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OpenOffice for Mac!!!
- Thread starter BuddyMac
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djejrejk
macrumors 6502a
savar
macrumors 68000
To that, I would add: NeoOffice will leave you wishing you had something better. It's really slow to start up, the interface is ugly, and the interoperability with MS Office is good but not great.
I'm very close to just buying office 2008.
NeoOffice isn't perfect, but let's keep in mind that it's free, while MS Office is $400.
Also keep in mind that the Home/Student version of Office 2008 is $149.95 and is licensed for installation on up to three computers in the same house.
Obviously doesn't apply to every situation, but for many folks, that works out to be significantly less expensive than $400. 🙂
Obviously doesn't apply to every situation, but for many folks, that works out to be significantly less expensive than $400. 🙂
Definitely not true for everyone.
I have NeoOffice and it's opened quicker for me than Office for Mac ever did. Maybe if you're a high-end user of MS Office in the business/corporate world and need the compatibility, but for the average user I think NeoOffice is just fine. I'm in university right now and it's been perfect for me, even though I could get MS Office for $30 through my school. It's not worth it to me, especially since I've used Office '08 and thought it was just convoluted and confusing. I like NeoOffice's interface, I like that it's open-source, and best of all, it's free. So here's a vote for NeoOffice 😀
boast
macrumors 65816
MisterMe
macrumors G4
Steel Wheels
macrumors member
Definitely go with NeoOffice. The drawbacks are fairly small compared to the features and price of the whole suite (Free).
I love iWork, but NeoOffice is great. Maybe Lotus Symphony will take its place as the best Mac OOo port...
Hi djejrejk, kuwisdelu & Steel Wheels
I finally installed NeoOffice and it's looks just great and have all feature what OpenOffice.org had.
I haven't find any delay in startup process also...
Compared to OpenOffice.org, NeoOffice's look and feel as awesome and pretty good.
Thank you guys for your advice and suggestions.
I finally installed NeoOffice and it's looks just great and have all feature what OpenOffice.org had.
I haven't find any delay in startup process also...
Compared to OpenOffice.org, NeoOffice's look and feel as awesome and pretty good.
Thank you guys for your advice and suggestions.
hey..
I just gone through IBM Lotus Symphony site... it seems that it is not available for Mac OS. is it??
I just gone through IBM Lotus Symphony site... it seems that it is not available for Mac OS. is it??
No problem.
Of course, NeoOffice will always have all the same features that OpenOffice.org has, since NeoOffice is based on OpenOffice.org's source code. They're about 90% the same code, I believe, and the only real differences is that NeoOffice was made to be native OS X while OpenOffice.org still has to run in X11. Since it's reliant on OpenOffice.org, NeoOffice's releases will tend to lag a few months behind OpenOffice.org's, but it's worth it to had that native aqua feel.
The others were just complaining that it isn't as fully-featured as MS Office, which is true to an extent, but I've had a need for any of the features that it lacks from MS Office. The only difference that I've noticed so far is that animations are somewhat laggy in Impress vs. Powerpoint, but I don't use animations much anyway, since I find many of them tacky in a serious presentation. Plus, my NeoOffice .ppt presentation was the only one that didn't have compatibility issues during my seminar class last semester, while the other "true" .ppt had some problems on my teacher's computer... hehe.
kkat69
macrumors 68020
Another choice to consider is Lotus Symphony: http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.jspa
It's free as well and another one of those 'Office compatible' softwares.
It's free as well and another one of those 'Office compatible' softwares.
Checked out their website. They've announced OS X support, but don't seem to have any Mac versions up yet. They're download site only had Windows and Linux. Sounds interesting. It says it's based on OpenOffice.org source code too, so I'm wondering how different is it?
Hi,
yeah correct... I liked this Aqua style very much and performance wise also I feel this is better than OpenOffice.org
The first time yes but what about with having to buy it again when a new version comes out and you want the latest? Won't you eventually spend more this way? I don't know, just asking.
If I'm not mistaken it is actually based on OpenOffice 1.x instead of the current 2.x. They used an older version, did a very serious rewrite and took it from there. Therefor I would expect it to be significantly different.
I am actually looking forward to Symphony on OS X, IBM seems to take Symphony very serious... It seems that the increasing success of ODF has given a lot of companies an incentive to try to take on MS Office (again).
IBM: Symphony downloaded 100,000 times in first week
Sounds pretty cool. I'll try it out once their OS X version is released. I just hope they take the OS X version as seriously as the other ones, so we don't end up in the same situation as NeoOffice having to take up where OpenOffice.org didn't bother.
From the website, I have high hopes for this and ODF in general. I really hope things like this take off, as I'm pretty tired of MS Office by now. 😀
OpenOffice.org is coming to the Mac, and natively, without requiring any X11 server. They've made fantastic progress at the Aqua port. Native Mac support is slated for release with OpenOffice 3.0 in September, with the first beta being available in April. If you're brave, you can see the Aqua OpenOffice with the 2.4 series developer snapshots (http://download.openoffice.org/680/). It's still rough around the edges and not production ready, but it'll give you a better idea as to what to expect with the 3.0 release.
And, by the way, they've also discussed theming OpenOffice.org so that it better fits in with the Mac world. It won't look like Ugly MS Office 2000 sitting on your pretty Mac Desktop. I can't say, but I'd also hope that they'd change the UI up some to better fit with what iWork and MS Office are doing with the user interface.
Personally though, I'd rather encourage Apple to support ODF in iWork as a first class citizen, possibly the default format. I don't know if they could represent the weird several-spreadsheets-in-a-page views that Numbers has, but from a data portability point of view, I'd much rather know that what I'm saving all of my stuff in is an ISO approved international standard controlled by a vendor-neutral body... not to mention not having to export out in a different format when it's time to send someone a document via Gmail or on a Windows machine.
And, by the way, they've also discussed theming OpenOffice.org so that it better fits in with the Mac world. It won't look like Ugly MS Office 2000 sitting on your pretty Mac Desktop. I can't say, but I'd also hope that they'd change the UI up some to better fit with what iWork and MS Office are doing with the user interface.
Personally though, I'd rather encourage Apple to support ODF in iWork as a first class citizen, possibly the default format. I don't know if they could represent the weird several-spreadsheets-in-a-page views that Numbers has, but from a data portability point of view, I'd much rather know that what I'm saving all of my stuff in is an ISO approved international standard controlled by a vendor-neutral body... not to mention not having to export out in a different format when it's time to send someone a document via Gmail or on a Windows machine.