Installing SoftMaker Office for Windows on a USB flash drive

If you want to carry SoftMaker Office 2024 for Windows  and all documents with you, you can install SoftMaker Office 2024 into a USB flash drive. You can then run SoftMaker Office applications from the USB flash drive on any Windows-based computer (e.g.  borrowed or public computer). Once you unplug the USB flash drive, no trace of SoftMaker Office is left behind on such PC. Typical installation on USB drive is only 455 MB (+Documents/SoftMaker folder +service packs) small and includes all four applications. Running applications from USB drive is faster, portable and provides easier data recovery in the case when your hard drive failed.

Here’s how it works:

1. 1. Install SoftMaker Office on your regular PC’s built-in hard drive. This lets you work with SoftMaker Office in the regular way, even without a USB flash drive.
   2. Go to SoftMaker Office 2024 program group and click on Install SoftMaker Office 2024 on a USB stick. (“C:\Program Files (x86)\SoftMaker Office 2024\usbstick.exe” or “C:\Program Files\SoftMaker Office 2024\usbstick.exe” )
   3. Follow the prompts, and the program copies the complete SoftMaker Office 2024 folder and Documents/SoftMaker folder to your USB flash drive.

Your USB flash drive will contains a fully functional copy of SoftMaker Office 2024 which does not register itself in Windows registry database, in addition to all of your documents and configuration files. To launch one of the programs, open the SoftMaker Office 2024 folder on the USB flash drive and click on the program you wish to run (for example, TextMaker.exe or PlanMaker.exe).

What does “Install SoftMaker Office 2024 on a USB stick” (usbstick.exe) exactly do?

It determines the folder in which SoftMaker Office 2024 is installed, and copies the complete folder to the USB flash drive. Then it copies the complete folder “Documents/SoftMaker” into SoftMaker Office 2024 folder on USB flash drive. Files that already exist on the USB flash drive will be replaced only if newer files are located on hard drive. As a last step, program creates a file named portable.txt in the SoftMaker Office 2024 folder. This “marker file” causes SoftMaker Office not to install itself in the Windows Registry or the Start menu.

Installing SoftMaker Office for Linux on a USB flash drive

You can run SoftMaker Office for Linux from a USB flash drive, too. Proceed as follows:

1. 1. Install SoftMaker Office on the built-in hard drive of your Linux PC. This lets you work with SoftMaker Office in the regular way, even without a USB flash drive.
   2. Create a folder on the USB flash drive and copy the contents of the SoftMaker Office application folder (for example, /usr/share/office2024) to this folder:

mkdir /media/disk/office2024
cd /usr/share/office2024
cp -Rv * /media/disk/office2024

Note: (replace /media/disk with your USB flash drive’s path)

1. 3. In this new folder on the USB flash drive, create a file with the name portable.txt. Its content is irrelevant:

cd /media/disk/office2024
touch portable.txt

Note: (replace /media/disk with your USB flash drive’s path)

The portable.txt file is just a “marker file” that informs SoftMaker Office that it should run in portable mode and not leave any configuration files on the host operating system.

1. 4. Then, launch TextMaker:

./textmaker

TextMaker will create the folder /media/disk/office2024/SoftMaker and copy its default document templates and configuration files into it. This can take up to half a minute. After that, TextMaker starts. If you like, you can now also copy additional documents and templates to the flash drive. Place documents in /media/disk/office2024/SoftMaker. Copy templates to /media/disk/office2021/SoftMaker/TextMaker 2024 templates and /media/disk/office2024/SoftMaker/PlanMaker 2024 templates.

To launch one of the programs, open the SoftMaker Office folder on the USB flash drive and double-click on the program you wish to launch (textmaker, planmaker or presentations).

Learn more and purchase SoftMaker Office 2024 here.