KOffice 1.1 Release Announcement

Tuesday, 28 August 2001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KDE's Free, Integrated Office Suite Available for GNU/Linux - Unix

Leading GNU/Linux Desktop Ships Free Stable Release of KOffice

The KDE Project today announced the release of KOffice 1.1. KOffice is a free, integrated office suite for KDE which utilizes open standards for component communication and component embedding. KOffice 1.1 constitutes the most stable and feature-complete release of KOffice to date. The KOffice team encourages all users of earlier KOffice releases to upgrade to KOffice 1.1.

"KOffice is undergoing rapid development and its future looks very bright," stated Eugene Clement, Product Manager for Mandrakesoft. "Currently KOffice has functionality well-suited for home and SOHO users, who generally write letters, faxes, memos and similar documents. As the import filters for proprietary document formats continue to improve and the suite's features continue to evolve, we expect that in the near future KOffice will be ready to meet the needs of all but the most demanding areas of the enterprise."

"With this release the KOffice team has delivered a very stable and complete office package," said KDE and SuSE developer Waldo Bastian. "KOffice takes full advantage of the new printing support offered by KDE 2.2. For example, each KOffice component allows you to email your documents in the PDF format to your colleagues, or simply to fax them. KOffice is tightly integrated with the rest of KDE, which makes it friendly on system resources. And thanks to the powerful KParts component technology, it is very flexible and extensible."

This release includes the following components: KWord (a frame-based, full-featured word processor); KPresenter (a presentation application); KSpread (a spreadsheet application); Kontour (a vector-drawing application); Kivio (a flowchart application); KChart (a chart drawing application); KFormula (a formula editor); and filters (for importing documents created by, or exporting documents for use with, other office suites or office programs).

KOffice and all its components are available for free under Open Source licenses from the KDE server and its mirrors. As a result of the dedicated efforts of hundreds of translators, KOffice 1.1 is available in 28 languages.

More information about KOffice, including Release Notes, a list of changes since the KOffice 1.0 release, and a KOffice FAQ, are available at the KOffice website.

Index

• Installing Binary Packages
• Library Requirements
• Binary Package Locations
• Downloading and Compiling KOffice
• Source Packages
• Library Requirements
• Compiler Requirements
• Further Instructions
• Application Descriptions
• KWord
• KPresenter
• KSpread
• Kontour
• Kivio
• KChart
• KFormula
• filters
• About KOffice
• Corporate KOffice Sponsors
• Press Contacts

Installing Binary Packages

Binary Packages. Some distributors choose to provide binary packages of KOffice for certain versions of their distribution. Some of these binary packages for KOffice 1.1 will be available for free download under http://download.kde.org/stable/koffice-1.1/ or under the equivalent directory at one of the many KDE ftp server mirrors. Please note that the KDE team is not responsible for these packages as they are provided by third parties -- typically, but not always, the distributor of the relevant distribution (if you cannot find a binary package for your distribution, please read the KDE Binary Package Policy).

Library Requirements. The library requirements for a particular binary package varies with the system on which the package was compiled. Please bear in mind that some binary packages may require a newer version of Qt and/or KDE than was distributed with the distribution version for which the binary package is listed below. For general library requirements for KOffice, please see the text at Source Code - Library Requirements.

Package Locations. At the time of this release, pre-compiled packages are available for:

• Caldera Systems (README)
• OpenLinux-3.1
  • kdelibs 2.2: Intel x86 (i386)
  • kdelibs 2.1.2: Intel x86 (i386)
• Conectiva Linux (README)
• 7.0: Intel x86 (i386)
• Debian GNU/Linux (package "koffice"):
• ftp.debian.org: sid (devel)
• kde.debian.net: potato (2.2)
• Linux Mandrake:
  • Cooker: Intel x86 (i586)
  • 8.0: Intel x86 (i586), PowerPC (ppc); and HP/Intel IA-64 (ia64)
• RedHat Linux (README):
  • 7.x: Intel x86 (i386); HP/Intel IA-64 (ia64); Alpha (alpha); and IBM S390 (s390); please see the noarch directory for common files
• SuSE Linux (README):
  • kdelibs 2.2
  • 7.2: Intel x86 (i386); and HP/Intel IA-64 (ia64); please see the noarch directory for common files
  • 7.1: Intel x86 (i386), PowerPC (ppc); Alpha (alpha); and Sun Sparc (sparc); please see the noarch directory for common files
  • 7.0: Intel x86 (i386), PowerPC (ppc); and IBM S390 (s390); please see the noarch directory for common files
  • 6.4: Intel x86 (i386); please see the noarch directory for common files
  • kdelibs 2.1.2 and kdesupport 2.1.1
  • 7.2: Intel x86 (i386); and HP/Intel IA-64 (ia64); please see the noarch directory for common files
  • 7.1: Intel x86 (i386), PowerPC (ppc), Alpha (alpha); and Sun Sparc (sparc); please see the noarch directory for common files
  • 7.0: Intel x86 (i386), PowerPC (ppc); and IBM S390 (s390); please see the noarch directory for common files
  • 6.4: Intel x86 (i386); please see the noarch directory for common files
• Tru64 Systems: 4.0e,f,g, or 5.x (README.Tru64)

Please check the servers periodically for pre-compiled packages for other distributions. More binary packages may become available over the coming days and weeks; in particular, RedHat packages are expected tomorrow and Debian packages are expected late this or early next week.

#### Downloading and Compiling KOffice

Source Packages. The source packages for KOffice 1.1 are available for free download at http://download.kde.org/stable/koffice-1.1/src/ or in the equivalent directory at one of the many KDE ftp server mirrors.

Library Requirements. KOffice requires recent versions of Qt and kdelibs, and even more recent versions are recommended.

• Required: KOffice 1.1 requires qt-x11-2.2.4 or greater, kdesupport-2.1.x (not needed if using KDE 2.2), and kdelibs-2.1.2 or greater. The KDE packages are available from the KDE ftp servers at http://download.kde.org/stable/2.1.1/distribution/ and http://download.kde.org/stable/2.1.2/distribution/. Please note, however, that kdelibs-2.1.1 will cause some crashes and anti-aliased font problems. Moreover, both kdelibs-2.1.1 and kdelibs-2.1.2 will not properly accept .doc documents in the file selection dialog (see the release notes for a workaround).
   
  For more information on these kdelibs releases, please see the KDE 2.1.1 press release and the KDE 2.1.2 press release.

 

• Recommended: The KOffice team recommends the use of qt-x11-2.3.1 and kdelibs-2.2. Kdelibs-2.2 provide a few additional features, such as improved printing support (kdeprint), a scanner plugin, and proper recognition of .doc files in the file selector dialog. KDE 2.2 is available from http://www.kde.org/stable/2.2/. Please note that the kdesupport package has been discontinued for KDE 2.2.x due to the fact that most distributions already provide the libraries and programs, which were included in that package. If you still require this package, you may use one of the snapshots.
   
  For more information on the kdelibs-2.2 release, please see the release announcement.

Compiler Requirements. Please note that some components of KOffice 1.1 (such as the Quattro Pro^® import filter and the new KChart) will not compile with older versions of gcc/egcs, such as egcs-1.1.2 or gcc-2.7.2. At a minimum gcc-2.95-* is required.

Further Instructions. For further instructions on compiling and installing KOffice, please consult the installation instructions.

Application Descriptions

In addition to the features described below for each application, each KOffice applications provides embedding of other KOffice documents/components (e.g., a spreadsheet can be embedded in a word processing document and accessed/edited from inside KWord), a modern print dialog (including numerous predefined page sizes, configurable margins, etc.) and print preview, import of images and clip-art (.wmf format), scanning support and scripting via KDE's DCOP mechanism.

KWord

KWord is a FrameMaker-like word-processing and desktop publishing application. KWord's features include:

• paragraph style sheets (borders, alignment, spacing, indentation, bullet points, tab stops, page breaks, and font type, style, color and size), together with a stylist to edit, add, remove and update styles (a number of predefined styles are provided);
• a frame orientation, suitable for simple desktop publishing (DTP);
• numerous preset as well as custom page sizes;
• multiple columns per page;
• headers and footers (including different first page headers/footers);
• variables, such as page number, company name, user name, document summary, date and time or a custom variable;
• tables;
• embedding of text frames, images and clip-art (.wmf files);
• chapter numbering;
• auto-generation of table of contents;
• auto-correction and spell checking; and
• templates.

More information about KWord features, as well as many screenshots, are available at the KWord website.

KPresenter

KPresenter is a presentation application. Its features include:

• inserting and editing rich text (with bullet points, indentation, spacing, colors, fonts, etc.);
• embedding images and clip-art (.wmf files);
• inserting auto-forms;
• setting many object properties (background, many types of gradients, pen, shadow, rotation, object specific settings, etc.);
• working with objects (resizing, moving, lowering, raising, etc.);
• grouping/ungrouping objects;
• headers/footers;
• advanced undo/redo;
• setting background (color, gradients, pictures, clip-arts, etc.);
• assigning effects for animating objects and defining effects for changing slides;
• playing screen presentations with effects;
• print as PostScript;
• creating HTML slideshows with a few mouse clicks;
• templates (pre- and user-defined);
• using XML as the document format; and
• a Presentations Structure Viewer.

More information about KPresenter, including some screenshots, is available at the KPresenter website.

KSpread

KSpread is a scriptable spreadsheet program which provides both table-oriented sheets and support for complex mathematical formulas and statistics. KSpread features include:

• multiple tables/sheets per document;
• templates;
• multiple chart formats for displaying data graphically;
• headers and footers;
• over 100 formulas, including standard deviation, variance, present value of annuities and much more;
• sorting;
• scripting;
• lists;
• cell data validity checking with configurable warnings/actions;
• comments;
• series (days of week, months of year, numbers, etc.);
• conditional coloring of cells;
• hyperlinks;
• row and column customization (size, show/hide, font type, style and size, etc.); and
• cell customization (data/number format, precision, border, alignment, rotation, background color and pattern, font type, style and size, etc.).

More information about KSpread, including some screenshots, is available at the KSpread website.

Kontour

Kontour is a vector drawing program which aims to provide similar functionality to Corel Draw^TM or Adobe Illustrator^TM. Kontour's features currently include:

• many tools (points, line, freehand, bezier, rectangle, polygon, ellipse/circle);
• layers and grids;
• to front/back;
• visible grids/align to grid;
• group/ungroup;
• export as image or EPS;
• split views and multiple views of the same document;
• object properties (such as fill, color, line patter, line width and rounded corners for a rectangle);
• mirror and rotate;
• text along object; and
• align/distribute.

More information about Kontour, including some screenshots, is available at the Kontour website.

Kivio

Kivio is a flowcharting program which offers advanced flowcharting abilities. Objects are scriptable, and a backend plugin system will provide objects with unlimited abilities. For example, an object could convert a directory of C++ header files and into a graphical class map, or an object could explore and map out a specified network. The selected scripting language chosen is Python, though knowledge of Python or programming is not required to use Kivio. Kivio's features include:

• dynamically loadable stencils with support for various attributes, such as border width, foreground color and fill style (gradient, solid pattern, pixmap, arrow heads and text);
• a built-in stencil builder, which permits you to create your own stencils without doing any programming;
• layers for stencil layout (for example, if you are laying out a floor plan, one layer can contain furniture, while walls and structural shapes go on another, and wiring on yet another);
• multiple pages per document;
• grouping/ungrouping;
• clipboard history for pasting previously copied stencils;
• customizable helper lines for easy alignment;
• sub-selections (for stencils which are made up of numerous small shapes); and
• a dynamically resizing grid (the grid scale becomes finer as you zoom in).

More information about Kivio, including a tutorial, screenshots, and information on obtaining additional stencils, is available at the Kivio website.

KChart

KChart is a chart drawing application which can be used to embed charts into your KOffice documents, such as a report written with KWord. Besides providing the usual charting capabilities, KChart is both easy to use and highly configurable. It provides:

• default values for all parameter settings, all of which may be changed at any time after initializing/drawing the chart;
• automatic computation or easy configuration of axis values; and
• specification of size values (axis/grid line width, font sizes, bar width, dataset gap, pie chart radius, etc.) in either absolute pixels or relative to the window size (this makes your chart independent of the window size).

More information about KChart, including some screenshots, is available at the KChart website.

KFormula

KFormula is an easy-to-use formula editor which provides basic input facilities and support functionality. Features include:

• numerous predefined symbols, including delimiters, matrices, indices, roots, fractions, integrals and brackets;
• easy Greek symbol insertion;
• intelligent cursor movement;
• advanced syntax highlighting; and
• multi-level undo support.

More information about KFormula, including some screenshots, is available at the KFormula website.

KOffice filters

KOffice includes a number of filters for importing MS Office and Corel Office documents as well as documents in other formats. The current status of these filters is available at the KOffice filters website.

KOffice is part of the KDE project. KDE is an independent, collaborative project by hundreds of developers worldwide to create a sophisticated, customizable and stable desktop environment employing a component-based, network-transparent architecture. KDE is working proof of the power of the Open Source "Bazaar-style" software development model to create first-rate technologies on par with and superior to even the most complex commercial software.

For more information about KDE, please visit KDE's web site. For more information about KOffice, please visit KOffice's web site where you can find, among other things, information on contributing to KOffice.

Besides the valuable and excellent efforts by the KOffice developers themselves, significant support for KOffice development has been provided by MandrakeSoft (which sponsors KOffice developers David Faure and Laurent Montel), theKompany.com (which contributed Kivio to KOffice), and Klarälvdalens Datakonsult AB (which contributed the new KChart to KOffice). Thanks!