How to get Microsoft Office working under Ubuntu?

by Imri Paloja Posted Nov. 2014(updated)

Office work is not the most glamorous work, you use office applications because you have to, not because you want to. Most likely you have used Microsoft office, and gotten used to it. Following this tutorial, you will get Microsoft Office 2010 on your system. You will be able to write documents, which will make your boss go: 'Good Job Sport, I like the font you used'. Enjoy.

PlayOnLinux

PlayOnLinux is a graphical front-end for the Wine software compatibility layer which allows Linux users to install Windows-based video games, as well as many other applications such as Apple iTunes, Safari, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Internet Explorer. - PlayOnLinux - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

PlayOnLinux, PlayeinnLinux, PlayoonLinux, I'm having a bit of fun with its pronunciation. Damn you Internet.

PlayOnLinux Has Office 2000, 2003, 2007 and 2010 in there database. Most will work, see there descriptions on which components that is. For this tutorial we will use Office 2010. According to the 'description box'? on PlayOnLinux it works with: word, excel, en PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook. It its usable, thats another question... Lets see.

Install

Install PlayOnLinux, by copying the below lines one by one in your terminal:

wget -q "https://deb.playonlinux.com/public.gpg" -O- | sudo apt-key add --
sudo wget https://deb.playonlinux.com/playonlinux_trusty.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/playonlinux.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install playonlinux

source

After installation search for PlayOnLinux via the dash, click the install button, type in Office, select Microsoft Office 2010, then push the install button. Follow the setup wizard.

Note: it failed on me, when selection the setup.exe from an NTFS partition. Copy the setup installation folder to your desktop, or somewhere locally.

Video

Now, office word starts without any severe problems. It opens files, and works like it should. But, it does, seem a bit sluggish. That said, you have the exact same experience as on Windows .

From YouTube: How to get Microsoft Office working under Ubuntu?

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Microsoft Office Online

The second thing you can do is, try the new Microsoft Office Online, version. Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote on the web.

All you need is an outlook account to login, and your good to go. No paying. Its free. I know. I was shocked two.

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Since thats all said and done, due note that Ubuntu has some of the greatest Office Suites out there: LibreOffice, WPS Office, but, for new users that are already gonna need time to adjust to the new scene, it would be nice for them if they have the option to stick whit what they now.