A new version of WPS Office has been announced for Linux today.
Kingsoft Software has released an enhanced version of WPS Office productivity software, WPS Office 2016 for Linux. The latest update for WPS Office for Linux comes with many new features like remote file sharing, improved IO operations and an added search functionality as per the official announcement.
If you didn’t know already, WPS Office is a proprietary office software available for Windows, macOS and Linux. It got instant popularity because of its strikingly similar interface with Microsoft Office suite and better compatibility with Microsoft document formats. Some would even say it the best Microsoft Office alternative for Linux.
WPS Office is available in free, premium and professional format. You can read the difference between the three formats here.
WPS Office for Linux is not dead
There were rumors last month that Linux version of WPS Office is being discontinued but it turned out just rumors as a new Linux version is out today.
According to William Wong, General Manager of WPS Office, “As business demands evolve in an ever more diverse computing landscape, the demand for Linux-based applications has also increased.”
The WPS Office engineering team has been receiving support from the Linux community as well as the open source community. “Our involvement with the Linux community has been unwavering and we now celebrate continued success with the release of WPS Office 2016 for Linux,” Wong said.
New Features in the WPS Office 2016 for Linux
- Added WPS Office for Linux remote file sharing
- Optimized IO operations for improved file access speed
- Added search functionality for Writer, Spreadsheets and Presentation
- Updated display effects of fonts and controls
- Updated WPS export to PDF hyperlinks
- Updated thumbnail preview effects in WPS presentation
- Spell check available in more than 10 different languages
WPS Office components
WPS Office has everything you would expect in a standard office suite.
Presentation
It is compatible with Microsoft PowerPoint (.PPT) as you can insert photos, videos as well as can create custom animations, graphs, charts and tables. Multiple presentations can be opened in one window using Tabs.
Writer
It is fully compatible with Microsoft Office .DOC and .DOCX. It contains Rich text, page and paragraph formatting features. You can track changes and comments as well as insert tables, photos, charts. There is a drag and drop paragraph adjustment tool used to easily change page formatting.
Spreadsheets
Compatible with Microsoft Excel .XLS and .XLSX. Supports the various functions for finance statistics, engineering and IT with 100 common functions and formulas included. The auto-contract tool condenses and summarizes cells with large content volumes.
Download WPS Office 2016 for Linux
It should be noted that WPS Office Suite for Linux is not Open Source though it is free for download. Also, WPS Office for Linux is still in development phase.
You can download the Linux version from the link below, however, the new version is not been available yet.
