[Kde-nonlinux] Does OpenBSD Have a Spreadsheet That Prints Properly?

[Dave Feustel]

On Monday 13 June 2005 10:57 pm, Henry Miller wrote:
> On Monday 13 June 2005 04:53 pm, Dave Feustel wrote:
> > I write this as a person very committed to OpenBSD as a secure desktop.
> >
> > I can say from experience that, running with KDE, neither Kspread nor
> > Gnumeric on OpenBSD 3.6 are useable (by me, at least) for hard copy of even
> > simple spreadsheets.
> >
> > I am beginning to think *very* seriously about using a Windows computer
> > *just* to run MS Excel so I can get reliably and straightforwardly the hard
> > copy I need. Neither gnumeric nor kspread running on OpenBSD 3.6 qualify on
> > the basis of my brief  experience with those two programs.
> >
> > I will continue to use OpenBSD for accessing the internet, but my business
> > related computing/printing tasks may well have to be done on Windows.
> 
> Have you tried openOffice.org?   

Yes.

> Their spreadsheet has the most features of  
> any in the open source world.

It's too big and too slow for me until I am shown otherwise, and
I work completely alone (not by choice though).
 
> Much as I love koffice, it is sorely lacking developers, and it shows, 
> particularly in kspread.   That said, have you tried the very latest (Which 
> was either just released, or soon to be released?) some big printing bugs 
> were fixed in the last month, which might be enough for your needs.    

I have yet to successfully build even a single kde module on OpenBSD, although
I did build several versions of Qt which were prerequisites for new versions of KDE.
I would like to see KDE and gnu/gnome developers release OpenBSD ports for their 
software. I suspect that with those ports to work with, I could actually make some
meaningful contribution to their projects. I have a *lot* of computer program 
development experience, but my skills are dated (maybe even obsolete, certainly
not current) and my energy levels are no longer what they used to be (I'm 60 and 
definitely over the hill). 
 
> In any case, please submit bug reports for what you find.
> Development tends  to prioritize things that people care about first,
> and no bug can be fixed  until we know about it.

But if the developers don't run their software on OpenBSD, they won't
see the OpenBSD-specific bugs. This is my big problem with reporting
bugs. Nothing turns me off like the response "Well, it works on *my* machine."
I *know* when I have found a bug. Software testing is perhaps my strongest skill.

> 
> As a last resort, Wine can run Microsoft Office, which at least saves a 
> windows machine.  Though Wine runs best until Linux, so this might not be 
> useful to you.   Worth a try though.

I will probably take the more expensive, but simpler, approach and buy a
Windows computer and simply not connect it to the internet.