PlayOnLinux’s download page. Follow the directions there and you can’t go wrong.
Run the software for the first time and everything will be brought up to date, making it easy for you to install Microsoft Office. Click the “Install” button, then click the “Office” category:
Don’t do anything yet, though; you need your copy of Micrsoft Office ready. Find our CD and your product key.
Insert your Microsoft Office CD, if you have one. You need to figure out the CD’s mount point, so that you can correctly point PlayOnLinux toward it. Open your file browser of choice and browse to your CD. Press “Ctl” and “L”, and you should see the location of your CD within your computer’s file structure. Copy this and you’ll be ready to paste it during the installation process.
If you’re a netbook user, or if you’re a student who downloaded an Office ISO through your school’s partnership with Microsoft, it’s simplest to simply extract all files from the Office CD and then copy the path to the folder you’ve extracted everything into. This worked perfectly on my netbook.
Now the fun begins. Go back to your PlayOnLinux window and double-click the version of Office you want to install. This will begin the installation procedure. One of the first things you’ll be asked for is the location of your Microsoft Office CD:
If you see your CD here, great: just click it. If not, click “Other” and paste the location you found in the above step. From here on out everything should be smooth sailing: the program will install everything Microsoft Office needs to run, including Internet Explorer and the Microsoft fonts.
All you need to do is click “Next” a few times, and enter your Office product key. At the end you’ll be asked whether you want menu or desktop shortcuts for various Office elements. Choose where you want what and you should be good to go.
If you’re not asked about shortcuts it’s safe to assume the process didn’t finish for some reason. Don’t panic; just try again. On one of the systems I tested this process on I needed to repeat all steps, but everything worked perfectly after I did.
Getting software from one platform working on another is, by nature, complicated. PlayOnLinux takes a lot of this complication away, and it’s completely free. All I know is that I can now use Microsoft Word to edit manuals from my Mac and Windows friends using only my netbook, and that’s a blessing.
Do you think this process works well? Share your experience in the comments below. Alternatively, feel free to flame me for suggesting Linux users may occasionally want to use Microsoft Office instead of the ideologically pure alternatives.
(By) Justin Pot is a Boulder, Colorado based journalist and IT professional. His private corner of the web is JustinPot.com
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