How good is the last version of OpenOffice?

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Juan Cahis - 11 Dec 2007 21:28 GMT

Dear friends:

How good, stable, and Ms Office compatible, is the last version of
OpenOffice (2.3.0, I understand)?

Does it work well under Leopard?

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Gracias

Juan I. Cahis
Santiago de Chile

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Király - 11 Dec 2007 22:11 GMT

> Dear friends:
>
> How good, stable, and Ms Office compatible, is the last version of
> OpenOffice (2.3.0, I understand)?

OpenOffice runs under X11. You might consider NeoOffice 2.2.2, which is
like OpenOffice but runs natively in OS X with the full Aqua interface.
I use it and like it a lot.

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K.

Lang may your lum reek.

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Steve W. Jackson - 11 Dec 2007 22:14 GMT

> Dear friends:
>
> How good, stable, and Ms Office compatible, is the last version of
> OpenOffice (2.3.0, I understand)?
>
> Does it work well under Leopard?

I don't know, but you might want to look into NeoOffice instead. So far
as I'm aware, OpenOffice (currently at 2.3.1) requires X11. NeoOffice
is based on OpenOffice (2.2.1, so it's a little behind, no doubt) but is
specifically oriented toward the Mac. I've got the latest version
installed and it seems to do quite well at handling MS Office files,
along with supporting the ODF formats of OpenOffice -- so far as I've
found with my limited experimentation. You can find it at
<http://www.neooffice.org/> for free.

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Steve W. Jackson
Montgomery, Alabama

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wightstraker - 11 Dec 2007 22:25 GMT

On Dec 11, 5:14 pm, "Steve W. Jackson" <stevewjack...@knology.net>
wrote:

> In article <1i8yz75.rkx6c77h0sz2N%jiclbchSINBAS...@attglobal.net>,
>
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
> Steve W. Jackson
> Montgomery, Alabama

I've used both OpenOffice and NeoOffice on Tiger. While it's not as up
to date, I found NeoOffice to be a better experience on OS X. There's
no need to load X11, the GUI is better integrated, and I've had no
major stability issues with it either.

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GeneralSunTzu - 12 Dec 2007 00:03 GMT

In article
<561d1c65-caac-43b8-8be7-082ee3fbea39@q3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,

> On Dec 11, 5:14 pm, "Steve W. Jackson" <stevewjack...@knology.net>
> wrote:
[quoted text clipped - 23 lines]
> no need to load X11, the GUI is better integrated, and I've had no
> major stability issues with it either.

Also, if I may chip in, AbiWord (currently at release 2.4.5, but a
bug-fix 2.4.6 release should be available in a few days) is quite
user-friendly and free software.
Do give it a try!
It's available here:

http://www.abisource.com/release-notes/2.4.6.phtml

Cheers,

Usul

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Erik Richard Sørensen - 12 Dec 2007 09:36 GMT

> How good, stable, and Ms Office compatible, is the last version of
> OpenOffice (2.3.0, I understand)?

The ver. 2.3.0 is the fastest and best Openoffice that I've ever run
until now. it does open in very, very short time, and I've noticed more
times that it is even more compatible than MSO itself - especially, if
the docs you work with contain multilingual text and lots of font
variations.

Just the other day I was working on some docs containing UTF-8 fonts and
specific text inputs. By a 'bad luck' I came to just doubleclick such a
MSWord rtf file and to my surprise it was OpenOffice 2.3 that opened the
doc. But since the doc was firstly created in another textprocessor and
then saved as a MSWord .RTF file with the word logo et al, it also
should be word that opened the doc. I then opened the doc by dragging it
to the Word icon (latest ver. 11.3.9/MSO2004), and to my real
frustrating surprise, many of the characters were not the ones that I
put into the original document

> Does it work well under Leopard?

Well... I use it on both Tiger and leopard. It _IS_ faster under
Leopard, but there are some issues to take care of. It suddenly can be
that the use of OpenOffice+X11 simply times out, and when you quit both
apps and relaunch Openoffice, it starts X11 as it should do, but
OpenOffice isn't launched. This problem doens't come running it under
tiger 10.4.11. - here it simply launches within less than 5 secs _every
time_. stability and compatibility are identical in both systems. So
before I really begin to use Openoffice as my main office suite, think
I'll wait until it'll be fully Leopard savvy.

Cheers, Erik Richard

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NisusWriter - The Future In Multilingual Textprocessing
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wightstraker - 12 Dec 2007 13:34 GMT

> The ver. 2.3.0 is the fastest and best Openoffice that I've ever run
> until now. it does open in very, very short time, and I've noticed more
> times that it is even more compatible than MSO itself - especially, if
> the docs you work with contain multilingual text and lots of font
> variations.

That's very true; OpenOffice and NeoOffice are the only office suites
I use that can consistently read and write Cyrillic. MS Word is
miserable at it.

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John Varela - 13 Dec 2007 03:51 GMT

> Well... I use it on both Tiger and leopard. It _IS_ faster under Leopard,
> but there are some issues to take care of. It suddenly can be that the use of

> OpenOffice+X11 simply times out, and when you quit both apps and relaunch
> Openoffice, it starts X11 as it should do, but OpenOffice isn't launched.
> This problem doens't come running it under tiger 10.4.11. - here it simply
> launches within less than 5 secs _every time_. stability and compatibility
> are identical in both systems. So before I really begin to use Openoffice as
> my main office suite, think I'll wait until it'll be fully Leopard savvy.

I just upgraded to Leopard and both X11 and OpenOffice take forever to open
under Leopard. Oddly, after X11 has been slowly turning its pinwheel for a
while, a pane opens telling me that a command has timed out, and then OO
opens.

As I mention in a new thread I started yesterday, I have a second monitor
connected to this iMac. In Tiger there was no problem moving OO windows
around from one display to the other. In Leopard, the OO window will move
partway from one screen to the other, then stops as if hitting a wall. Most
unsatisfactory.

I'm going to try NeoOffice and see if that works better.

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John Varela
Trade NEW lamps for OLD for email.

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Stainless Steel Rat - 13 Dec 2007 16:16 GMT

> I just upgraded to Leopard and both X11 and OpenOffice take forever to open
> under Leopard. Oddly, after X11 has been slowly turning its pinwheel for a
> while, a pane opens telling me that a command has timed out, and then OO
> opens.

As with ALL X11 issues on Leopard, you should install the XQuartz updates:
http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz

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John Varela - 14 Dec 2007 01:55 GMT

>> I just upgraded to Leopard and both X11 and OpenOffice take forever to open
>> under Leopard. Oddly, after X11 has been slowly turning its pinwheel for a
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> As with ALL X11 issues on Leopard, you should install the XQuartz updates:
> http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz

Thank you. I installed the update and it solved the problem with moving the
window around. The "command timed out" pane still comes up, but OpenOffice
itself is much speedier. It may be faster than it was under Tiger; but it's
hard to tell.

Why is Apple shipping an old version of X11 and calling it an upgrade?

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John Varela
Trade NEW lamps for OLD for email.

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Erik Richard Sørensen - 14 Dec 2007 14:47 GMT

> Stainless Steel Rat wrote::
>>> I just upgraded to Leopard and both X11 and OpenOffice take forever to open
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> itself is much speedier. It may be faster than it was under Tiger; but it's
> hard to tell.

I downloaded and installed the X11 from the link, and as you have
noticed, the time-out dialog still comes, but clicking 'Cancel' just
open Openoffice nicely and fast now.

> Why is Apple shipping an old version of X11 and calling it an upgrade?

Hm, maybe because at the time, the included version still was an upgrade
to the existing version of X11, and the ver. 2.1.1 _is_ very new...

Cheers, Erik Richrd

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John Varela - 14 Dec 2007 19:51 GMT

>> Why is Apple shipping an old version of X11 and calling it an upgrade?
>
> Hm, maybe because at the time, the included version still was an upgrade to
> the existing version of X11, and the ver. 2.1.1 _is_ very new...

If they thought it was an upgrade then they never tested it. I gather you
had problems similar to mine with the version of X11 that ships with Leopard
and is described by the installer as an upgrade. I didn't have those
problems with the version of X11 that I had downloaded from the Apple site
and installed on Tiger.

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John Varela
Trade NEW lamps for OLD for email.

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Erik Richard Sørensen - 14 Dec 2007 21:15 GMT

>>> Why is Apple shipping an old version of X11 and calling it an upgrade?
>> Hm, maybe because at the time, the included version still was an upgrade to
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> problems with the version of X11 that I had downloaded from the Apple site
> and installed on Tiger.

Srangely i don't have the problems on my QuickSilvers - neither a Dual
1ghz nor a Dual 1,8ghz with Leopard - only on my MacPro. - Hopefuly
apple will get it solved in the next 10.5.2 update...

cheers, Erik Richard

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Jeffrey Goldberg - 12 Dec 2007 20:02 GMT

> How good, stable, and Ms Office compatible, is the last version of
> OpenOffice (2.3.0, I understand)?

Both OpenOffice and NeoOffice are completely free. I would recommend that
you try it yourself to see how well it works for you.

Cheers,

-j

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Jeffrey Goldberg http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/
I rarely read top-posted, over-quoting or HTML postings.
http://improve-usenet.org/

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Calum - 13 Dec 2007 11:34 GMT

>> How good, stable, and Ms Office compatible, is the last version of
>> OpenOffice (2.3.0, I understand)?
>
> Both OpenOffice and NeoOffice are completely free. I would recommend
> that you try it yourself to see how well it works for you.

And if you're so inclined, you can even try out the Aqua build of OO.o.
It's alpha quality right now, but it's good to see how it's coming along:

http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/download/aqua.html

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Mac Forum / Applications / Mac Applications / December 2007

How good is the last version of OpenOffice?