Ken Adams wrote: > The old ugly chestnut has reared its' head again for me. > > The only thing left to release me from Microsoft for ever has come back > to haunt me. > > I need to view Windows Publisher files. No editing is needed, just viewing. > > I haven't looked into this for sometime and an hour of googling hasn't > helped. > > SO....... > > How can I view Microsoft Windows files in Ubuntu Linux 8.04? > > Getting the files sent to me in a different format is not an option, St. > John Ambulance are still stuck in the Microsoft time warp. > > Rgds Ken > >
I did a quick search and I can't find a Publisher viewer as such. Even Microsoft seem to suggest installing the trial version of Publisher 2007 which after the trial version can be used to view Publisher files (although I don't think you can print them). If you already have a licensed copy of Publisher, it might be worth trying it in Wine (Wine should be in the Add/Remove Programs list, or in the applications list in Synaptic). It may work, as far as I know the standard Office apps now run. It is actually also listed on the Wine application database as Bronze, it will open files (see here: http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=9715) Unfortunately it doesn't appear to be listed as a working application on Crossover Office. Another thought for long term, would you be able to persuade the St Johns Ambulance to maybe look at using an open solution such as OpenOffice.org. If they're using Publisher then chances are the OpenOffice.org Drawing package will do everything they want. If the don't want to/can't try OpenOffice, maybe you could convince them to install PDF Creator (http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/) which is a printer driver for Windows (released under the GPL) which will act as a virtual printer which they could then print to. The output is in the form of a standard PDF file which can be opened (and printed) on anything with a PDF viewer. It's also possible to even save printouts into other formats such as PNG, JPG and BMP. Just a couple of ideas for you to think about anyway. I've been asked about Publisher a fair few times from both Windows users (asking me for a copy) and from other people using Linux who want to open Publisher files. It's a shame that the Publisher files can't be opened on anything running on Linux. To me it seems like a killer app. I guess it's down to the fact that M$ won't release the specs and it's too much work to reverse engineer? Anyway, hopefully this will help you out. Rob -- [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
