Ad Hoc (Assembled) Offices

[NunoSilva]

Been using portable applications since before the category appeared as such (since Windows 3.x basically) by identifying which apps could be ported on its own media, such as whitin a diskette...
Write and WordPad needed company DLLs. Surprisingly NotePad, MSPaint, Calc, CharMap, ClipBoard viewer (and more) did not!
Those were the seeds of a [micro] portable proto office to carry around - MS-DOS style.
I still collect them from old XP CDs. They may also be obtained (in 32 and 64-bit flavours and assorted languages) from various sites.
Soon enough most apps and utilities started to appear already portable.
Nowadays an application that is not portable is shunned by most users.
More important still, some apps allow the result of one's labours to be exported as PDFs, i.e., portable outputs.
Here I hope to share some experience on assembling and using (along many years) collections of applications to form a personal office.

[NunoSilva]

For some users (myself included) no existing Office Suite carries everything one might need.

But let us take as the absolute minimum for an Ad Hoc Office:
- a Word Processor,
- a Spreadsheet and
- a Bitmap Editor.

They should be capable of reading and saving in basic popular formats, e.g., RTF, XLS and PNG.

The Word Processor should be capable of
- format pages, paragraphs and fonts,
- inserting, formating and editing tables,
- inserting or pasting pictures (also inside table cells),
- do spell checking under various languages and
- exporting PDFs without the help of a PDF printer.

Graphics from the Spreadsheet and from the Image Editor should be "pastable" into the Word Processor's documents.

Sure, a solid text editor, a calculator, a unit converter, a minimalist PIM, an outline editor, etc., would be nice - but we are talking MINIMUM here.
By the way: no frameworks, runtimes or other external dependencies - please...

[NunoSilva]

My first successful stab at a minimalist Portable Ad Hoc Office was this set:

* Tomahawk PDF+
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=71
Opens texts and RTF/HTML documents and some spreadsheets,
disassembles CHMs and PDFs and exports PDFs.
Spell checks for any language one can find dictionaries for.
Its command of tables confers an almost total freedom of layout.
It accepts a raster image as background of the page,
allowing the creation of PDF presentations.
Note: ignore the starting dialog box - the rest is well worth it.

* Spread32
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=561
Deceptively simple, with a flat black-and-white look,
this spreadsheet hides unsuspected depths.
Just 256 columns x 65536 rows, but can accept 255 sheets.
Supports more than 300 functions.
Limited chart types.

* Fotografix
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=1549
Amazingly small app.
All the usual tools to enhance images,
transparency, layers, masks, color channels,
gradients, as many brushes one cares to invent,
selections with magic wand and
it allows writing one's own graphic scripts...

Note: none supports Unicode.

[NunoSilva]

Additional cherished complements:

* TED Notepad
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=858
Tiny and agile notepad replacement.
You'll be pressed to find a function not there.

* Windows XP Calculator
https://www.pconlife.com/ (calc.exe)
Compact and flexible calculator.

* Windows XP Character Map
https://www.pconlife.com/ (charmap.exe)
A map of all characters available in each font.

* Windows XP Clipboard Viewer
https://www.pconlife.com/ (clipbrd.exe)
Clipboard viewer (absent from most windows versions)

* Convert for Windows
https://joshmadison.com/convert-for-windows/
The tiniest and nimblest unit converter.

* Expression Builder
https://www.ssuiteoffice.com/downloads/ ... uilder.htm
Small expression builder for math, physics, chemistry, etc.

* CleverNote PIM
https://www.ssuiteoffice.com/software/clevernote.htm
The minimalist PIM:
- Calendar Dairy - to overview all appointments
- Address Book - to keep all contacts
- Note Book - for reminders, personal notes, and short articles
- To-do List - for everyday tasks, chores, and activities
- Money Tracking - personal finance manager
- Travel Expenses - record keeper
- Briefcase - container for one's collection of documents

* KeyNote
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=755
The seminal outline (RTF) notebook.
Multi tabbed.
Supports encryption.

* CSVed
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=1101
Flat file database tool.
Exchanges datasets with spreadsheets thru the CSV/TSV file type.

[NunoSilva]

Alternatives on a minimalist Portable Ad Hoc Office:

* Jarte
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=1407
Word Processor that supports RTF, DOC and DOCX document types.
Nice spell checking.

* CellPro
https://www.crystaloffice.com/cellpro/
Spreadsheet that supports XLS and XLSX.
Nice UI.

* Phoxo
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=2664
All the usual tools to edit and enhance images.

[NunoSilva]

And also...

* AbiWord
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=493
A competent Word Processor with a bit older UI.
Formats pages, sections, columns, paragraphs and fonts.
Support for tables, images and equations.
Capable of reading and saving lots of old document formats.

* Gnumeric
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=1140
A fast, accurate, fully featured spreadsheet - most likely the best.
Capable of reading and saving a large set of spreadsheet formats.
Supports all MSExcel functions with which is fully compatible.
Lots of advanced analytical and computational functions.

* PhotoFiltre
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=12
Full image editor and retouching program.
UI takes some getting used to, but is well worth the effort.
Open extensible architecture which accepts plugins, etc.
Capable of reading and saving many bitmap formats.

[NunoSilva]

Besides assembling an Ad Hoc Office out of unrelated programs, one may also pick an existing office and supplement it with the bits and pieces one might need.
Here we have several "families" of offices.
The most famous is the

* Open/Apache/Libre Office
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=212
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=2055
All comprizing:
- Word Processor
- Spreadsheet
- Presentation Package
- Draw Editor (vector graphics)
- Database
- Math [formula] Creator
Very complete but, frankly, gigantic and pachydermically sluggish.
Way too big to use from external media (e.g.: a USB flash drive),
from which one is forced to use carefully curated old versions.
This offices may be complemented with those heavy weights:

* GIMP - General Bitmap Image Editor
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=644
The "GNU Image Manipulation" program is the top of image manipulation.
May be used as a paint package, a high quality photo retouching program,
a batch processing system, a mass production image renderer,
an image format converter and much more.]
It is the freeware counterpart of Photoshop.

* Inkscape - General Vector Image Editor
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=657
Inkscape is THE vector graphics top editor, as an answer to
Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw or Xara X.
Uses the open W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.
Exports to many vector based and standard image types like PNG.
Imports formats such as JPEG, PNG and TIFF.

* Dia - Diagramming Tool
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=1325
Dia is a diagramming tool similar to Visio.
Exports to many formats (EPS, SVG, CGM and PNG),
Carries a lot of stencils (sets of shapes ready made to drag and drop)
and allows the user to create his own shape collections.
Can be used to draw UML diagrams, network schemes, flowcharts,
floor plans, electronic circuits and more.

[NunoSilva]

A more sprightly office "family" would be the currently represented by

* SoftMaker FreeOffice
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=1463
which carries just:
- Word Processor
- Spreadsheet
- Presentation Package

An even more compact (same architecture and functions - only no scripting), a bit older (2012), but fully compatible office, would be:
* Ashampoo FreeOffice
https://www.ashampoo.com/en-us/office-free
As in the previous case, one might need to supply an email (may be temp)
to get a product key, and to make it portable one just needs
to have a file called "portable.txt" in its folder.

[NunoSilva]

Now what might be missing?

* PSPad - Text Editor and Coding Environment
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=15
A solid text editor and complete coding environment.
Multi file tabbed editor, supports syntax highlighting.
May be integrated as a basic IDE with compilers and debuggers.
Integrates an hexadecimal editor, spell checks under several languages,
includes an FTP client, code explorer and more.
Allows user macro scripting.

* DB Browser for SQLite - Database Editor
https://portableapps.com/apps/developme ... r_portable
Visual tool to create, design and edit database SQLite files,
the "de facto" standard for SQL driven relational databases.
Although ODB is a published standard, SQLite is the most
used database format in use for most developers.

* Equation Editor (from a 2012 Kingsoft Office)
https://kingsoft-office-trial.en.softonic.com
An Equation Editor does not need to save its expressions (i.e.: ODF).
What it needs is easy and portable integration with other programs,
e.g., any Word Processor, Presentation package, etc.
This one is extractable from an old (2012) Kingsoft office.

* SpeQ Mathematics - Extensive Mathematics and Graphing Tool
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=883
This one is the Uber Calculator.
Edits and solves extensive mathematic expressions.
Variables and functions may be defined by the user.
Provides graph plotting of any continuous function.

* ConvertAll - Unit Conversions
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=1447
Unit conversion tool.
Allows the combination of different units.

* Dynamic Draw - General Vector Image Editor
https://dynamicdraw.com/download/
Vector graphics editor good for making flowcharts, line drawings,
org charts, mind maps, connected schemes, buttons, etc.
It is an object oriented drawing and design program
with a small linking system.
Exports to other vector graphics formats such as SVG, WMF and EMF
as well as raster graphics formats like JPG, PNG, TIFF and PSD.

* PhotoFiltre - General Bitmap Image Editor
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=12
Full image editor and retouching program.
UI takes some getting used to, but is well worth the effort.
Open extensible architecture which accepts plugins, etc.
Capable of reading and saving many bitmap formats.

* MyPaint - Paint Package
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=2088
A fast and easy paint package for digital painting.
Uses a versatile and configurable brush system.
Distraction free canvas, UI usage as needed.
Supports graphics tablets made by Wacom and similar devices.

* Dia - Diagramming Tool
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=1325
Dia is a diagramming tool similar to Visio.
Exports to many formats (EPS, SVG, CGM and PNG),
Carries a lot of stencils (sets of shapes ready made to drag and drop)
and allows the user to create his own shape collections.
Can be used to draw UML diagrams, network schemes, flowcharts,
floor plans, electronic circuits and more.

[NunoSilva]

* MemPad
https://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=889
Text outline notebook.
Most people never realized that this tiny app accepts *live* URLs.
Can be used to carry all one's Web-Links in a structured, neatly organized tree.
And then one may use any portable browser side-by-side with it.

[NunoSilva]

Usually I carry all this in a DVD (to avoid "infections") and them copy it into the machine environment locally provided for my work.