Need Help with PlayOnLinux - MS Word will not launch

[FaunCB]

Alright bub, I get that you're used to MS Word, but before you keep jumping on the MS stuff, lemme ask you something [and I don't mean to be patronizing either]: What do you need in MS Word?

I'm not going to be one of the linux geeks on here and try to preach about "Oh but open so-" no, nonono. If I had it my way I'd be on pages right now and it'd be great.

Short of the short is... Well, theres a lot that is better than MSW and holy shit have I loved it since I ditched word. Theres 3.... Technically 4 programs I tend to use, only 2 that I can even recommend.

Focus Writer
Libre Office
Nano
Abiword.

Focus writer is ingenious in that it has all the functions of MSW with the additive that all the tools and distracting shit goes away, gives you a background to drift into when you need to think, and your text. When I am writing my stuff [ manuals, code notes, bug report, even a story I am working on ] it tends to be in that. If not...

Libre Office. But you know what that is so fuck it.

Abiword is basically office 2003 with 8 tools added on that do what the 2007 tools do with a bit of a twist. Its light, runs on anything, and used to be my go-to till I found FW. Though I still use it and install it to everything. It has reformatting tools built in for MS docs so you can reallign everything, though I would do that on google docs [I'll explain that in a moment].

Nano. Its nano, just a terminal writer. If I can't reformat shit or just need something down I throw it in here and copy it back out or save it.

Since you have a big ass book, here's what I would do.

Go to google docs, open that shit up, let it format it out to what it is, then you can actually translate that to ODT on their site. It has, for the most part, worked for me and I only had one fuck up in doing that but it was my fault anyways (all the spaces poofed).

I hate MSW. Have for quite a while. If you really REALLY need it (egh) go get the latest wine, LATEST, pop open winecfg. set it to XP mode, go to packages, get all the MSV## packages but only the ones with numbers and maybe skip 120, then get the vcomp pachages, then go to graphics and set it to make a desktop and run that space. Make sure you have the space you need too since you can't resize the desktop.

Alternatively, get virtualbox, install windows, run in seemless mode, run it that way.

Again, I hate MSW, and the sooner you jump off that pile of crap the better in my opinion. I'm not even a linux nerd, I just know what works for me.

[Kocytean]

Not the info you were after - but as a fellow writer - yWriter5 works flawlessly through WINE, as does Scrivener, and also Storybox2.

I find Word too unwieldy for writing anything with actual chapters and book specific formatting.

Scrivener Linux Beta is discontinued but still available if you want to try a native program in Linux.

The three I listed above I can confirm working without problems in Fedora 21 - 25 / openSUSE Leap42.1 - 42.2 and Tumbleweed, Ubuntu Gnome, and Korora 25.

Worth a look into is a problem I had with word (albeit over a year ago) where it would crap itself unless I had the Microsoft specific fonts installed in Linux.

[MEC_777]

The short answer of what do I need in MS word? Cross-compatibility, mainly.

You weren't patronizing at all. I prefer people be blunt and up-front with me. Get down to 'brass tax' as Saul would say.

Let me explain a few things so you understand my situation a bit more and why I'd like to get MSW working on my laptop: I was primarily a windows user. It's still my go-to OS on my gaming PC, because gaming. I was brought-up and taught MSW like most people were. It's what I know. That being said, I am not one of those people who are hell-bent on using one thing and one thing only for life, especially if there's a better solution out there.

I was shown the light that is Linux about 4 years ago, via these forums (back when it was Tek Synd). Since then, I've been learning and gaining more and more confidence in it and I absolutely love it.

Onto the book: This is the first book/novel I've written and it's book one of a multi-book series. As I mentioned before, it's up to 315 pages, 160k words (with 1.15 spacing and size 12 font). There isn't one single place I sit and work on this. Most of it has been written at work while things are slow (it's quiet and people don't bother me at the office ). Only Windows 7 and MSW on the workstation PC and they restrict what we can and cannot install. When I go home, Sometime I work on it on my gaming PC (again MSW) or on my laptop (which is now only Linux (win 10 would not let me dual boot on this machine).

So 3 different machines. When I tried opening the docx with Libre, it does not retain the proper spacing, font, etc. which after saving it (in docx) then re-opening in MSW, things are then further messed up. With being such a large document, I fear loosing some of the book without knowing or having the document become "broken". My mother-in-law wanted to read it and help edit, so I sent her a copy a while back. She opened it with Libre on her home PC (running Linux Mint) and some of the spacing throughout the entire document was messed up. It inserted large gaps (like 2 pages of blank space between paragraphs) and made it near impossible to work with.

I keep several back up copies of the document in multiple locations across multiple machines, so I'm not worried about loosing my book, but I need to be able to open, work on and save it in Linux and Windows without these compatibility issues.

So that's basically where I'm at. If there's another program that works on both windows and Linux and retains the correct formatting, then I'm all for that! I just have not been aware of any to date.

I have been planning on installing windows 10 in KVM on the laptop with passthrough to the 940m GPU (just to learn how to do it), but I haven't done enough research on that yet to make an attempt.

[MEC_777]

Thanks, I will check out those programs.

I'm just very much used to Word. It can get cumbersome with such a large document, but I've learned some tricks to navigate and I keep a separate doc with brief chapter outline/plot notes so I can easily find a specific part to jump to.

[MEC_777]

yWriter5 (version 6 is out now) and Storybox 2 look very similar. I noticed Storybox 2 says it can export to various ebook formats, hassle-free. Do you know if yWriter can also do this?

I will probably give both a try and see which I like best. I wish I knew about programs like this when I started writing the book 5 years ago!!! lol. Thanks again for suggesting them.

Just curious, which of those two do you prefer to use?

[MEC_777]

Oh my.... I just checked out Scrivener...

Using one of these would have been SOOOO helpful over the last few years. Will definitely be switching over. Just need to decide which one. lol.

[Dynamic_Gravity]

.docx tends to break a bunch of stuff. Why don't you just save/convert everything to a .doc as this works a lot better with libre office and the others.

Alternatively, for a native desktop client you could just use WPS Office for linux, if you have to have .docx.

If native desktop isn't your thing then just use Word Online as it's free, and online (runs in browser, you will need a MS account). So all you'd need is a web browser. You could even get the paid version if you so fancy.

[Kocytean]

Scrivener would be the heavyweight champion of writing software, but yWriter is free and almost as fully functional, it just lacks some of the visual polish.
My personal favourite of the three is the Windows version of Scrivener running in Linux under WINE.

You can export your work as almost any file type you can think of. It makes automatic backups via either word count or time intervals. It has never crashed or lost work (in my personal experience) but I am not talking about the discontinued native Linux version.

I also like that it is set up to easily work with character cards, mind maps, notes per chapter and scene, distraction free full screen that is easily toggled on the fly. Support for multiple language dictionaries.

You can get a 30 day free trial and what I would do is install it, then create a new project. Create as many act, chapter and scenes as you think you need, and the copy in your existing work page by page. You can insert more acts, chapters and scenes wherever and whenever you like without breaking continuity or formatting. See if it looks like something useful for you and then go from there.

If you are unable/dont want to buy a license, yWriter would be my second choice. Not as much visual polish or quite as many options, but is 100% free (not FOSS though) and rock solid stable. It doesn't look all that nice in standard trim, but can be customized to a point, but does lack a few features of Scrivener. It also has never crashed and I have used it off and on over the last 5 years or so. The guy who created yWriter is a software engineer and an author, so there's that.

Storybox is also awesome. I like to use it for specific projects, mostly as it is a predominantly grey colour palate and is great for working on without eye strain. If the project is large and complicated, I still prefer scrivener.

The only reason I have all 3 (and often more) installed at the same time is for keeping multiple current projects separate from each other the lazy way.

[MEC_777]

I've watched some tutorials on Scrivener and it's exactly what I need for the size of book I'm working on. I don't mind buying a license for it (not that expensive). It allows for multiple installations so I can install it on all the machines I use which is perfect.

As a very visual-oriented person, some of those features are a must for me. Thanks for introducing me to these programs, I would have never known otherwise and would have continued on struggling with a single massive word doc. lol.

So yeah, forget MSW. Thanks everyone! I think we can call this case closed.