Installing MS Office on Ubuntu 11.10

To exist in a world dominated by Microsoft products, you have to be able to coexist with others using those products.  That includes connecting to shares via Samba, using remote desktop, and opening Office documents.  When it comes to office documents, Libre Office does the job for the most part.  I have had pretty good success using Libre Office even with Microsoft Office files.  The problem comes when you bounce a document back and forth between Libre Office and Microsoft Office.

If you are working in a team with other Microsoft Office users, you are going to have to break down and install Microsoft Office.  Below you will see the screenshots of how I installed Office.  At the end, you can find other methods.

Using software center, I installed the wine meta package and the winetricks tool.

Installing Wine from the Software Center

Then, launch the winetricks application:

Launching winetricks

Select “Install an App”

Installing an App

Then, select Microsoft Office from the list:

Winetricks -- Selecting MS Office

You will probably get this message:

Winetricks riched workaround

Enter the product key:

Enter the product key

You have to accept the license:

Accepting the License

Now, you are ready to click the Install button:

Install button in the MS Installer

Now, it should be installing…

MS Installer Installing

Give it some time, and you should see this complete screen:

Office Installer Complete

Now, notice that you have a new wineprefix: office2007pro.  You can just cancel out of this screen though.

New wineprefix

And now, you should see the Office applications in your menu:

Office Applications in the Menu

Microsoft Word is the program out of the bunch that I use the most.  The install technically isn’t done until you start one of the applications for the first time.  It will prompt you for your name and initials:

Entering the name and initials for Office

Next, you have to register the product.  If you have already installed this copy before don’t worry.  I have installed mine a number of times (on the same computer) with the different versions of Linux over the years.  I think once or twice I had to use the phone to register it, but it hasn’t been a problem.

Microsoft Office Activation Wizard

Assuming that everything works, you should get a “complete” window.

Microsoft Office Activation Wizard Complete

Next, I just accepted the defaults on this screen:

Welcome to the 2007 Microsoft Office Screen

Finally, I told it not to install updates because I have had issues with the Internet access from Office for some reason.

Installing Updates Options

So, you should have a good Office installation on top of Linux at this point.  Please comment any tips, tricks, or problems you experience.

 

 

Other ways to do it:

6 thoughts on “Installing MS Office on Ubuntu 11.10

  1. Glad it helped. I still have the meta package in my Software Center, but that may be because I already have it installed. I would imagine that installing the wine 1.3 package would work just as well.

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