Version:           1.5.1 (using KDE KDE 3.5.2)
Installed from:    Gentoo Packages
Compiler:          gcc version 3.4.5 (Gentoo 3.4.5-r1, ssp-3.4.5-1.0, pie-8.7.9) CFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon-xp -pipe"
OS:                Linux

I've emerged koffice 1.5.1 from gentoo, and every other koffice application seems to work just fine, but kword won't even start. When I start kword from konsole, I get the following message:

koffice (lib kofficecore): WARNING: Library files for ".la" not found in paths.

I've searched google, the bug system, and gentoo forums, to no avail. Using strace, I notice that kword does seem to be looking for .la in /usr/kde/3.5/lib/kde3 and in other places, but I haven't a clue what the rest of the strace output meant.

Since I'm using gentoo, I don't know how likely it is that one could reproduce this behavior on other machines.

1) I unmasked koffice-meta.1.5.1 and the subsequent koffice programs
2) emerged them all, with no serious error messages found in logs
3) tried to start kword, which will not open, and receive error message.

I have an strace, but it's huge, and don't know that I should post the whole thing on here.  Maybe a relevant part of it, if I can figure out what's relevent.

access("/usr/kde/3.5/lib/kde3", F_OK)   = 0
lstat64("/usr/kde/3.5/lib/kde3", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=53056, ...}) = 0
access("/home/mike/.kde/lib/kde3/.la", R_OK) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
access("/usr/lib/kde3/.la", R_OK)       = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
access("/usr/kde/3.5/lib/kde3/.la", R_OK) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
lstat64("/home", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=240, ...}) = 0
lstat64("/home/mike", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=6720, ...}) = 0
lstat64("/home/mike/.kde", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=192, ...}) = 0
lstat64("/home/mike/.kde/lib", 0xbf96ebbc) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
lstat64("/usr", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=568, ...}) = 0
lstat64("/usr/lib", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=127392, ...}) = 0
access("/usr/lib", F_OK)                = 0
lstat64("/usr/lib", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=127392, ...}) = 0
lstat64("/usr", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=568, ...}) = 0
lstat64("/usr/kde", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=120, ...}) = 0
lstat64("/usr/kde/3.5", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=216, ...}) = 0
lstat64("/usr/kde/3.5/lib", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=31776, ...}) = 0
access("/usr/kde/3.5/lib", F_OK)        = 0
lstat64("/usr/kde/3.5/lib", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=31776, ...}) = 0
access("/home/mike/.kde/lib/.la", R_OK) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
access("/usr/lib/.la", R_OK)            = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
access("/usr/kde/3.5/lib/.la", R_OK)    = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat64("/home/mike/.kde/share/config/", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0700, st_size=9184, ...}) = 0

That seems to show kword looking for ".la" at least.