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How to Install Microsoft Office on Ubuntu Linux

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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 winetricks:

$ wget http://www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks

3. Now install winetricks and other 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.

Running MS Office Word 2003 inside Ubuntu 10.04 “Lucid Lynx”

42 comments

  1. Unfortunately this does not work on all hardware. I have yet to see a legal version of MS Office 2007 running in the Philippines. OOo does all that most people need or require. In my opinion it makes MS Office look like an overpriced dinosaur.

    Brian

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  2. Strage.. I am using completely different override set and it works too (patched wine 1.1.41 with pulseaudio and ole32 patches, set to WinXP).
    It is on Karmic Koala, but it shouldn't matter

    Suggestion: insert some semilcons in that long command that starts with wget, it won't work this way

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  3. Fixed the error. Thanks mmlosh :-)

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  4. hmm.. I have carefully re-read that winetricks part.

    Either there is one more missing semicolon in the 1st command and 2nd one is extraneous and useless
    OR
    1st command should end at current semicolon (preferably),
    but then 3) should say "Download wine quick&dirty library/font/anything installation tool"

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  5. @mmlosh: I made it simpler this time :-)

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  6. What about Access, does it work fine ?

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  7. Ken Starks – Blog of Helios

    “Personally, I have all but written off the current generation of computer users. We have had and will have our victories, but the genius of Bill Gates was not in keeping an operating system cobbled together. His genius was understanding human nature and behavior.

    He only had to hold monopoly status long enough to ingrain Microsoft Windows into our society. We would do the rest for him. The Anti Trust sanctions leveled against him pale in comparison to the profits realized by his monopolization of the desktop.

    We are lazy, and as a rule, most of us would rather deal with the devil we know than the devil we don't. We detest change.

    Gates understood that...and built the most powerful business and political lobby in our history based on that knowledge”

    http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2009/06/linux-against-poverty-it-is-go.html

    Brian

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  8. I have multiple Office 97 to 2007 install's here :

    http://www.wine-reviews.net/

    Just look in the Archive..

    Cheers,
    Tom

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  9. hmmm.... I doubt if wine can run MS Office. As for my case, wine always crashes Window based softwares. The only window based program that runs well with wine is the Notepad. Dude, .... NOTEPAD... I hate WINE. I don't find it to be helpful enough.

    Another alternative though, you can use Virtual Box and install a Window OS. In this way, you can run almost every window based software.

    Here's an example of my installation: http://wsmuniversity.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-install-e-sword-in-ubuntu-better.html

    What do you think?

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  10. AnonymousJune 08, 2010

    can you tell version of wine?

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  11. I keep getting connection refused when trying to install the winetricks. Please help.


    sh winetricks msxml6 gdiplus gecko vcrun2005 ie6
    Executing wget -O msxml6_x86.msi -nd -c --read-timeout=300 --retry-connrefused --header Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/a/f/eafb8ee7-667d-4e30-bb39-4694b5b3006f/msxml6_x86.msi
    msxml6_x86.msi: Permission denied
    ------------------------------------------------------
    Note: command 'wget -O msxml6_x86.msi -nd -c --read-timeout=300 --retry-connrefused --header Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/a/f/eafb8ee7-667d-4e30-bb39-4694b5b3006f/msxml6_x86.msi' returned status 1. Aborting.

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  12. I'm trying to install MS Office 07 in Linux Mint 9: Isadora, and I did everything you stated up to 8. However, I'm confused as to what Step 8 is supposed to read as. Do I double click on it? If so, I get this:

    Archive: /home/cdjoya/Downloads/winoffice2007-20070404.exe
    [/home/cdjoya/Downloads/winoffice2007-20070404.exe]
    End-of-central-directory signature not found. Either this file is not
    a zipfile, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part archive. In the
    latter case the central directory and zipfile comment will be found on
    the last disk(s) of this archive.
    zipinfo: cannot find zipfile directory in one of /home/cdjoya/Downloads/winoffice2007-20070404.exe or
    /home/cdjoya/Downloads/winoffice2007-20070404.exe.zip, and cannot find /home/cdjoya/Downloads/winoffice2007-20070404.exe.ZIP, period.

    Any help?

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  13. chris : right click and run it in wine , not in archive manager :)

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  14. Hi. I right click the MS Office setup in a CD and select 'Open with Wine Windows Program Loader', but I am prompted with message: "The file /media/My Disc/setup.exe is not marked as executable. If this was downloaded or copied from an untrusted source, it may be dangerous to run. For more details, read about the executable bit."

    Help please?

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  15. I tried to download step 6. rpcrt4.dll (.zip)
    Once I click download from webpage, i get this error

    /tmp/ReimageRepair-3.exe could not be opened, because the associated helper application does not exist. Change the association in your preferences.

    Any help??

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  16. How do i do steps 7 and 8. Can someone help me understand. In step 7 i don't know how to "Copy the downloaded rpcrt4.dll inside system32 to overwrite or replace the existing rpcrt4.dll." And in step 8 what does it mean to "Put Microsoft Office installer, click on setup, and just follow the normal installation process."

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  17. I would appreciate clarification of the following line. It does not work in my terminal:
    sh winetricks msxml6 gdiplus gecko vcrun2005 ie6

    Thank you.

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  18. I get an error report and a message to install
    Windows Vista update (KB 950759)
    Windows Live ID Sign-in Assistant
    When it tries to download the files, I get an error:
    An error occurred downloading the following resource:
    http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/6/9/F693B7D8-4984-46FF-9366-480D28E1F2E8/VistaKB950759/IE-Security-x86.msu

    Date: 30/10/2010 5:58:23 PM

    See the setup log file located at 'C:\windows\temp\VSD73cf.tmp\install.log' for more information.

    Any ideas how to resolve it?

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  19. OK, following the previous comment about the Vista update, I tried an older Office CD and didn't get the update error, but did get this one:

    fixme:wininet:InternetGetConnectedState always returning LAN connection.

    That was a long with a send error report box.

    I'm just seeing if I can install Office but it's only out of curiosity, so I can live without it.

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  20. Hi, i get the following message "The file /media/My Disc/setup.exe is not marked as executable. If this was downloaded or copied from an untrusted source, it may be dangerous to run. For more details, read about the executable bit."

    help. please.

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  21. I got the same message as you The Foodie.

    I found this information on the internet and it works for me:

    1. Navigate to the executable and right click on the file
    2. Choose 'Open with other Application...'
    3. Expand the 'Use a custom command' section
    4. Enter the command 'wine' (without the quotes) in the newly exposed box


    Now you should be able to start it by right clicking the file, then choose 'Open with' and finally choose 'wine'. It could take some time before something starts happening, but hang in there

    If you want to avoid the righ click procedure mentioned the last paragraph you can make the action the default launch action by:

    1. Selecting the file and right click it
    2. Choose 'Properties'
    3. Open the 'Open with' tab
    4. Select the 'wine' option
    5. Close the dialog


    Now all exe files should start like you would start any file.

    Hope you are okay now.

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  22. HI,

    At the outset I would like to say that I'm beginner with linux :/
    I have ubuntu 10.04 and installed wine. Under wine I have successfully installed Microsoft Office 2003, and works fine. The problem is that I can not open any files from other partitions than linux: for example windows xp partition or external drive. Is there any way to fix it?

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  23. I have followed the steps and I found an issue. Any of the Office applications was working because at some point they entered in a loop calling using NtConnectPort (a RCP call).

    That function is included in the rpcrt4.dll library. So i decided to change settings to (built-in, native) and ... done! It worked an actually improved the start up speed.

    I recommend to skip stpe 6.

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  24. Hi,

    To Anonymous - December 15. Have you tried to create a soft link in $HOME/.wine/dosdevices pointing to other partitions?

    It worked for me.

    The command should be: "ln --symbolic /media/Data/ g:"
    where "/media/Data/ is where the other partition is mounted and "g:" is the unit name that you want to create inside WINE.

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  25. Just installed wine 1.2.1 via Ubuntu software center and straight up installed M$ office 2007 without a hitch. everything is running i mean excel, word and powerpoint are running

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  26. gives me an error like this...

    Archive: /home/itadmin/Documents/Office2003Lite-SFX.exe
    [/home/itadmin/Documents/Office2003Lite-SFX.exe]
    End-of-central-directory signature not found. Either this file is not
    a zipfile, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part archive. In the
    latter case the central directory and zipfile comment will be found on
    the last disk(s) of this archive.
    zipinfo: cannot find zipfile directory in one of /home/itadmin/Documents/Office2003Lite-SFX.exe or
    /home/itadmin/Documents/Office2003Lite-SFX.exe.zip, and cannot find /home/itadmin/Documents/Office2003Lite-SFX.exe.ZIP, period.

    ReplyDelete
  27. please help.
    i installed wine but when i run window setup, i get an error msg "Microsoft office setup cannot continue because the installation source has been corrupted." any suggestion?

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  28. This does not work and I doubt anyone has gotten this to work......

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  29. this does work but i need some macros and stuff to get word fully funcional.easiest way to fix install problems is go to applications then wine then browse c drive. leave that window open and then open office iso from where u downloaded it with archive manager and just drag the file into a folder u make on the c: drive place u had left opened. then install from there making sure to mark all files as executable or set your ubuntu user account to admin instead of custom. Enjoy!

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  30. Thank you for this article. I successfully have MS Office 2007 working Ubuntu Linux very well. It isn't perfect (frooze up the GUI once), but I wouldn't expect that when ultimately, the software was not designed to run on the Linux environment

    Many Thanks once again

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  31. i have problem when i mail Marge in word 2003 attach source file excel file hange and give me error ['word could not re-establish a dde connection to microsoft excel to complete the current task] os linux mint install wine telly 7.2 working very good, ppt,doc,working god but when do mail Marge geting problem

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  32. Hi I'm up to step 8 and I'm just confirming...I need to put an MS Office disk in? New to Ubuntu and just learning how to do all of this so forgive me if I sound stupid. ta

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  33. hmm... Would be interesting to see see the same run-through for Office 2010/Wine 1.2.2 :D

    Good how-to though, thanks.

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  34. AnonymousMay 04, 2011

    You need to change this line :

    $ sh winetricks msxml6 gdiplus gecko vcrun2005 ie6

    To
    $ sh winetricks msxml6 gdiplus gecko vcrun2005 ie8

    because Microsoft discontinued download and support for IE6. I'm using the updated command, and it works fine.

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  35. AnonymousMay 29, 2011

    worked perfectly for me, currently running office 2007 on ubuntu 11.4, took the last poster's advice and used ie8 and i basically skipped steps 6 and 7.....

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  36. AnonymousJune 12, 2011

    hi i followed up to 6 but i got a program error and i cant access wine because of "serious errors"

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  37. AnonymousJuly 15, 2011

    hi, this works as advertised, thanx a lot for the tutorial and for the comments to all of you guys. but the startup of word is sooooo slooooooooooww! may be just my old machine. cheers.

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  38. The unfortunate reality is that many of us work in environments where MS Office is the standard and we need to maintain 100% compatibility with our colleagues.

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  39. PLEASE HELP, HOW DO I GET TO SYSTEM32?????? I CANT FIND THE WAY TO ACCESS THE FOLDER TO COPY THE .DLL

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  40. Very BIG thanks :)
    You saved my hours - if not days..

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  41. So can you run EXPLORER.EXE in wine?

    ReplyDelete