Any long time word users that have switch to neo(open) office out there?

saltyzoo · Oct 31, 2007

I just got my wife to make the jump to mac. She's a writer and spends most of her day in Word. I just spent several hundred dollars on Office for Windows, and I'm really tired of forking out the money (and it really chafes me to waste the bucks I just spent on the windows version) when open office works so well.

Her only "real" requirement is that she can submit her work in Word format, so I don't see much reason why she can't use Neo.

Is there anybody out there that works heavily in Neo that has switched from Word? Is it working out for you?

Bad idea to try to get her to learn a new app or just suck it up and ship MS another briefcase full of cash?

netdog · Oct 31, 2007

Power MS Office user. Switched to Pages. Love it.

saltyzoo · Oct 31, 2007

I'm not liking that idea. That would just tie me to another pay solution. If I can't go open source, I'm not going to make her learn a new app.

GSMiller · Oct 31, 2007

I will probably switch before I upgrade from Office 2004. Until then I'll use it until it will no longer run on newer versions of OS X.

killerrobot · Oct 31, 2007

I tried switching over to open office a while ago (last year) and really liked the programs - I thought they had several advantages over MS office except for the one that I really needed - the formatting was never correct when I tried to save it as a .doc.
This really frustrated me because at University I had MS Office, and would print my stuff sent from home, only to realize that the format was totally jacked and that I would have to spend another 20 minutes fixing it all. The same happened with my files going between Mac and PC.

Don't know if they've upgraded all of that yet to where it works perfectly, but I went back to Word because I was sick of redoing everything.

saltyzoo · Oct 31, 2007

killerrobot said:
I tried switching over to open office a while ago (last year) and really liked the programs - I thought they had several advantages over MS office except for the one that I really needed - the formatting was never correct when I tried to save it as a .doc.
This really frustrated me because at University I had MS Office, and would print my stuff sent from home, only to realize that the format was totally jacked and that I would have to spend another 20 minutes fixing it all. The same happened with my files going between Mac and PC.

Don't know if they've upgraded all of that yet to where it works perfectly, but I went back to Word because I was sick of redoing everything.

Ok, see that's really bad. That's the one thing that has to be perfect for her. To submit her work to someone and have it be badly formatted is the kiss of death.

Thanks for your input.

dvd · Oct 31, 2007

Got an Intel-based mac? Consider VMware Fusion. Sure, you have to shell out a few more bucks, but a) it's not going to Microsoft, and b) your wife can use the exact same program she's comfortable with in a unified desktop. Lots of rebates/discounts for it out there right now, check around.

angelwatt · Oct 31, 2007

I use both Neo and MS Office and generally don't have any issues with my .doc files showing up correctly. I even use Neo at work and send files to Windows users and they don't have issues with my file. PowerPoint can have issues with graphics some times though. Since you also have Office for Windows she can always check her files there to see if there's any differences in formatting or whatever. I use the Styles in Neo and they transfer to MS Word well so far. Since it's free it won't hurt for her to give it a try.

saltyzoo · Oct 31, 2007

dvd said:
Got an Intel-based mac? Consider VMware Fusion. Sure, you have to shell out a few more bucks, but a) it's not going to Microsoft, and b) your wife can use the exact same program she's comfortable with in a unified desktop. Lots of rebates/discounts for it out there right now, check around.

I have parallels already, and that's what I'm going to do for the short term, but I'm not going to make her run her primary application in a VM.

angelwatt said:
I use both Neo and MS Office and generally don't have any issues with my .doc files showing up correctly. I even use Neo at work and send files to Windows users and they don't have issues with my file. PowerPoint can have issues with graphics some times though. Since you also have Office for Windows she can always check her files there to see if there's any differences in formatting or whatever. I use the Styles in Neo and they transfer to MS Word well so far. Since it's free it won't hurt for her to give it a try.

Having to check a 500 page manuscript isn't really feasible. As much as I'd like to do it, I think I have to bite the bullet on this one.

ravenvii · Oct 31, 2007

saltyzoo said:
I have parallels already, and that's what I'm going to do for the short term, but I'm not going to make her run her primary application in a VM.

Having to check a 500 page manuscript isn't really feasible. As much as I'd like to do it, I think I have to bite the bullet on this one.

If it's essential for work etc, then yeah I'd say Office 2008 is your best bet. Use Parallels until 2008 is released, then buy that.

saltyzoo · Oct 31, 2007

ravenvii said:
If it's essential for work etc, then yeah I'd say Office 2008 is your best bet. Use Parallels until 2008 is released, then buy that.

That's exactly what I told her I was going to do.

Fastshutter · Oct 31, 2007

What kind of writing does your wife do? I'm a technical writer, and I'm sorry to disappoint you, but Macs aren't great for technical writing. If you want to use the industry big hitters like Adobe Framemaker, MadCap Flare, Robohelp, etc, you need to use Windows. If she really only needs word, than Word 2008 for Mac will probably meet her needs. If she is looking for more clients, she will eventually run into one that is going to require a windows application solution (especially if she gets hired to write help files or single source).

I have dual boot Mac, and use windows for those specialized apps. If I only need word, I stick to Word 2004 unless I'm given Word 03 and 07 files with heavy amounts of formatting. Like you said, you can't make mistakes.

CalBoy · Oct 31, 2007

saltyzoo said:
Ok, see that's really bad. That's the one thing that has to be perfect for her. To submit her work to someone and have it be badly formatted is the kiss of death.

Thanks for your input.

Out of curiosity, why doesn't your wife submit her work in PDF format? Is someone editing it on the other end?

If no one is editing it, then NeoOffice will be a fine alternative, but not a great one.

Personally, I think that Office is worth it. It is the one Microsoft product (other than their mice

) that I think is worth paying for. If she buys her Office copy now, then in a few months she'll get the upgrade to 08 for only $10 (this was advertised for students; I'm not sure what the price is for non-student copies).

saltyzoo · Nov 1, 2007

She's a novelist and Word is the standard submission format. I suggested pdf as well, but she insists that won't work.

Fastshutter · Nov 1, 2007

saltyzoo said:
She's a novelist and Word is the standard submission format. I suggested pdf as well, but she insists that won't work.

Hmm... I'm not sure what kind of formatting a novelist would have to adhere to. After the document goes through edits it probably gets sent to someone that applies specific styles for the end product. Does she have a style guide that you could post online? Knowing what kind of formatting she has to use could help us know if the tools would support it, or even allow us to test them out for you. I would be happy to do so.

saltyzoo · Nov 1, 2007

Fastshutter said:
Hmm... I'm not sure what kind of formatting a novelist would have to adhere to. After the document goes through edits it probably gets sent to someone that applies specific styles for the end product. Does she have a style guide that you could post online? Knowing what kind of formatting she has to use could help us know if the tools would support it, or even allow us to test them out for you. I would be happy to do so.

I appreciate the offer, but honestly I think it's a mind-set thing we'd have to get over as much as a technical thing. Even running a few successful tests she'd probably still be uncomfortable.

I doubt it's really that big a problem, but just getting her to switch to mac is probably a big enough change to deal with for now.

CalBoy · Nov 1, 2007

saltyzoo said:
She's a novelist and Word is the standard submission format. I suggested pdf as well, but she insists that won't work.

I guess her editor needs to read the files and edit them huh? That makes the most sense as to why she doesn't want to use PDF.

saltyzoo said:
I appreciate the offer, but honestly I think it's a mind-set thing we'd have to get over as much as a technical thing. Even running a few successful tests she'd probably still be uncomfortable.

I doubt it's really that big a problem, but just getting her to switch to mac is probably a big enough change to deal with for now.

If she ever decides to write screenplays and the like, there is better software available. I took a creative writing class at a CC one summer, and that instructor mentioned a software that made writing any kind of script very easy (it is Mac specific too

). Give your wife time to settle in, and then see if you can coax her into trying other stuff on the side. Sometimes getting too attached to one software can be a bad thing.

MrMoore · Nov 1, 2007

CalBoy said:
If she buys her Office copy now, then in a few months she'll get the upgrade to 08 for only $10 (this was advertised for students; I'm not sure what the price is for non-student copies).

It is the same for all versions of Office 2004. Buy Office 2004 and get the upgrade to Office 2008 for the $10 when it is released (Jan 08 is what I hear)

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/go/promotions/

CalBoy · Nov 1, 2007

MrMoore said:
It is the same for all versions of Office 2004. Buy Office 2004 and get the upgrade to Office 2008 for the $10 when it is released (Jan 08 is what I hear)

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/go/promotions/

Excellent. Being a student, I'm used to seeing plenty of 'student pricing' signs everwhere, so I can't remember which ones also apply to the general public

Any long time word users that have switch to neo(open) office out there?

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