Some may or may not know that KDE comes with its own built in Office suite known as Koffice.  What even fewer people may know is what it actually contains.  So in this segment about the Lesser Apps of KDE, we'll be covering Koffice, what it contains and what each part can do for you.  This is especially good for people who work in an office who need a full office suite right out of the box or via a default install of KDE.

Koffice Workspace

This is simply a frontend launcher for Koffice allowing you one click access to whatever program you want within the Koffice suite.  This way you can launch the Koffice Workspace from your taskbar, then open any of up to 8 main applications.  It helps to reduce clutter in any location you put the shortcut, be it on your desktop, taskbar, or wherever.

KAddressBook

The KAddressBook is the primary address book for the entire system.  While other programs may have their own built in or separate address books, KAddressBook is physically part of KDE and thus anything entered into it is fully available to any other application within KDE.  So any application that can make use of the address book can have access to all it contains at a click.

KOrganizer

KOrganizer is the PIM or Personal Information Manager for KDE and Koffice.  These days PIM's are becoming more and more popular due to their ability to not only schedule appointments, but track events, make journal entries, to-do's and more and then make those available not only to other programs within the system, but to others in the office and across the internet.  It can remind you about pending tasks, upcoming appointments, and more.

KPresenter

This program is the presentations program for Koffice.  Think of what PowerPoint is, then think of this application.  They're nearly identical in what they do, even if they don't look or work the same.  It will provide you the ability to do fully interactive slideshows and presentations exactly the same way, and in many ways better, than you can do them in PowerPoint.

KSpread

This is a simple, yet powerful spreadsheet program included with Koffice.  It uses completely open standards and open scripting formats to allow you to easily and quickly create spreadsheets.

KWord

Put simply, this is the Koffice equivalent of MsWord or Open Office Writer.  It supports both Koffice and open document formats as well as a variety of other 3rd party and proprietary formats such as Word, Open Office, AbiWord and more.  It also comes with a wide variety of editing and formatting tools to help you create a wide variety of documents to meet your needs.

Kivio

This program provides you with a quick and simple way to create flowcharts and diagrams for use in the office and in presentations.

Kontact

Kontact is another PIM that is included with Koffice and is both part of Koffice and is a stand alone application that provides you with a variety of included applications, including Kmail, KOrganizer and KAddressBook.

Krita

Krita is a simple image manipulation program used for creating simple graphics for use in Koffice documents and presentations.

More Applications

The "More Applications" folder in the Office section of the Kmenu provides you with a series of useful applications that, while not part of the actual Koffice suite, are directly complimentary to it.  So let's look at each of these and what they offer.

• KChart - A simple program for generating charts and graphs.
• KFormula - A formula editor for creating, testing and editing formulas used in a variety of ways within Koffice or anywhere within KDE.
• KThesaurus - A built in Word Thesaurus.
• Kugar - A tool for generating reports.
• Kugar Designer - A tool for generating report templates used by Kugar.
• Karbon14 - A vector graphics program used for designing scalable graphics.

Well, that's it for our look at the Office section of the KDE menu and the lesser known, but very useful applications contained within.