The press release begins, “What does Linux need to
succeed on the desktop? A fully Microsoft-compatible office suite,
most people would say. TextMaker for Linux, the word processor from
German software vendor SoftMaker, might very well be the first
building block towards this goal.”
Here’s the rest of said press release, verbatim:
The current state of word processing in Linux is sad: One program
is too bulky and slow, another application launches quickly but has
an anemic feature set. And some old Unix word processors might
be feature-rich, but have a user interface that the Microsoft Word
crowd would regard as “hostile”.How about a smarter solution? A word processor that launches
lightning-fast, needs little memory, does not require complicated
setup and still has the full feature set of a modern high-end word
processor? A word processor that reads and writes Microsoft Word
6/95/97/2000/XP files without losing formatting or content? Look
no further: TextMaker for Linux is here!TextMaker for Linux provides on-the-fly spell-checking; picture
import in 14 different file formats; tables; positioning frames
for text and pictures; footnotes and endnotes; character styles and
paragraph styles; an integrated address book and mail-merging:
TextMaker has all this and much more. TextMaker lets you create,
and design, impressive documents with minimal effort.Beta 2 of TextMaker for Linux is now available as a free download
from SoftMaker’s web site at http://www.softmaker.com
This new beta has improved font handling, bug fixes and
performance enhancements, and also adds support for international
(for example Greek, Cyrillic, Central European) characters.The retail price of the final package will be US$49.95.
TextMaker is the first component of SoftMaker Office
anywhere, an office suite for Windows, Windows CE, and
Linux which also features a Microsoft Excel-compatible
spreadsheet, a database package, and a PIM/groupware combo.
SoftMaker Office anywhere will be available in “regular”
desktop and mobile editions as well as a client/server
edition running over the LAN or Internet.
If you download and try TextMaker (free registration required), please post your comments below…
