<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//KDE//DTD DocBook XML V4.1-Based Variant V1.0//EN" "dtd/kdex.dtd" [
<!ENTITY kappname "&koffice;">
<!ENTITY package "koffice">
<!ENTITY % addindex "IGNORE">
<!ENTITY % English "INCLUDE" > <!-- change language only here -->
]>
<book lang="&language;">
<bookinfo>
<title>&koffice;</title>
<subtitle>A General Introduction</subtitle>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Jost</firstname>
<surname>Schenck</surname>
<affiliation><address><email>jost@schenck.de</email></address></affiliation>
</author>
<!-- TRANS:ROLES_OF_TRANSLATORS -->
</authorgroup>
<date>2001-06-02</date>
<releaseinfo>0.01.01</releaseinfo>
<abstract>
<para>
&koffice; is an integrated office suite for the K Desktop Environment
(&kde;).
</para>
</abstract>
<keywordset>
<keyword>KDE</keyword>
<keyword>KOffice</keyword>
</keywordset>
</bookinfo>
<chapter id="todo">
<title>Still to be done in this manual</title>
<para>
This is a list of things which still need work in this manual:
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
Write this list.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
Just about everything else.
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>
If anyone wants to help, let me know at the email address
below. Thanks.
</para>
<para>
Jost <email>jost@schenck.de</email>
</para>
</chapter>
<chapter id="introduction">
<title>Introduction</title>
<para>
&koffice; is an integrated office suite for the K Desktop Environment
(&kde;). &koffice; currently consists of the following programs:
</para>
<simplelist type="vert" columns="1">
<member>&kword; (a frames-based wordprocessor)</member>
<member>&kspread; (a spreadsheet application)</member>
<member>&kpresenter; (screen and slide presentations)</member>
<member>&kontour; (a vector drawing application)</member>
<member>&kformula; (an editor for mathematical formulae)</member>
<member>&kchart; (a charts/graphs drawing application)</member>
<member>&kivio; <!-- FIXME --></member>
<member>&kugar; <!-- FIXME --></member>
</simplelist>
<para>
Because they are based on the KParts component model, &koffice; programs
are designed to work very well with each other. Any &koffice; component
can be embedded in another &koffice; document. For instance, you can
insert a table which you created in &kspread; directly into a &kword;
document. In this way, complex, compound documents can be created using
&koffice; programs.
</para>
<para>
A plug-in mechanism makes it easy to extend the functionality of
&koffice;. Already, there are two applications, a macro recorder and
a calculator, which show how this can be done.
</para>
<para>
This manual only covers the general features of &koffice;, those that
are common to most or all programs in the suite. For detailed information
about the different programs, have a look at the other manuals.
</para>
<!--
<sect1 id="who-reads">
<title>What parts of this guide should I read?</title>
<note><para>
This section is not yet written.
</para></note>
</sect1>
-->
</chapter>
<chapter id="first-steps">
<title>First steps in &koffice;</title>
<para></para>
</chapter>
<chapter id="kparts">
<title>KParts - the building blocks of &koffice;</title>
<para>
Each &koffice; application is designed to fulfill very specific needs.
For example, &kspread; is a program for manipulating spreadsheets, while
&kword; is a program for word processing. By focusing on a specific
area, each program aims for perfection in exactly this area. However,
depending on what you do with &koffice;, you'll often want to take
advantage of functionality provided by different applications, but in
the <emphasis>same</emphasis> document.
</para>
<para>
Suppose that you are preparing a document in &kword; and want to
illustrate some point using a table. While &kword; provides its own
functionality for the insertion of tables, this may not be enough for
your needs. For example, you may want to use certain currency data
formats or to do calculations using spreadsheet formulae. Now, some
&kword; programmer certainly <emphasis>could</emphasis> try to implement
this functionality. However, &kword; would never be as good as &kspread;
in this field; and if it tried to implement all the functionality you
might possibly need, it would end up becoming unreasonably complex and
the source code would become impossible to maintain.
</para>
<para>
The alternative to this is KParts. Its philosophy is simple: let every
application do what it does best.
</para>
<sect1 id="compound-docs">
<title>Compound documents with KParts</title>
<para>
With KParts, your documents can use <emphasis>all</emphasis>
functionality offered by <emphasis>all</emphasis> &koffice;
applications. You can take advantage of this by inserting so-called
<quote>parts</quote> into your document. Every one of those parts is
essentially another document, that is, <quote>a document within a
document</quote>.
</para>
<para>
In the example mentioned above, you would simply insert a &kspread; part
into your &kword; document. Then, whenever you edit your table,
&kspread; would take control in the background. Control would return to
&kword; when you stop working on the table and start working on text
again. The only change you would notice is that the toolbars and menus,
while editing the table, reflect the functionality of &kspread; instead
of that of &kword;. This ability to include the functionality of one
application in another is called <quote>embedding</quote>.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="kparts-try-it">
<title>Using KParts in your document</title>
<para>
If you have never worked with compound documents, you may find them
confusing at first. The following step-by-step instructions show you
that using KParts is just as easy as working with a single application.
</para>
<procedure>
<title>Inserting a &kspread; part into a &kword; application</title>
<step>
<para>
Start &kword;. You can do that either from the panel or by typing
<userinput><command>kword</command></userinput> at the command line.
</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>
Start a new, blank document. You may want to type some sample text.
</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>
Chose <guimenuitem>Create KSpread table frame</guimenuitem> from the
<guimenu>Tools</guimenu> menu. You'll notice that the mouse cursor has
changed to a cross. This form of the cursor indicates that you are
supposed to select an area.
</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>
Press the &LMB; mouse button where you want the upper left corner of
your table to be, hold it and drag it to the lower right corner. Release
the button. That's it--you're done.
</para>
</step>
</procedure>
<para>
Easy, isn't it? You should now see a table frame in your &kword;
document. Now, click inside the table to see what happens. You'll
notice that:
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
Your menu bar and tool bars have changed. They now reflect those of
&kspread;.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Your table frame now contains the elements of a &kspread; view, with
scroll bars, a tab bar for the selection of tables, &etc;
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>
Try editing the table. You'll see that it's not different from using
&kspread;. In fact you <emphasis>are</emphasis> using &kspread;.
</para>
<para>
Now click somewhere into your &kword; document, outside of the table
area. The menu bar and tool bars should change back to those of
&kword;, the elements of the &kspread; view should disappear. Your table
stays and still reflects all of the changes you've applied to it.
</para>
<para>
KParts are easy to use. Try inserting other parts or even parts in
parts.
</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter id="customization">
<title>Optimizing &koffice; and Your System</title>
<para>
While &koffice; should work quite nice out of the box, there may well be
some things to optimize to get the best out of &koffice;. This chapter
shows you what you might want to do to achieve the best results with
your new office suite.
</para>
<sect1 id="the-font-issue">
<title>Optimizing Font Output</title>
<para>
Fonts are a difficult topic on X Windows. In this section we'll cover
some problems that are frequently reported by people using
&koffice;. Some problems are not just &koffice;s fault, but depend on
your system configuration, which is why you may need to modify system
configuration files in order to solve them. If you don't have access to
the root account on your system, please ask your system operator about
this and point him or her to this manual. As the topic of fonts is too
complex to cover all of it here, you may want to consult the <ulink
url="http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/font_howto/html/">Font
HOWTO</ulink> from which I've taken the following information. You will
find more details there.
</para>
<sect2>
<title>How to Get Nicely Scaled Fonts on Screen</title>
<para>
STUFF
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2><title>How to Get Correct Printout</title>
<para> While &koffice; automatically can handle all X11 fonts
<emphasis>on screen</emphasis>, printout can pose a problem: on most
systems, printing is done via
<application>ghostscript</application>. Now, while &koffice; knows the
font names used by X Windows, it does normally
<emphasis>not</emphasis> know the font names used by
<application>ghostscript</application>. &koffice; tries to guess these
names, which unfortunately doesn't work all of the time. </para>
<para>
This problem can be solved, although this is not that easy. Actually,
maybe you are using a distribution which has done most work for you
already (so if you have no reason to complain about printout you can
skip this section). What you have to do is to tell
<application>ghostscript</application> how to translate the (guessed)
font names &koffice; uses to its own font names. This can be done by
adding lines to a file called <filename>Fontmap</filename>. An alias
line in <filename>Fontmap</filename> looks like the following
example:</para>
<example>
<title>An alias in the <application>ghostscript</application> Fontmap</title>
<screen>
/Algerian-Roman /Algerian ;
</screen>
</example>
<para>
Please note that a space before the ';' is mandatory. In this example,
Algerian-Roman is the name &koffice; uses for Algerian. You'll have to
add such lines for the fonts &koffice; doesn't display correctly. To
make this task easier, Donovan Rebbechi has written a perl script you
can find at <ulink
url="http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/font_howto/kwdfont">http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/font_howto/kwdfont</ulink>.
Assuming that you have a fontfile
<filename>/usr/share/ghostscript/fonts/fontfile.ttf</filename> you'll
enter <userinput><command>kwdfont</command>
<parameter>/usr/share/ghostscript/fonts/fontfile.ttf</parameter></userinput>
to get the appropriate aliases. The script should mork in most cases. As
mentioned, you should have a look at the <ulink
url="http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/font_howto/html/">Font
HOWTO</ulink> for more accurate and in-depth information.
</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="custom-gui">
<title>Customizing the &koffice; &GUI;</title>
<para>
While &koffice; comes out of the box with a &GUI; (graphical user interface)
that should suit most people's needs, there are good reasons why you may
want to change the way the programs look.
</para>
<para>
My mother, for example, is a bit afraid of buttons and menu entries she
doesn't understand. To tailor &koffice; to her needs, I reduced the
&GUI; to a bare minimum of functionality. As she only needs to write
letters and use certain templates, there is no need for much more
functionality than saving, loading, printing, &etc;
</para>
<para> Thanks to the <quote>action</quote> concept of &Qt; and &kde;,
you can freely customize &koffice; menu bars and tool
bars. Unfortunately, at the moment, there are no easy-to-use dialogs
to do this. &koffice; stores its &GUI; configuration in &XML; files
and you'll have to edit those. Hopefully, this situation will change
in the future; for now, you'll need some basic knowledge of how an
&XML; document works (or <acronym>HTML</acronym>, which is a subset of
&XML;). [The <quote>action</quote> concept needs to be discussed in
more detail -- kt.] </para>
<para>
Normally, each &koffice; application has at least two of those &XML;
files: one describing the &GUI; of the shell (basically, that's what you
see if there is no document open) and one describing the &GUI; of the
respective part (that's what you see normally). For example, for
&kword;, these two &XML; files are named
<filename>kword_shell.rc</filename> and <filename>kword.rc</filename>.
</para>
<para>
Here's a simple example of such an rc-file.
</para>
<example>
<title>An example of a simple rc-file</title>
<screen>
<!DOCTYPE QConfig ><qconfig>
<menubar>
<menu name="Edit"><text>Edit</text>
<action name="edit_cut"/>
<action name="edit_copy"/>
<action name="edit_paste"/>
<separator/>
<action name="edit_find"/>
</menu>
<menu name="Insert"><text>Insert</text>
<action name="insert_picture"/>
<action name="insert_clipart"/>
<menu name="Variable"><text>Variable</text>
<action name="insert_var_datefix"/>
<action name="insert_var_datevar"/>
</menu>
</menu>
</menubar>
<toolbars>
<toolbar name="edit_toolbar" position="right">
<action name="edit_cut"/>
<action name="edit_copy"/>
<action name="edit_paste"/>
</toolbar>
</toolbars>
</qconfig>
</screen>
</example>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter id="more-info">
<title>How to get more information</title>
<sect1 id="other-manuals">
<title>Other &koffice; manuals</title>
<para>
For detailed information on the different &koffice; applications, please
consult their respective manuals. <!-- (use ulink to help:/appname/ -->
<!-- for the meantime - it's a hack, but it's the best we have -->
<!-- presently. [FIXME: how do I provide links to them? Do we -->
<!-- need set-tag?] -->
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="links">
<title>Links</title>
<para>
The following links should be useful if you're looking for more information
about &kde; or &koffice;.
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para><ulink url="http://koffice.kde.org">The &koffice;
homepage</ulink>. Here you can find information on how to get and
install &koffice;, news about &koffice; development, screenshots &etc;
</para></listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
&kde-http;. The most advanced and absolutely free desktop
environment for unix-like operating systems. &koffice; makes use of the
&kde; libraries.
</para></listitem>
<listitem>
<para><ulink url="http://www.troll.no">Troll Tech</ulink>. The creators
of the C++-toolkit &Qt;. &kde; and &koffice; make use of &Qt;.
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter id="programmersinfo">
<title>Programming &koffice;</title>
<para>
If you want to do &koffice; development, the following resources might
be of interest:
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para> At <ulink
url="http://developer.kde.org">http://developer.kde.org</ulink> you'll
find many documents about programming with &Qt; and &kde;. Here you can find
the online version of the complete &kde; library documentation.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
Use <application>kdoc</application> (in the <filename>kdoc</filename>
CVS module) to generate your own &kde; library documentation.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
In the &koffice; sources you'll find an example application in the
<filename class="directory">example</filename> directory.
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</chapter>
<chapter id="legal">
<title>Copyright and Licensing</title>
<para>
&koffice; is copyrighted by the &koffice; team.
</para>
<para>
This manual is copyright by Jost Schenck. It can be distributed
freely, as long as this copyright notice is included. You may change
it as long as you send me the changes or commit them to &kde;
<acronym>CVS</acronym>. I'll not be liable for anything resulting
from the use of this manual.
</para>
<para>
The other &koffice; manuals are copyrighted by their respective authors.
</para>
&underFDL;
&underGPL;
</chapter>
<appendix id="installation">
<title>Installation</title>
<sect1 id="requirements">
<title>System Requirements</title>
<para>
In order to install and use &koffice; you must have:
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
A functioning &UNIX; system (for example, &Linux; or BSD)
with a configured &X-Window; (for example, XFree86).
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
The &Qt; 2.1 libraries from Troll Tech. See
<ulink url="ftp://ftp.troll.no/">ftp://ftp.troll.no/</ulink>
for more information.
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
The K Desktop Environment 2.0 (&kde; 2.0). &koffice; cannot be compiled
with earlier versions of &kde;. Information on obtaining and installing
&kde; 2.0 can be found at: &kde-http;
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
Permission to install software on your computer. If you are on a
stand-alone system, this should not be a problem. However, if you are
using a networked computer, check with your administrator first.
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>
Please note that, while you need the &kde; 2.0 libraries on your system,
you can still use &koffice; in a different desktop environment (for example,
&kde; 1.1, UDE or GNOME).
</para>
<para>
If you plan on <link linkend="from-source">compiling &koffice; from
source code</link> you will also need:
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
<command>automake</command> 1.4 or newer. This can be downloaded from:
<ulink url="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/automake/">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/automake/</ulink>
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
<command>autoconf</command> 2.13 or later. This can be downloaded from:
<ulink url="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/autoconf/">ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/autoconf/</ulink>
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
A C++ compiler which supports exceptions (preferably egcs 1.1.x). This can be downloaded from
<ulink url="http://egcs.cygnus.com/">http://egcs.cygnus.com/</ulink>
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
Troll Tech's &Qt; 2.1 development packages. These can be downloaded from
<ulink url="ftp://ftp.troll.no/">ftp://ftp.troll.no/</ulink>
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>
Once you have determined that your system meets these requirements,
you should decide whether you want to compile the source code
or install from pre-compiled binary packages.
</para>
<para>
If you want to obtain the most current binary version of KOffice,
you can find more information by following this link:
<link linkend="getting-binaries">Getting Binary Packages</link>.
</para>
<para>
If pre-compiled binaries are not available for your system, you can download
the source code and compile it yourself. Instructions on where to obtain the
current source code (and what to do with the source code once you have it)
can be found by following this link:
<link linkend="getting-source">Getting the source code</link>.
</para>
<note><para> Please see the <ulink
url="http://koffice.kde.org">&koffice; homepage</ulink> for further
details. That is where you can always find the most up-to-date
information on both source and binary distributions! </para></note>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="getting-binaries">
<title>Getting Binary Packages</title>
<para>
You can download the most current binaries from:
</para>
<para>
<ulink url="http://koffice.kde.org/">http://koffice.kde.org/</ulink>
</para>
<para>
or from one of many mirror sites. The current list of mirror sites
can be found at:
</para>
<para>
<ulink url="http://www.kde.org/mirrors.html">http://www.kde.org/mirrors.html</ulink>
</para>
<note><para> It is important that you use a binary package which is
compatible with your system. If you use the &Linux; operating system
and are unable to find a binary package at the &koffice; web site or
one of its mirrors, you may be able to obtain one from the website of
your distribution. </para></note>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="from-binaries">
<title>From Binary Packages</title>
<para>
To install &koffice; from precompiled binaries, you should:
</para>
<procedure>
<step>
<para>Ensure your computer has all of the required software installed
and in working condition (excluding &koffice; of course). You can find
the system requirements by following this link: <link
linkend="requirements">System Requirements</link>.</para></step>
<step><para>Download the &koffice; binary into a temporary
directory.</para></step>
<step><para>If the filename ends in <literal
role="extension">.rpm</literal> (&RedHat; Package Management file),
&koffice; can be installed with the following command:
<screen><prompt>$</prompt>
<userinput><command>rpm</command><option>-U</option><replaceable>filename</replaceable></userinput></screen>. </para>
<para>If thefilename ends in <literal role="extension">.deb</literal> (Debian Package file), &koffice; can be installed with the following command:
<screen><prompt>$</prompt> <userinput><command>dpkg</command><option>-i</option>
<replaceable>filename</replaceable></userinput></screen>
</para>
<para>If the filename ends in <literal
role="extension">.tar.gz</literal> or <literal
role="extension">.tgz</literal> (a tarball file), &koffice; can be
installed with the following commands:</para>
<screen>
<prompt>$</prompt> <userinput><command>cd</command> /</userinput>
<prompt>$</prompt> <userinput><command>tar</command> <option>-xzvf</option> <replaceable>filename</replaceable></userinput>
</screen>
</step>
<step><para>
That's all. &koffice; should now be installed on your system.
</para></step>
</procedure>
<note><para> If you have a graphical front-end for package management,
such as &kpackage; or <application>GnoRPM</application>, installed on
your system, you may find that more convenient to use than a command
line. Consult the program's documentation to find out how to install
with it. </para></note>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="getting-source">
<title>Getting Source Code</title>
<para>
You can download the current source code from:
<ulink url="http://koffice.kde.org/">http://koffice.kde.org/</ulink>
or from one of many mirror sites. The current list of mirror sites
can be found at:
</para>
<para>
<ulink url="http://www.kde.org/mirrors.html">http://www.kde.org/mirrors.html</ulink>
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="from-source">
<title>From Source Code</title>
<para>
If you want to build &kword; from source code, you should:
</para>
<procedure>
<step><para>
Ensure your computer has all the required software installed and
in working condition (excluding &koffice; of course). You can find
the system requirements by following this link:
<link linkend="requirements">System Requirements</link>.
</para></step>
<step><para>
Download the &koffice; source file <!-- ***insert filenames (srpm and -->
<!-- tar) here*** --> into a temporary directory.
</para></step>
<step><para>
If the filename ends in <literal role="extension">.src.rpm</literal>
(&RedHat; Package Management file), the source code for &koffice; can
be installed with:
<screen><prompt>$</prompt> <userinput><command>rpm</command><option>-U</option><replaceable>filename</replaceable></userinput></screen></para>
<para>If the filename ends in <literal role="extension">.src.tar.gz</literal> or <literal role="extension">.src.tgz</literal> (a tarball file),
the source code for &koffice; can be installed with:
<screen><prompt>$</prompt> <userinput><command>tar</command> <option>-xzvf</option> <replaceable>filename</replaceable></userinput></screen>
</para></step>
<step><para>The source code for &koffice; should now be installed on
your system.</para></step>
</procedure>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="compiling-problems">
<title>Problems with Compilation</title>
<para>
</para>
</sect1>
</appendix>
&documentation.index;
</book>
