Saturday, February 15, 2014

Kingsoft office in ubuntu 13.10 64-bit

Kingsoft office WPS for Linux first came to my notice when I was watching the review of Ubuntu Kylin. It looked very similar to MS-office. So, I gave it a try and here is my report of how it feels.
          First things first, the installation is not so easy. I went to the official website and could not find a 64-bit compatible version. I downloaded the .deb file for 32-bit and installed it via software center hoping that the software center would resolve any dependencies. After it was installed, searching in dash for 'word' did not find the kingsoft suite for me. After I found the writer, I clicked it and surprise it would not open. I guessed that 32-bit libraries were absent and instead of googling around, i simply installed skype which was a 32-bit package. The Skype installed the 32-bit libraries for me and so now, when I open the suite, it would present itself in front of me.
          Secondly, I would warn the hardcore anti-MS league that it does not support .odt .ods or any open-source format. I tried opening an .odt with it but in vain. I guess that Kingsoft needs to know that .odt exists. It is funny because even MS-Office 2013 supports .ods etc.
          Now, to the actual review. The office suite sports a look similar to the modern UI of MS-Office.
 There is an option of changing it to the traditional look. I certainly felt that Kingsoft suite looked better than MS-Office 13. It is quite ironic that a Chinese company could beat a multi-billion dollar company by not only mimicking the product but making it look better than the actual product. The website says though that this product is still in testing stage but well done sir for your valiant efforts. Of course there are drawbacks with this product. Firstly that there are not many templates available for making any document but this is true even with Libreoffice to some extent. MS-fonts are not all present in the suite but it is because they are protected by some laws. These drawbacks are only reflected when we compare it with MS-office. Comparing it with Libreoffice I would say that Kingsoft is at par with the opensource major in terms of features. Hats off to Kingsoft for making such a good solution available to linux.
          I think that if Kingsoft also recognizes the opensource formats and include them in their suite as well as make a 64-bit version available, then there could be a mass adoption among Linux users.