Raspberry Pi Journal #16

Installing Abiword

Leafpad is fine, if what you're doing is some light word-processor, without any fancy things. If you want to have graphics, though, you need something better. There's open office or Libre office. There's also Abiword and Gnumeric. Let's do the easy way first. Install Abiword!

The first thing I check is to see whether or not Abiword is installed:

which abiword

Not installed. Okay, so let's download the package

sudo apt-get install abiword

It'll go through the installation process, and will put a link on the desktop under Office. I decided to type something and add some graphic to it.

As you can see, AbiWord has multiple fonts, and the ability to add graphic. That's not all. It also has various capabilities, such as HTML markings, and epub export. I have book making ambition, remember? So, this capability is a big deal to me.

I don't have a scanner attached to my Raspberry Pi, yet, and there's no instruction on it. So, I don't plan to add some anytime, soon. I'm happy with my current set up of taking pictures with my 3DS and transfer it via SD card. I do batch transfer, though, so it's not like it's an everyday occurrence.

The printer setup is quite flexible. I'm not sure whether to credit AbiWord for it, or maybe CUPS printer driver. There is an option to print 2 or even 4 pages on one page, and it looks to be quite robust, with various options. I'm pretty happy with it.

And there it is, the double page print. It's quite charming to have, and I like it very much! I think AbiWord should be in everyone's toolbox, assuming you're not running it headless. If you install GUI for work, then you should definitely get AbiWord.

By the way, I eventually did installed Open Office, also known as Libre Office.

which libreoffice

Installing it:

1. sudo apt-get install openoffice.org
2. sudo apt-get install libreoffice

I always know it by the openoffice moniker, so imagine my surprise when it installed libre office! Ah, the constant march of progress!

Raspberry Pi Journal #3

Printer Trouble

I was printing my other blogspot for archival purposes, when I realized that I was double printing the month of June. I quickly cancel the print process, except it already got sent to the server, and I couldn't open up the web page quick enough for me to cancel the print. So, I did what I know would work: Turn off the printer.

Sure enough, when the printer administration web page came up, it said unable to send job to the printer. So far, so good. Obviously, I cancelled all print jobs so far.

The trouble was, I couldn't send any new print job to the printer! After trying various attempt over 10 minutes, I gave up and rebooted the computer and printer. This should have worked. Except, it didn't!

More going around to check the printer. It's not until I stumbled upon "Resume Printer" option in the Maintenance menu that I am able to print again. Apparently, there is a status recording somewhere that cause the printer to be invalid until "resumed", whatever that means.

I think this is bad behaviour.I should be able to reset the printer by turning it off. Smart devices are way too smart these days. It's no longer just a simple turn off, turn on for resetting their values. What if something got screwed up inside? You'll have to take it to the service department. What a hassle!

Libre Office trouble

I was doing multiple windows on Libre Calc, when I found out that the new window I spawned was affecting the old window as well. Of course, this happens after I'm done all editing with the new window. There goes my work out the window! To be honest, this is the first time I've seen it happen. I wonder what the purpose is to link multiple windows to a file?

In the end, I simply toss out all changes. Reload the old file, and save under different name. Close all windows, and load all files. Problem solved, but more time wasted. Growing pains, I suppose.

Raspberry Pi Journal #2

Raspberry Pi Journal #2
Libre Office Printing Trouble

I was using Libre Office Calc, the spreadsheet, to print out my schedule for the day. It works fine, but when I printed it, it's a bit too small. I decided to zoom it up a little and use landscape format. The landscape format is fine, but there's no zoom control. Worse, when I printed it, the top got cut off.

Obviously, I need the whole thing on page, and aligned properly. In the end, I use lp command again, and manually adjusted the margins. I also adjusted the scaling and landscape mode.

So, the steps that works would be
1. Print to PDF in portrait
2. Use lp to print the PDF with appropriate settings.

In my case, the settings was scaling=150 page-top=-450

At least I can adjust the margin to negative values without error.

One more thing: I found out what SpliX is. It's Samsung printer driver for Linux. I tried to print from Midori web browser, and that is the error I got. Don't know how to solve it.