Ini, Itu, dan Anu

Most of our computers today have 64 bit support capability and surely we want to utilize it to make use of those extra GB of RAM. Even with my deep love of beautiful Linux desktops, I can’t deny that I still need to use Microsoft Office. I’m already used to it, I know my way around it and there is no need for fear of document incompatibility when opening it in other computers (mostly MS. Windows of course).

This time I’m writing the step-by-step guide for installing 32 bit version of Microsoft Office in 64 bit Linux. For this guide, I’m using elementary OS luna which is based on Ubuntu Precise (12.04 LTS). Please feel free to adapt it to your favorite distro.

Please note that all of this command below must be run as standard user (not root).

1. Add Wine’s Ubuntu PPA repository.
   sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa
   
2. Update your repository.
   sudo apt-get update
3. Install Microsoft Truetype Fonts. This is needed for most Microsoft’s standard fonts such as Times New Roman.
   sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer
   
4. Install Wine.
   sudo apt-get install wine
   
5. Configure Winetricks. This is the most important part because you have to configure Wine to use 32 bit prefix instead of its default 64 bit since you are using 64 bit Linux. Run the command below then close the Wine configuration window.
   WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/.wine winecfg
   
6. Run Winetricks and choose “Select the default wine prefix” then click OK.
   winetricks
   
7. Choose “Install a Windows DLL or component” and click OK.
   
8. Choose “msxml3”, click OK and follow the next instruction.
   
9. Repeat step 7 & 8 for the following components:
   dotnet20, gdiplus, riched20, riched30 and vcrun2005
   Please make sure you install them in those order one by one or else you might get an error message.
10. After finished installing all of them, close winetricks, navigate to your Microsoft Office 2007 installer location and run the setup.exe
    
    Continue with the on screen instruction to install Microsoft Office 2007.
11. And voila! you are done. Now you have a fully functional 32 bit Microsoft Office 2007 in your 64 bit Linux desktop. One less reason to boot back to your Microsoft Windows desktop.

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Satrio G. Nugraha

Satrio is a self-proclaimed technology geek. He is currently employed by IBM Indonesia as an IT Specialist which handles IBM xSeries servers, IBM zSeries mainframes and multi vendor network devices. He listens to various kinds of musics (he personally believes that music should not be put into boxes such as genres and everybody is free to listen to whatever kind of music whenever they feel like it).

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Elementary OS, Featured, Linux Desktop, Microsoft Office, Ubuntu