Putting office suites to the test
Interface
The SoftMaker Office interface design looks much like the office suites already discussed, even as far as sporting a sidebar to make better use of widescreen monitors. Compared with the previous two free office solutions, the speedy pace of SoftMaker Office is striking. The individual modules are not only quicker to launch, the suite also scrolls through long documents more capably and completes its searches in document or large tables in no time.
Language Support
SoftMaker Office has all the functions necessary for daily use, and you can customize individual features to tweak the appearance. The office suite only reveals some of its unique selling points when you look through the menus: In the Standard edition, SoftMaker Office provides commercial dictionaries for 20 languages and thesauri in eight languages, and the Professional version adds Berlitz dictionaries for translations to and from English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish (Figure 6).
Specifically, without installing additional tools, users of different nationalities have dictionaries of foreign loan words and universal dictionaries at their disposal in English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian for translation support. You do not need any training to use the intuitive interface. For spelling corrections, SoftMaker Office uses the same free Hunspell checks found in OpenOffice and LibreOffice.
The office suite from Nuremberg uses an in-house file format by default, although it also imports and exports the most popular formats from the Microsoft realm. SoftMaker Office generates simple text files as well as ODF documents, so it can also exchange data with LibreOffice and OpenOffice. The program additionally exports existing documents into PDF and the open EPUB formats (for e-book readers).
SoftMaker Office fared especially well in the lab when processing more complex and older MS Office documents. Manual intervention was not required for demanding layouts or extensive tables, and it replaced unavailable fonts with more suitable alternatives than its competitors.
Yet it stumbled when it came to reading documents properly in OOXML format. Graphics, tables, and special paragraph formatting were broadly imported correctly, but placeholders were not fully applied. Predefined symbols also posed problems for the conversion filter. However, manual rework was kept within limits, meaning that this office suite pulled ahead of LibreOffice and OpenOffice (Figure 7).
Teamwork
The SoftMaker Office conversion filters also accept comments in documents from other file formats. However, the way these are displayed takes some getting used to: As with other test subjects, it displays the comments to the right of the main text with a color-highlighted reference, although they disappear behind the sidebar. To display comments without having to scroll horizontally, you can collapse the sidebar with View | Sidebar | Hide.
As with the other office suites, you can edit existing comments in a context menu that appears after right-clicking on the comment. SoftMaker Office has fewer context-sensitive actions from which to choose, although it offers a number of formatting options that are of little help in annotations.
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Fedora 40 Beta Released Soon
With the official release of Fedora 40 coming in April, it's almost time to download the beta and see what's new.
-
New Pentesting Distribution to Compete with Kali Linux
SnoopGod is now available for your testing needs
-
Juno Computers Launches Another Linux Laptop
If you're looking for a powerhouse laptop that runs Ubuntu, the Juno Computers Neptune 17 v6 should be on your radar.
-
ZorinOS 17.1 Released, Includes Improved Windows App Support
If you need or desire to run Windows applications on Linux, there's one distribution intent on making that easier for you and its new release further improves that feature.
-
Linux Market Share Surpasses 4% for the First Time
Look out Windows and macOS, Linux is on the rise and has even topped ChromeOS to become the fourth most widely used OS around the globe.
-
KDE’s Plasma 6 Officially Available
KDE’s Plasma 6.0 "Megarelease" has happened, and it's brimming with new features, polish, and performance.
-
Latest Version of Tails Unleashed
Tails 6.0 is based on Debian 12 and includes GNOME 43.
-
KDE Announces New Slimbook V with Plenty of Power and KDE’s Plasma 6
If you're a fan of KDE Plasma, you'll be thrilled to hear they've announced a new Slimbook with an AMD CPU and the latest version of KDE Plasma desktop.
-
Monthly Sponsorship Includes Early Access to elementary OS 8
If you want to get a glimpse of what's in the pipeline for elementary OS 8, just set up a monthly sponsorship to help fund its continued existence.
-
DebConf24 to be Held in South Korea
Busan will be the location of the latest DebConf running July 28 through August 4