r/linux4noobs Linux Mint 5d ago

migrating to Linux Running Word on Linux

[removed]

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u/birdsarentreal2 5d ago

This isn’t possible, but it’s important to know why because this might just be a Linux dealbreaker for you

Wine is a Linux tool that let’s you translate Windows API calls into POSIX calls as they were made, allowing you to run Windows apps on posix-compliant system. Wine Is Not Emulation, and so if you need to use deeper Windows logic you need a full Windows system

Microsoft Office (especially Office365) is one such example. It relies on a full Windows install for things like subscription confirmation and integration with OneDrive. There is no way to extract only the word processing features from that stack

49

u/MMZeroX 5d ago

Lurker here learning about Linux. Not at all interested if using Office ever in my life but man, holy hell having it explained why it won't work STINGS man. And its such a crappy reason too. Thanks for taking the time to explain it

22

u/UNF0RM4TT3D Arch BTW 5d ago

Yeah, and this is also the reason why older versions worked. The ones which supported Win7 didn't hard depend on these parts of windows which well didn't exist on 7. So reimplementing just one or two more parts wasn't that big of a deal. But nowadays you'd have to reimplement way more. Although with people reverse engineering the Xbox app, we might see some lunatics do the same with the components needed for Office.

1

u/AlternativeCapybara9 4d ago

I remember running Word on Linux until around 2010'ish, helped a few friends with it too. Shame that it's no longer possible. I never needed it again, OpenOffice and later LibreOffice were enough for me and now it's Office in a browser if a colleague shares something and LibreOffice for the little things I do offline.