Using Office 2007 in Ubuntu 8.04

Being that I’ve spent a decent amount of time over the past couple of weeks attempting to get Office 07 to install and run in Ubuntu 8.04, I figure it would be appropriate to start this post with a Q&A session.  This is what I have learned so far, take it for what it’s worth.

1. Can you install Office 2007 in Ubuntu 8.04?
   •  YES: the install process seems to work using WINE, however not without following the proper procedures VERY closely.  I have spent a lot of time searching through multiple websites and everyone seems to have a different way for making this work.  I will explain mine below.
2. Will Office 2007 work flawlessly?
   • They say there are no stupid questions…but that would be one.  Of course it does not work flawlessly
3. Will Office 2007 work at all once installed?
   • This is where things get tricky.  I have had mixed luck in this department.  It seems as though some of the Office 2007 applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote) will at least run in certain versions of WINE, however you may or may not be able to do that more than once without having to reinstall WINE and start all over.

With that said, here are my procedures for Office 2007 installation.  Maybe after some of you read this and see some of the problems I have had, you can give me some input.

PROCEDURES

Step 1: Installing WINE
From what I have read and experienced, it seems as though in order to install Office properly, you must use WINE 0.9.59.  To obtain this version, you can check out the WINE package archive.  It is also important to completely remove your current version of WINE before installing an older version.  To do this, use Adept, Aptitude, or any other package manager to remove the current package, and then from within root, run the command:

‘rm -rf ~/.wine’

This will remove anything contained in the WINE directory.  Once you have completed the installation of version 0.9.59, run ‘winecfg’ and change your Windows version to XP.  Following this, you will also need to obtain a native copy of the file rpcrt4.dll.  I have found that the best way of doing this, is to compile it from the Crossover Games source using the directions found here. Once this is complete, you can begin installing some of the other items which are necessary for a successful Office install.

Step 2: Winetricks
Winetricks is a script that allows the end user to install any number of additional software tools ranging from .NET 2.0 to Visual C runtime files.  Reviewing the many different install guides out there, it seems to me that there is some discrepancy surrounding which of these packages need to be installed to make Office 2007 work.  In my case, the following seemed to be at least somehow necessary and vital to the installation and execution process: vcrun2005sp1, vcrun2008, corefonts, msxml3, riched20, riched30 and dotnet20 (installed in that order).  To obtain Winetricks, execute this in terminal:

‘wget http://kegel.com/wine/winetricks’

To run it, simply type ’sh winetricks packagename‘.  After you have installed all of these packages, run winecfg again and change your Windows version to Vista.  This is necessary for a successful install of Office.

Step 3: Install Office 2007
Insert your Office 2007 disk, and run SETUP.exe making sure that it executes with wine.  In terminal this would look like ‘wine setup.exe’.  Also, be sure you are in the correct directory (ie. your mounted cd/dvd-rom directory).  At some point around 75% through the installation, it may seem like the install process has locked up.  In some cases it does, but most of the time it is just working slowly.  To verify, check your running processes.  If setup.exe is utilizing upwards of 80-90% of your processing time, it is likely still working.  If it’s only a few percent, it has probably locked up.

Step 4: Install WINE 1.0~rc2
If the installation completes successfully, you will want to again uninstall WINE.  HOWEVER, this time, you will only need to uninstall the program itself.  DO NOT run the ‘rm’ command on the wine directory.  To remove just WINE itself, use your favorite package manager.  Once you have done this, download a copy of WINE 1.0 rc2 from the package archive and install it.

Step 5: Using Office 2007
At this point, hopefully Office has installed successfully, as well as WINE 1.0 rc2.  Return again to winecfg and verify that your Windows version is set to XP.  Now, try and run one of your installed Office 2007 apps using WINE.

Example: user@ubuntu:~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Microsoft Office/Office12$ wine WINWORD.exe

If Word 2007 opens without crashing, you may quite possibly have been successful with the entire process.  Following this, you can attempt to open Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote as these are the only other Office 2007 programs that most users, including myself have gotten to work.  As one last tip; from within Word, be sure to delete all other languages with the exception of your own from the language options dialog box.  This can be found by clicking on the Office 2007 logo in the top left corner, selecting word options, followed by language settings.  Within this menu, delete all enabled editing languages other than your own.

GOOD LUCK!  Please comment with questions, suggestions, etc!

My Sources:
RikBrown
QuickTweaks
WineReview
WineReview Source 2

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