoffice.com/en/features-freeoffice-comparison>
they note: "FreeOffice reads the modern Microsoft formats DOCX, XLSX,
and PPTX seamlessly – SoftMaker Office can also save in these formats"

Susan
--

[CRNG]

On Tue, 05 May 2015 14:31:04 -0400, TPaye <n...@newrochelle.com> wrote
in <mib27a$ct9$1...@dont-email.me>

+1
--
Web based forums are like subscribing to 10 different newspapers
and having to visit 10 different news stands to pickup each one.
Email list-server groups and USENET are like having all of those
newspapers delivered to your door every morning.