[IGrokSpock]

I want to buy a word processor and spreadsheet.

I dont want to buy Office.

I dont want to support Microsoft.

I do want the files to be compatible with Office, since my job and everyone else out there uses Office.

Mariner software? Open Office? What else is out there thats:

a) reasonably priced.
b) of great quality.

note: I dont care about entourage or powerpoint alternatives.

Thank you.....

[Sharky K.]

there is no real competition, there is openoffice but it isn't what you hope for (yet).

I think we have to wait for Apple's Keynote like version of Word en Excel

[cpac]

Originally posted by IGrokSpock:
I want to buy a word processor and spreadsheet.

I dont want to buy Office.

I dont want to support Microsoft.

I do want the files to be compatible with Office, since my job and everyone else out there uses Office.

You ask for the holy grail... Office compatibility without Office. The problem is, it doesn't really exist, and probably never will since both .doc and .xls formats are proprietary, and since M$, being evil, will probably never open them up to other people.

If you really want to have easy and full compatibility, suck it up and buy Office. It's actually not a half-bad product these days.

If that will really make you puke, you can install X11 and use OpenOffice - it'll look and feel like windows on your Mac, and give you some of the best third party Office-compatibility, but it's not Microsoft.

[mpbritt]

In my opinion OpenOffice is the alternative to MS Office. True, it's interface is butt-ugly, and it's slow in launching. But for basic compatibility with Word and Excel you can't beat it.

One drawback I have found is that OO does choke on large documents with complex tables, or large complex spread sheets. I don't know if it's just my ancient Pismo or the documents I was working with, YMMV.

But if all you need is the ability to read/write Word and Excel documents then go with OpenOffice. You can't beat the price.

[Powaqqatsi]

Originally posted by IGrokSpock:
I dont want to support Microsoft.

Please, it won't make a difference. Besides Office is very good and all the "alternatives" suck. Just buy Office, you won't regret it.

[Arkham_c]

I'm not a heavy office user, but I am using AppleWorks + Panther's TextEdit and getting along alright. I could use Office, but I'd rather not pirate it, and I don't need it enough to justify the cost.

[IGrokSpock]

quote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by IGrokSpock:
I dont want to support Microsoft.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please, it won't make a difference.

Gee, thats a great reason to buy crap-@$$ bloated software from an unethical monopolistic company.

One person can make a difference, if every one person acts. This is why the world sucks these days. A$$holes control it, and the other 95% of us say "nothing can be done, so why bother trying?"

My $500 makes no difference, but 1000 other people not buying it, becomes $500k. 10000 people becomes $5m, and so on, until a difference is made. That, my cynical friend, is democracy...

[IGrokSpock]

[Powaqqatsi]

Originally posted by IGrokSpock:
Gee, thats a great reason to buy crap-@$$ bloated software from an unethical monopolistic company.

One person can make a difference, if every one person acts. This is why the world sucks these days. A$$holes control it, and the other 95% of us say "nothing can be done, so why bother trying?"

My $500 makes no difference, but 1000 other people not buying it, becomes $500k. 10000 people becomes $5m, and so on, until a difference is made. That, my cynical friend, is democracy...

Grow up. Besides that was not my real reason. Read on. Office is the only good office suite available for Mac.

PS: the world does not suck

[bbales]

I finally did buy Office a couple years ago, but for 10 years before that I existed quite nicely with AppleWorks AND MacLinksPlus, for translating the documents.

And actually, I still mostly use AppleWorks. Then I simply create a file in Word and copy everything over and send it via e-mail where it needs to go.

Having said that, I think Office is pretty good -- I do use entourage all teh time. But I only use Word, really, for sending things to other people. You can get by without it.

[normyzo]

There are a number of alternatives:

NeoOffice/J
Is native, does NOT require X11, a regular .app based off OpenOffice.org 1.0.3. Free.

Office Applications 2.0
A commercial version of OpenOffice.org 1.0.3 with a number of improvements, making it look much better than a stock OpenOffice.org. Does require X11, but integrates nicely. Also comes with a well-packaged version of The GIMP. $39.95

OpenOffice.org
Needs X11, but based of OpenOffice.org 1.1. Free.

Nisus Writer
Mariner Write
That Israeli word processing program

[wataru]

Try OpenOffice.org. It's free. You might not like it, or you might find that it doesn't offer everything you want, but at least you won't lose anything by giving it a shot.

I love it, by the way.