Installing OpenOffice for KDE

[davecs]

Open Office for KDE has been around for some time, but the link was not added to the site at http://kde.openoffice.org so I didn't realise it was available.

The version is still 1.1.3 but I have not had the documented problem with it that led to the 1.1.4 upgrade, so I decided that, as I use KDE, this is the one I wanted. It is a binary too, so no long builds.

I used existing files and a manual download to accomplish my mission. First, you need to follow this link:

http://download.kde.org/download.php?url=packages/ooffice/OOo_1.1.3-kde_LinuxIntel_install.tar.gz

Select a mirror and you will download the KDE version of Open Office. This will take some time, I'm afraid! When it's done, move it to /usr/portage/distfiles . That will require you to be root, as will all the instructions that follow.

Now create a directory at /usr/local/portage/app-office/openoffice-kde-bin/

Copy the file /usr/portage/app-office/openoffice-bin/openoffice-bin-1.1.3.ebuild to the directory you just created. Rename it to openoffice-kde-bin-1.1.3.ebuild.

Now edit the ebuild. All you have to do is change the line that reads:

MY_P="OOo_${PV}_LinuxIntel_install"

to:

MY_P="OOo_${PV}-kde_LinuxIntel_install"

now do:

cd /usr/local/portage/app-office/openoffice-kde-bin/
ebuild openoffice-kde-bin-1.1.3.ebuild digest
emerge -C openoffice-bin (to get rid of the old version)
emerge openoffice-kde-bin

Your Openoffice should now have all the crystal icon set, and your buttons and menus etc in all the dialogues will be whatever ones you had set when you started Open Office.

Apart from the looks, you will notice that the Printer dialogue, whilst not being KDE, works seamlessly. The system printer settings you made will be respected and print correctly, "straight out of the box".

There is no need to set up your fonts from the Printer Admin dialogue, nor to edit your printers. It all works as it should.
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Gentoo, PCLOS-pre-81a and Windows 98SE.
Shuttle SN41G2V2
Athlon XP2500+ o/c to 3200+, 2x256Mb Geil Value RAM, FX5200.
Ntlworld cable internet via ethernet
and PC-Chips Desknote Laptop (with PCLOS-pre-81a )

[Vanquirius]

For some reason, I'm unable to start OO by running oowriter et al. I can run it directly with "/opt/OpenOffice.org/program/soffice", but this isn't much fun. I didn't get a KDE menu entry installed either. Perhaps it's user error on my part.

Anyway, thanks for the tip.
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Hello.

[simondo42]

You do know about the Ximian builds of OpenOffice.org in portage? They allow building in kde/gnome support. The latest version is based on 1.1.4.

Cheers,
simondo

[rohan28]

I may have had the same problem as Vanquirius. Specifically, what happened is that, after merging, /usr/bin/ooffice was an empty file! I even tried specifically unmerging all versions of OpenOffice first and making sure /usr/bin/ooffice was deleted before merging, but the problem persisted. Disappointing What would really be nice is if we get OpenOffice-2 betas in portage (once they are released, of course).

[davecs]