KOffice-1.1 Beta2 Released !

A second beta of KOffice-1.1 is now available. The improvements since the first beta are considerable, particularly in KWord. If you are looking for a stable and full-featured word processor under Linux, give it a try! This release also features improved filter support throughout the suite including better MS Word and MS Excel support, and a new Quatro Pro filter. You can read the full announcement on the KOffice web site.

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Comments

by Scott (not verified)

Me too. Here is my errors (RH 7.1, KDE updated to 2.1.2):

[root@localhost /root]# kword
kword: error while loading shared libraries: libkdeprint.so.0: cannot load shared object file: No such file or directory
[root@localhost /root]#

[root@localhost /root]# kspread
kspread: error while loading shared libraries: libkdeprint.so.0: cannot load shared object file: No such file or directory
[root@localhost /root]#

This info shows up in a terminal Window on the KDE desk top when I try to open the office apps. Had the same problem with aethera, but found there was also a lib file *.rpm. Installed the lib and aethera works, but Koffice still not.

I stalled Koffice 1.1 on my other SuSE system and all Koffice apps work. (?) Maybe RH rpm problem??

Love your desktop! It's finally made Linux palatable!!!

Scott

by Evandro (not verified)

the problem is that you used the --nodeps option when installing the rpm and you shouldn't have done that.

the koffice rpm for redhat linux is compilled against kde 2.2alpha1 and requires that version of kde to run.

by Tom (not verified)

Wow !!!
Now KWord is coming closer to real productivity !
Within the first tests i noticed two problems:

1.) How do i get continuous Page numbers into the footer ? Inserting a page-numer variable works fine, but the following pages show the same page number !

2.) Applying 2 columns to the main text frame through Format->Page->Columns results in strange behaviour when going to the following pages. Three or more columns works pretty fine !

---------------------------------------------

Thanks to the whole K-Office-team !!! You're doing a great job !

by David Faure (not verified)

1) is a known bug, I have to find a way to update variables in copied frames

I don't understand 2). Two columns seem to work fine [except for a post-beta-2 bug with page removal when the last page is empty, I'm looking at this right now]. What is "strange behaviour" ? http://bugs.kde.org would be a good place to continue this discussion :-)

by David Faure (not verified)

Oh, page removal (in the multiple-columns case) was probably broken in beta2 too. Found a nasty bug. Fixed :)

by Tom (not verified)

I've checked out CVS today and this seems to work well now !

Thanks.

by Antialias (not verified)

Great job :)))

by itodd (not verified)

I sure do wish those rpms for redhat weren't linked against libkdeprint :(.

by Bojan (not verified)

Please make these disgustingly wide posts fit to the
browser width. I hate (am I the only one?) dragging the bottom scrollbar just to read a single line of text.

by Navindra Umanee (not verified)

Yes, you probably are. Why doesn't your web browser auto-wrap the text? What browser are you using?

by Maarten ter Huurne (not verified)

In Konqueror on this machine, I get a scrollbar if the window is less than 850 pixels wide. So if either your screen is 800x600 or your browser window doesn't fill the entire screen, it's possible you'll get a horizontal scrollbar.

by Henry Stanaland (not verified)

Hmmmm. I use Konqueror and the scrollbar doesn't appear until it's really thing, like 25% of my 1280x1024 screen(by then I would rather have the horizontal scrollbar rather than two words per line. It seems perfect to me. What version? I have 2.1.2

Maybe it is screen dependent.

by Maarten ter Huurne (not verified)

There is a really long URL in one of the posts (about Mandrake 8 packages, that turned out to be beta 1). That URL is determining the window width: it is considered a single word and therefore not split over multiple lines.

The reason you didn't notice is that since I posted, this thread grew a lot. The post body with the long URL is no longer displayed on the main thread page. If you set "thread threshold" high enough (1000 should do :), you will see a horizontal scrollbar much sooner.

Either the browser or the site should split extremely long words. The browser is most capable of determining the best point to split, since it knows the window width. However, it may be difficult to decide for example which column in a table is too wide.

by Bojan (not verified)

I use Konqueror, isn't that obvious? ;-))
I don't know where is the option to set word-wrapping on.
I thought this should be enabled by default?!

by Navindra Umanee (not verified)

You shouldn't have to do anything special. :( Do you see the same problems on Slashdot.org? Are you using 800x600 too?

I have never noticed a problem except when people use but no-one is doing that here...

-N.

by Jason Katz-Brown (not verified)

Navin... at 800x600, with deeply nested comment threads, khtml will have to scroll...

Jason

by Navindra Umanee (not verified)

Hmmm, suck. Is this a problem with KDE Dot News or a problem in general?

by Bojan (not verified)

No it is even in slashdot. Seems like KHTML problem, sorry.

by Jason Katz-Brown (not verified)

khtml seems to want to keep every comment a decent width, whilst ie will squish a deeply nested comment to 2-3 words per line..

personally I like konqy's way better (no single comment will ever be larger than width of screen)

also note that in a 1024x768 window its all okay :)

Jason

by not me (not verified)

As a substitute for dragging sideways, you can use the mousewheel while the mouse is hovering over the bottom scrollbar (you *do* have a mouse with a wheel, don't you? They're so nice!). KDE's got lots of neat little features like that :-)

by David Watson (not verified)

Too bad that you can't have mice with two scrollwheels, since I REALLY hate scrolling with the keyboard :)

by not me (not verified)

Actually there *is* such a thing. You can buy mice with both vertical and horizontal scrollwheels. In fact, my current mouse can scroll horizontally. It has a little post in place of the wheel that acts like those little laptop mice that are in the middle of the keyboard. Push it up and it scrolls up, push it sideways and it scrolls sideways. Unfortunately, sideways scrolling only works in Windows. I don't think it's possible to do in X.

by Henry Stanaland (not verified)

Actually, what I want to know is why nobody ever mentions grammer checking(other OS's feature list went from spell checking to grammer checking about 5 years ago). Why not a generic grammer checking library could be created so that all Linux software could use it or is it next to impossible? ...does one already exist?

Doesn't StarOffice have grammer checking? If it does...let's borrow it.

by Moritz Moeller-... (not verified)

It is called grammAr not grammer. You don't even use the spell checking.

And basically grammar checking without real artificial intelligence is impossible and gives shitty heuristic results. PLUS it would only work in english, not in all the other languages. Anybody who needs a grammar checker, should get a new brain, not a new program.

by Federico Cozzi (not verified)

I fully agree with you. Here in Italy, everybody I know disables "grammar checking" in Word soon after the installation (it just says bullshit).

I also think that even the need of "spell checking" is a cultural product. Here in Italy, everybody is assumed not to write spell errors (it's one of the goal of the primary school): if you write something with spell errors in it at the secondary school you automatically get a bad vote.
On the other hand, English (and above all Americans) are not so good at spelling (I once heard that Americans have spelling Olympiads!!)

by BL (not verified)

I totally disagree, spellchecking is essential. And so is auto-ma-tic word-split-ting (I'm not sure of the English word), especially if you set up a text in 2 or 3 columns.

by the word you're... (not verified)

is "hyphenation." :)

And yes, it's very useful, would like to see it improved! Small things like that, added together, are what make a word processor workable.

Agreed re: spellchecking! I am a decent speller, and not a terrible typist, but I make plenty (more than enough, let me admit) of spelling mistakes which a spellcheck option would eliminate. What I dislike is the annoying intrusive behavior of MS's spellcheckers which by default do things like kill two initial caps, even if that's what I *really mean.* (Please, guys, make that a selectable option, not the default! :))

Tim

by Brent Cook (not verified)

Yes, Americans have spelling Olympiads. We call them spelling bees.

Look at http://www.everything2.com/ and search for spelling bee. One of the explanations you will find there is as follows:

by ErisDiscordia

Spelling bees are especially relevant for the English language, because its spelling is so highly non-phonetic. (I remember one grade-school teacher illustrating this by writing "PHOTI" on the chalkboard and informing the class that, given the wacky behavior of English pronunciation, it could even spell "fish" -- his (?) explanation was something like

"PH" as in "phoneme"
"O" as in "women," and
"TI" as in "pronunciation."

by Rob (not verified)

The normal one is

GHOTI

GH as in touGH.

this is from George Bernard Shaw,
who was an ardent campaigner for spelling reform.

PH kind of makes sense... GH does not!

by graeme (not verified)

the gh comes from the v old english pronounciations. so night would sound close to the dutch nacht. the gh is like a ch (as in loch, said the scottish way) but a little softer I think. scots still has stuff like that but spelt nicht. to put it simply english was created by ppl who couldn't make the sound ch (like chi, in greek)

btw I think a grammar checker is v usefull if only to pick up double periods or to captialise words in an intelligent way. perhaps we could use this opportunity to create a decent grammar checker and not the crap M$ makes.

by Shannon (not verified)

If you got PHOTI or GHOTI...try this one

What does "ghoughphtheightteeau" spell?

Potato

GH as in hiccouGH
OUGH as in dOUGH
PHTH as in PHTHisis
EIGH as in nEIGHbor
TTE as in gazeTTE
EAU as in bEAU

by Bojan (not verified)

You are not trying to imply that Italians are smarter than Americans, do you?

by Federico Cozzi (not verified)

No, I was implying that:
1) Americans and English speaker need a spell-checker more than Italians (due to language difference)
2) Italians don't need a grammar checker (at least, not the MSWord one) because Italian grammar is very difficult
3) Italians need automatic hyphenation for word-wrap at end of line

Whenever I use MSWord, I realize that it was written by Americans with English language in mind. MSWord has 1) and 2) but (to the best of my knowledge) not 3)

by Martina (not verified)

Spell checking has nothing to do with spelling skills. You can be excellent at spelling but still type incorrectly (typos).

by kdeFan (not verified)

I don't know anything about the Italian language but, evidently, you know English. You must know then that English is an inconsistent language. Spelling and pronunciation are often unrelated. Haven't you ever forgotten how to spell a word? Are Italian spellings more consistent than English spellings?

by Federico Cozzi (not verified)

Yes, Italian spelling is very easy (with some obvious exceptions). On the other hand, its syntax is a nightmare - that's why MSWord doesn't understand it!

by Anonymous (not verified)

No, most people learning English as a foreign language, learn how to write. Optionally they learn how to pronounce it.

by Sanja (not verified)

Yes,I also noticed the same thing.I was very surprised to see that native English speakers are such lousy spellers.In my country everyone is supposed to know how to spell the words and if you learn English and can't spell it we dont say "He's not too good at spelling",we say "He hasn't learned English very well".And I've noticed that foreigners are much better spellers both in their own languages and in English,than the native English speakers are.

by Henry Stanaland (not verified)

My bad spelling is proof that we need those features. I am not claiming to be the best speller in the world. I don't go to a liberal arts school....but I'll integrate the hell out of you though(we have "Integral Bees" not "Spelling Bees").

Besides why are you people so mean. If you are having family troubles or something, go see counseling, don't take it out on other people. IBM is wrong with their "Peace, Love, Linux" because you can't post something with a simple mistake and not have @$$ holes complaining and contradicting everything like they are right about everything. The reason I "didn't use spell checking" is because browsers don't have spell checking in text boxes. Perhaps they should...the way everybuddy(not everybody) spell checks your IM messages.

Grammer checking can be usefull though. For instance, "Neither John or Mike will go." You know the rule..."nor is to neither as or is to either." Or something like that. I always had positive results from grammer checking(especially at like 4:00a.m. when you can't tell the difference....beside it's not like it changes your paper...it only underlines the problem. Furthermore, grammer checking tells the difference between "their" and "there"

Yes, I typed grammer instead of "grammar" the whole time. Pero a mi no mi vale la madre.

by Moritz Moeller-... (not verified)

Oh comeon, don't cry. :-) I just think there are more interesting things missing than grammar checking for one (important) language.

Perfect Hyphenation (latex-like), automatic indexes, better filters for rtf and other stuff.

Grammar checking is not really that useful. And that is just MNSHO.

by Henry Stanaland (not verified)

I agree, there are more important things that should have priority. But you have to plan features from the beginning(not necessarily implement them), otherwise you end up with something that feels like it was glued together. One of our professors who has intimite knowledge with MS said one of their reasons for having bad code design is because it really isn't designed. They plan like 20% of the software features(the part people really need), and then throw the rest in later as best they can.

by Moritz Moeller-... (not verified)

Well, IF someone feels thata grammer correction for badly written english texts is a must, I would implemenet it as a normal commandline tool (ala ispell). Then the GUI programs could use this as a plugin.

I don't think you need to change any koffice design to integrate such a thing. It would also be useful (as far as this is possible...) for kmail, klyx...

by john (not verified)

No - I don't can't agree with you here. I find the grammar check in Word 2000 really useful. The one in Word 97 wasn't very good, but it seems to have been much improved.....

by john (not verified)

>don't can't agree

arghh. I grammar check would have spottet that though.... ;)

by Brent Cook (not verified)

This entire thread is a travesty of poor spelling, typing and grammar.

I think that we would be better served by an irony checker. Is there a chance that someone will add that to Kword?

Alanis Morissette's song 'Ironic' could have benefited that kind of tool.

by Andrew Coles (not verified)

Spell checking wouldn't have picked up grammer - 'grammer schools' in the UK?

Any chance of Konqueror implementing a 'check spelling' option when you right-click on a text box?

I personally can put up with most grammar errors, except for apostrophes. For example, on a sign at a market stall there could be:

Carrot's 30p

The intention obviously being that carrots cost 30p however I want to see the 30p belonging to the carrot that can acrue wealth :-p

The other killer is 'its'. It's not too hard really but people don't get it:

The dog pulls on its lead< - no apostrophe.

I like England because it's cold - apostrophe since it is an abbrevation for 'it is' as opposed to indicating possession.

I have a lecturer who subtracts marks from assignments where apostrophes have been used correctly, and on the other hand I have one who just can't use them. This is one thing that irritates me about the way English is taught in the UK - primary school English is fine, learning SPG (spelling, punctuation and grammar). However, as soon as you go to high school it's over to the novels, plays and so on so the people who do well aren't the people who can write 'good English' but the people who can blag about plays.

Anyhow, just my 2c.

PS. I know I've probably used 'comma conjunction' several times in this posting...

by Sanja (not verified)

I agree that grammar checkers are usually useless,because computer can't recognize if the whole sentence is written correctly or not.And as for the spelling checkers,I agree with that Italian guy,depends on a language.I was personally very disappointed to see that most native English speakers are such terrible spellers,especially Americans.I've always thought that they have to be perfect at it because it's their own language and everybody knows how to spell their own language.It would be ridiculous if I had to open the dictionary to see how to spell the word from my own language.I wrote those words too many times to forget how to spell them:) And to be honest,native English speakers are not only bad spellers (much worse than most foreigners),but they don't even understand the most basic rules of their language.For instance,they don't know the difference between "to" and "too","you're" and "your","who's" and "whose",
"they're","their" and "there","than" and "then","of" and "off","it's" and "its"
etc.Any foreigner who speaks English will understand those differences.I noticed that this Italian guy who wrote a few comments here (can't remember his name) knows the difference between "it's" and "its" very well,and 90% of native English speakers don't know it.I think that's a real shame.

by Heintz (not verified)

You think English words are hard to spell? Try spelling these German words:

offentlichkeitsreferent
abwechlungsreiche
begegnungsarbeit
leistungsschutzrechte.....

And we still don't need a spell checker,and you guys do :P

by cm (not verified)

I disagree. None of these words is hard to spell
especially if you know the word in the first place.

The problem with English (as mentioned several
times) is that the spelling and the pronounciation
often don't correspond 1:1, for example "their" and "there".

by Christina (not verified)

I've also noticed that English speakers (especially Americans) are bad spellers and very dependent on spell-checkers. Here in Greece we don't need spell-checkers at all,because it's understandable that that we know how to spell our own language.And most Greeks speak English too.But I've noticed that most people who speak English as a second language are better spellers than the native speakers???