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NeoOffice V OpenOffice?

eclipse

eclipse

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 18, 2005
989
14
Sydney
Hi all,
what office suite do you use, and who specifically prefers FOSS (Free Open Source Software) over commercial?

I love the idea of Open Source software and the ethos and community development side of the thing. (The idea of it anyway, I'm no programmer or anything — far from it!)

But why do they make both OpenOffice and NeoOffice boot up the WHOLE suite each time you click on it? Why can't they make the 5 separate sections, so that I can just open their version of WORD instead of waiting for the whole thing to boot?

Anyway, catch you all around.
 
I had used MS Word/Office since 1990, and still have Office 2004 on my eMac. But now on my MBP, I have both NeoOffice 2.2.4 and OpenOffice 3.0, primarily using the Writer module. Yesterday I completed a project that in past years was always done with MS Word, but this time I used NeoOffice exclusively. I had several diagrams to make, tables, etc. Everything worked smoothly. I saved it as a .doc format, but then made PDFs to share with others. Absolutely no problems.

So, I plan on using NeoOffice and OpenOffice as long as I can.
 
Great to hear.

Can I just ask how long NeoOffice takes you to boot up? And is 3 in Aqua or do you have to X11 or whatever it is to alternatively boot it?
 
NeoOffice is a Java port, so takes longer. On my MBP it takes ~15 seconds for first launch since restart of computer. After that, it takes ~7 seconds.

For OpenOffice 3.0 Beta (native Aqua) it takes ~9 seconds for first launch, and ~5 seconds for any launch after that.

All these are acceptable times for me.
 
Both of them take less time than Word 2008 in my experience. I can't wait for the final of the Aqua version of OOo. I've been using NeoOffice, but it'd be nice to not be running through Java.
 
And you guys don't have a problem with the way the whole suite boots up each time on the one icon? I personally like Word being separate from Excel because it boots faster, AND in "Recent Documents" it's just Word files all the way down...

(I like having 9 recent word documents that I draw on quickly... there's mission statement stuff, and password protected business records files I access frequently).

I guess it all won't seem so slow when I eventually get my wife's G5 and I get off this old 1999 G4 450! (Turns 9 in November!)
 
Yea Bean is very quick for just writing. Opens super fast.

I have OpenOffice, NeoOffice, M$ Office 2008 and Bean on my computer, and it takes less time for NeoOffice to open "the whole suite" than it does for me to open M$ Word alone.

I have noticed Bean is amazing for just text work. I was writing a large research paper that required graphs from Excel and data charts and I wanted to use M$2008 and it crashed SEVERAL times causing me to lose my data. There have been a number of updates since, so I don't know if it'd still be an issue.
 
eclipse said:
And you guys don't have a problem with the way the whole suite boots up each time on the one icon? I personally like Word being separate from Excel because it boots faster, AND in "Recent Documents" it's just Word files all the way down...

(I like having 9 recent word documents that I draw on quickly... there's mission statement stuff, and password protected business records files I access frequently).

I guess it all won't seem so slow when I eventually get my wife's G5 and I get off this old 1999 G4 450! (Turns 9 in November!)
Click to expand...
Well, the processor does have something to do with it. ;)

When Office 2004 was still working on the MBP, it took much longer to launch any one program than it does for NeoOffice or OpenOffice to launch. As for the "whole suite launching", the user is seldom aware of that fact, except that the other modules are instantly available (no launching a separate program as with MS Office).
 
After 20+ years with Microsoft, I've transitioned to OpenOffice (Beta). Documents, Presentations and spreadsheets all work well.

Does anyone know when the Aqua OpenOffice will go production?
 
It's funny to me the way that OpenOffice works on Mac OS X vs. Linux. On Ubuntu, I have separate GNOME menu items for each major OpenOffice function, but with the Mac OS X version (1.x, 2.x), you start it and get everything at once. NeoOffice is similarly monolithic, but at least, it's accessible without XWindows. Sure, it's a trade off--XWindows for Java, but until version 3 of OpenOffice works on PowerPC machines, I'm happy with NeoOffice and besides, OpenOffice requires Java for a few things anyway. If Apple would get their act together and provide the best implementation of Java they claimed to have, we'd all be set.
 
voxnj said:
After 20+ years with Microsoft, I've transitioned to OpenOffice (Beta). Documents, Presentations and spreadsheets all work well.

Does anyone know when the Aqua OpenOffice will go production?
Click to expand...

The original production date for OO (Aqua) given by Sun was Sept 08.
 
until version 3 of OpenOffice works on PowerPC machines, I'm happy with NeoOffice and besides, OpenOffice requires Java for a few things anyway. If Apple would get their act together and provide the best implementation of Java they claimed to have, we'd all be set.
Click to expand...

:eek:

Don't tell me OO3 ain't gonna work on my 'new' G5 PowerPC machine that I'm inheriting off my wife when she upgrades to a mac-Pro? Why? WHY? LIFE AINT FAIR.... WHY DON'T I GET THE SHINY NEW MACHINE? (Might be something to do with the fact that SHE's the designer and I'm just the assistant. ;))

OK, tantrum over.

Also, what's up with Apple and Java? Is Mac's reading of Java slow or something?
 
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