SoftMaker.com

Hi all !

I would like to find an alternative to OpenOffice on Linux, as it is yet not fully MS Office compatible. I looked a several solutions for Linux, and this suite seems to be what I need, but as I don't know this product, I have a few questions :
- For those using both OpenOffice and SoftMaker Office, could you please tell me how SoftMaker Office performs, and if the documents saved from SoftMaker Office will be correctly displayed under MS Office (they don't look good under MS Office once they are modified in OpenOffice/Linux. I don't know if this is a font issue)
- Is SoftMaker Office able to correctly open OpenOffice documents (Writer, OpenCalc and Impress) ?
- Does this suite have a French GUI, or only German/English GUI ?
- I will receive soon a HP Netbook (HP Mini 2102, 10,1 inch screen) preloaded with SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11. Does this suite work well with this distribution, and does anybody know how well SoftMaker will fit in such a small notebook ? No display size issue ?

I consider purchasing this product once I am sure it will fit my needs. If I am doing so, I am writing some Reviews/Tests articles for a French WebSite (specialized on OpenSuSE/SuSE Linux). I may write a review of SoftMaker as this suite is not really well known in France (my review can be either negative or positive).

Thanks,

Arnaud

We take pride in our MS Office filters, both import and export, and we think they are better than anything out there, apart from Microsoft Office itself.

We have an OpenDocument Text filter in TextMaker, but nothing yet for OpenDocument Calc and Impress. They are on our to-do list, however without a deadline attached. We did put more emphasis on providing DOCX, XLSX, and soon PPTX support. More customers were requesting these formats, and with limited manpower we did what the majority of customers wanted.

We offer user interfaces in 15 or 16 languages, French included.

Small netbooks are certainly good enough for SoftMaker, both CPU/RAM-wise and in regard to screen sizes. Remember that our software even works on Windows CE, where CPUs are much weaker and RAM much more limited than on a netbook.

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Martin Kotulla
SoftMaker Software GmbH

Thanks for your answer.

I will purchase SoftMaker Office for Linux later this month, and will try to use it instead of OpenOffice for ODT/DOC/DOCX documents. As for Calc/Impress I will stick to OpenOffice.

As I said above, I will try to Import/Export documents from/to SoftMaker/Ms Office and SoftMaker/OpenWriter. I will later write a review (in French) to compare with OpenOffice and let the French users know how it performs.

I have then 2 questions :
- Can we use this forum for issues, or is better to use the feedback form ?
- Do you have any Enhancement Request form in order to give you the feature missing ? If not, can we use this forum in order that you qualify the Enhancement Request ?

Regards,

Arnaud

Post here in the forum all that you think could be of interest to others, be that bug reports or enhancement requests.

Send by e-mail or via the feedback form stuff that only affects you.

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Martin Kotulla
SoftMaker Software GmbH