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Anyone Use Openoffice.
- Thread starter kdawg
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stcanard
macrumors 65816
I don't use OpenOffice per se, but NeoOffice/J it's openoffice with a lot of work put in to make it more Mac like (single menu bar, drap and drop, proper keyboard shortcuts, no X11 etc). I've used it for a couple of years now, and before that OpenOffice on Linux.
It's very stable, very usable, and very familiar feeling to people used to MS Office. I would even reccomend it to my parents 😉. Download it, give it a shot and see what you think.
Although in all honesty for 99% of the writing I do at home I use TextEdit. I used to go the for the whole office suite thing, but no longer see the need to fire up something that big just so I can write a letter.
It's very stable, very usable, and very familiar feeling to people used to MS Office. I would even reccomend it to my parents 😉. Download it, give it a shot and see what you think.
Although in all honesty for 99% of the writing I do at home I use TextEdit. I used to go the for the whole office suite thing, but no longer see the need to fire up something that big just so I can write a letter.
thedude110
macrumors 68020
I've used Open Office for the last 6 months -- it's ugly, it's not-intuitive, but for the most part, it works fine. I switched because Word kept crashing on my iMac -- I find that Open Office is also crashy, but nowhere near as crashy as Word itself.
So, in short, yeah. It's fine.
So, in short, yeah. It's fine.
its a viable alternative to buying a copy of office. honestly though i either use a text editing program like subthaedit or textedit and latex.
the only thing i really want is a nice open source excel program - i guess the openoffice equivalent works just as well...
openoffice is worthy of a try - its not too bad for a totally free alternative and it has almost the same functions in my generic limited use
the only thing i really want is a nice open source excel program - i guess the openoffice equivalent works just as well...
openoffice is worthy of a try - its not too bad for a totally free alternative and it has almost the same functions in my generic limited use
stcanard
macrumors 65816
thedude110 said:
<takes a deep breath>
Use NeoOffice.
Use NeoOffice.
Use NeoOffice.
Use NeoOffice.
Use NeoOffice.
Use NeoOffice.
Use NeoOffice.
Use NeoOffice.
Use NeoOffice.
Use NeoOffice.
At this point I really don't see why you would shoehorn an ugly X11 app in when there is this good an alternative, same codebase 100% compatible and actually works with your other OSX apps.
It's even got spotlight plugins...
nichos
macrumors 6502
Yep, been using openoffice for years on my linux machine (when only startoffice was available, and free), now i use ne-office or whatever its called on my mac. I really wish apple would have based their iWork/pages/iOffice off of openoffice - it already has a huge following.
MainFrame23
macrumors newbie
I'd love to see Open Office get on Mac and replace NeoOffice, as I severely dislike it compared to OpenOffice or MS Office. But, it's definitely a great tool if you don't want to bother with MS. Not quite OO if you ask me, but an excellent FREE tool nonetheless.
Rocksaurus
macrumors 6502a
stcanard
macrumors 65816
Rocksaurus said:
But no more like Windows than OOo does, and actually a lot less, since it follows the menu guidelines now.
The reason why it looks like windows is that OOo is not built on any kind of a nice toolkit. They are starting to work on making it follow Aqua guidelines, but that is one hell of a huge code base for two guys to work through. Just getting it to the point that they have is a huge step forward.
stcanard
macrumors 65816
mad jew said:
Actually according to the progress report the next step is to finish aquafying it.
The Neo/J developers are taking an approach which I wish more developers would, which is:
1. Replace the OOo interface code with Mac friendly code <now done>
2. Concentrate on stability, stability, stability <with the last patch that's now done>
3. Aquafy it and make it follow OSX guidelines <about to start>
Agreed OOo and StarOffice before it are butt-ugly. They after all were made to copy a Windows 3.x look when they came out (I remember using StarOffice on my Warp system).
But if you look through the OOo code, I think you will find it amazing that 2 guys have managed to get this version as far as they have in the time they have.
And honestly, because it is OOo + changes to start to move it to the Mac platform it is guaranteed that OOo is even uglier...
[Edit] Here's the development plan...
http://trinity.neooffice.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1481
Regular_John
macrumors 68040
Yeah I use neoOffice for my word processing, heck it outputs PDF's without a plugin! Yeah it's fugly and clunky, like running word in winblows NT or something like that but hey, it's free and it works.
nichos
macrumors 6502
dornoforpyros said:
Exactly!
Useability, features first - then make it "pretty." Just because it looks bad, doesn't make it un-usable (I probably should duck now?). There's absolutly no point in having a great-looking app that does nothing. Make the app, then make it look nice. They're definitly on the right track here.
But I ask again - WHY does apple think we need another document format?
pianojoe
macrumors 6502
I use NeoOffice/J.
It's free, and, even though it's not so pretty to look at, the price tag is a much better deal than MS office, and it works fine.
Generally speaking (and not insinuating anything), some people think and act as if all software was free. You know what I mean. Using MS office, and not paying for it, instead of NeoOffice/J, is actually supporting the MS platform.
I've donated to the makers of NeoOffice/J. I quite like that David/Goliath approach. But maybe I'm overly romantic. (Sorry, it's 5:47am).
It's free, and, even though it's not so pretty to look at, the price tag is a much better deal than MS office, and it works fine.
Generally speaking (and not insinuating anything), some people think and act as if all software was free. You know what I mean. Using MS office, and not paying for it, instead of NeoOffice/J, is actually supporting the MS platform.
I've donated to the makers of NeoOffice/J. I quite like that David/Goliath approach. But maybe I'm overly romantic. (Sorry, it's 5:47am).
I'm still on Windows ( 😡 ) but I do use both MS Office 2003 and OpenOffice.
I am equally happy with both program suites.
The only thing that bugs me about OO is that there's no documents plugin for Microsoft Office.
I think the (non-proprietary) format of the documents for OO is awesome, but you can't send them to MSO users unless you convert them to MSO (proprietary) format first 🙁
I am equally happy with both program suites.
The only thing that bugs me about OO is that there's no documents plugin for Microsoft Office.
I think the (non-proprietary) format of the documents for OO is awesome, but you can't send them to MSO users unless you convert them to MSO (proprietary) format first 🙁
devman
macrumors 65816
I use NeoOffice/J but only as a last resort. I use Keynote and Pages for most things I author. I only use NeoOffice/J for an MS Office file that doesn't import properly or when I have to do a spreadsheet (which is not often for me).
NO/J is a very impressive effort but I think trying to clone MS Office is get things wrong before you even start. But, if you want a big, monolithic, feature-laden office experience that isn't from MS then this will give it to you.
NO/J doesn't require X11 and integrates better (fonts for example) than openoffice.org.
But it does not look or feel like a Mac app.
NO/J is a very impressive effort but I think trying to clone MS Office is get things wrong before you even start. But, if you want a big, monolithic, feature-laden office experience that isn't from MS then this will give it to you.
NO/J doesn't require X11 and integrates better (fonts for example) than openoffice.org.
But it does not look or feel like a Mac app.
The screenshot of NeoOffice/J that I've seen is from a very, very old version (pre 1.1 beta). The beta release, and the more recent release candidate, improved the MacOS X (Aqua) look considerably. Yeah, there are still some parts of the interface that look like Windows (actually to me they look like many Java apps) but with each release more of the interface becomes Mac-like.
In the name of fairness, there is one advantage to using OpenOffice.org instead of NeoOffice/J -- OpenOffice.org 2.0 is being developed in parallel for MacOS X (still X11 but it's got all the new features, the new OASIS open standard file format, etc.). None of that is available (at this time) in NeoOffice/J. If interested, you may have to search around on the OOo forums for a link to one of the recent developer builds of OOo 2.0 (m108 I know was made available for MacOS X just within the past 2 weeks). The link directly from the OOo site only links to m104 which is about a month old.
In the name of fairness, there is one advantage to using OpenOffice.org instead of NeoOffice/J -- OpenOffice.org 2.0 is being developed in parallel for MacOS X (still X11 but it's got all the new features, the new OASIS open standard file format, etc.). None of that is available (at this time) in NeoOffice/J. If interested, you may have to search around on the OOo forums for a link to one of the recent developer builds of OOo 2.0 (m108 I know was made available for MacOS X just within the past 2 weeks). The link directly from the OOo site only links to m104 which is about a month old.