Neooffice Aqua Released

[stcanard]

so what's the difference between this neo office aqua and openoffice for max os x which will be previewed at apple expo paris?

At this point, the openoffice for Mac OSX that will be displayed in Apple Expo Paris is vapourware. It may appear, but who knows what shape it will be in.

OTOH Neo Office Aqua is available, well tested, and has a good history. Patrick and Ed (the two guys who have done this practically by themselves) have done an amazing job of building a stable product that is far more integrated with OSX than OOo X11 is.

If you have MS Office, or are willing to pay for it, that's probably the way to go, but I just checked, and its currently $449 at Future Shop -- that's an awful lot of money so I can make the occasional spreadsheet, and I think I would prefer to spend that cash on something like a Mac Mini that I can put in my living room.

Neo Aqua is by far the best full-featured, free office suite for OSX. There is no messing with X11, menus are where people expect them, dialogs look like people expect them, and its packaged well enough that I can give my dad a link and he can install it himself.

 

[theBB]

I just downloaded and used NeoOffice for the first time this weekend. I have only used the "document" part of it, but so far it loks quite good for a free program. They could make it a bit more user friendly (or I could try harder to figure out how to do what I want) and it seems to need more RAM than any other app I have used (I got a few spinning beachballs when I switch back to other programs), but I cannot complain.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Yes, it does use a bit of RAM... but it's the virtual memory it uses that is ridiculous... with just one, almost empty, document open it uses 140MB real memory and a whopping 1.19GB (!) virtual memory, according to my Actiity Monitor. The only other process with similar resource usage is the kernel_task...

Hopefully the final 2.0 version will be a bit leaner...

 

[Yannick]

both OOo and Neo have advantages

Personally, I use both "OpenOffice.org 2.0.3" and "NeoOffice 2.0 Aqua beta 3" (based on OOo 2.0.3). NeoOffice has for now some advantages:

- it uses native fonts (OOo uses fondu to extract the fonts and be able to use them. But then when you want to use the document with Neo or even OOo on windows, a 1 full page document will appear on 2 pages with 1 or 2 lines on the top of the second)
- it is more Mac friendly
- the forum support is great (and the two guys developing Neo seems very talented, competent and nice)

OpenOffice.org for Mac using X11 has also some advantages:
- it opens quicker (I just ran test on both on my PB G4 15" 1.5 GHz 1.5 GB RAM: OOo opens in 26 secondes the first time when even X11 is not launched, then OOo reopens in 6 secondes. Neo opens in 32 secondes the first time, then in 14 secondes after it has been closed)
- it uses less memory (OOo+X11: 87.15 MB real memory and 736.68 virtual. Neo: 218.35 MB real memory and 997.63 virtual)
- presentations transitions are way better handled than Neo (generally OOo is faster than Neo)
- it is the official OpenOffice.org, more up-to-date, is QAed, and the future of it doesn't rely only on two persons (as committed as they are, they are only human) but on a team (of people who seems very talented, competent and nice).

It is indeed too bad that there are two separate projects, wasting in a sense time, energy and donations. It is the result of licence differences, technical approach differences, and miscommunication/misunderstanding/hurt feelings on both sides.

The expected roadmap of OOo for Mac is:
- "OOo Con 2006" Sept 12 in Lyon, France: probably demo of a not yet functional OOo without X11
- first alpha implementation of OOo without X11 next spring
- Implementation of native filepicker, native printing next summer

Yannick

 

[Wolfpup]

Thank goodness real progress is finally being made on Open Office. Can't believe it's taken so long to get it native on the Mac...and we've got another year to go?

Is too bad resources are split between the projects

 

[ArthurS]

Thank goodness real progress is finally being made on Open Office. Can't believe it's taken so long to get it native on the Mac...and we've got another year to go?

Is too bad resources are split between the projects

Indeed. With MS Office not being Universal yet, I think many Intel-based Mac owners would try out a native OpenOffice. Since (on Windows) OOo has now matured enough to be a serious MS Office competitor, I would imagine many might continue to use it even after the release of a new version of MS Office (which, for all we know, might well take another year - it definitely will not be released before Office 2007 on Windows). The lack of a Universal MS Office would have been a phenomenal opportunity to be the Office suite of choice on the second-largest desktop OS there is.

Talk about a missed opportunity!

/me is now sticking with the excellent, albeit non-UB, Office 2004.

 

[DamoRed]

Hi all,

I've downloaded NeoOffice and installed it, but when trying to open it, the icon just keeps bouncing and ultimately fails to open. When this happened, I downloaded and installed the latest bugfix, but still the same result. Very frustrating when I'm reading that so many here are having good experience with it.

I'm running on Tiger with 1GB of RAM.

Thank you

Damo

 

[bloodycape]

I have tried both but called me strange I like OpenOffice better. The only thing openoffice and even neooffice is missing is a good grammar editor like the one you see in word. If they can add better excel support, a good grammar editor, and formatting tools(as in APA, MLA, and so forth, with citation editors and stuff) in their next version I will be fully sold, and won't have to run office to do some work. Hmm maybe I should send a direct suggestion to them.

 

[theBB]

Well perhaps I'll get iWork then. I don't need to import documents. Just print and hand them in to the professors.... Hopefully I'll never have to email them then...

Well, you can always email a "pdf" version. I prefer sending a non-editable files anyways. That way, there is not much chance of accidental modifications after you turn it in.

 

[ibidiem]

converted!

Downloaded NeoOffice because Word was taking upwards 90% CPU on my macbook! The fan was running constantly!

NeoOffice lets me scroll, too, with my mouse scroll wheel without the annoying delay. I did try Pages (I'm working with a 1.24 MB word.doc) and, though I *wanted* it to be my primary wordprocessor, it was too slow and, ultimately, didn't let me view the doc in 'print view' -- which I apparently can't do without.

However, Neo is taking 1.27g's of virtual memory... but it seems to treat my mb better.