Ubuntu Tips n Tricks

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

How to Install Microsoft Office on Ubuntu Linux

Posted: 06 Apr 2010 03:30 AM PDT

How to Install Microsoft Office on Ubuntu Linux: I've shown you the steps in installing Adobe Photoshop on Ubuntu Linux. This time, allow me teach you how to install Microsoft Word on Ubuntu. As some of you may know, I still use MS Word in favor of OpenOffice.org Writer. So if you are like me or if you have other reasons not to ditch Microsoft Office completely, perhaps you should follow this guide of installing MS Office on Ubuntu or on just about any other Linux distributions.

Note: I was using MS Office 2003 inside Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" but this guide may also work if you are using other MS Office versions or other Ubuntu versions.

1. Install Wine via Software Center, Synaptic Package Manager or via the command line:

$ sudo apt-get install wine

2. Download some essential packages via this command:

$ wget http://www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks chmod +x winetricks ./winetricks msxml6 gdiplus gecko vcrun2005 ie6

3. Now install these packages:

$ sh winetricks msxml6 gdiplus gecko vcrun2005 ie6

4. Configure Wine by navigating to Applications --> Wine --> Configure Wine, and then set "Windows Version" to Windows Vista inside the Applications tab.

5. From the "Libraries" tab, look for rpcrt4.dll and msxml3.dll and add them to "Existing overrides". Edit Existing overrides and make sure the load order is set to "Native (Windows)".

6. Download rpcrt4.dll (.zip) from HERE, and then extract it.

7. From the Wine menu, browse C:\ drive and navigate to windows/system32 directory. Copy the downloaded rpcrt4.dll inside system32 to overwrite or replace the existing rpcrt4.dll.

8. Put Microsoft Office installer, click on setup, and just follow the normal installation process.

9. After installing MS Office, configure Wine again and set Windows version back to Windows XP.

10. You can now use MS Office inside Ubuntu Linux by navigating to Applications --> Programs --> Microsoft Office.