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OpenOffice or MS Office
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Senior User
Join Date: Nov 2003
Status:
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Recently got a new PB here and I am debating on installing OpenOffice (Freelicious!) or just purchasing MS Office.
Obviously I would rather save the money (and support OpenSource) if I can; I don't use Office everyday and I really only use Word. I just don't want to hassle with OpenOffice if it needs a lot of setting up or tweaking to run correctly.
What does the esteemed mac community think I should do?
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: europe
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Offline
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It is a well known fact that StarDivision hated the Mac. They are also known for false promises, lies, deception.
Whether you want to support that is up to you.
Also, OpenOffice is crap.
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Nasrudin sat on a river bank when someone shouted to him from the opposite side: "Hey! how do I get across?" "You are across!" Nasrudin shouted back.
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Singapore
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TextEdit?
There are other alternatives for Word on OS X. BUT... they don't work as well as MS Word itself.
Save yourself the trouble.
Just IMHO.
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mac.goodies webstore / Switched to an iBook in November 2002. Never looking back.
iBook R.I.P. 20 Nov 2002 - 2 Aug 2005
Hello Leopard! On iMac 17" Intel Core Duo 1.83GHz 2GB, iPod 5th gen 30GB and iPhone
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Junior Member
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Australia
Status:
Offline
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I am debating on installing OpenOffice (Freelicious!) or just purchasing MS Office.
They're in 2 different ball parks. I don't like promoting Microsoft, except with Word X they've made a truly great product. To me OpenOffice is in about the same league as AppleWorks. I have all 3 installed on my computer only because I haven't yet removed OpenOffice and occassionally use the drawing stuff in AppleWorks.
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Not compatible with Windows
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: New York, NY
Status:
Offline
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Open Office is not terribly difficult to install/set up, particularly if you already have X11 working.
It's not something I'd want to actually work in on a day-to-day basis, but if you only have rare occasion when you need Office compatibility, it's a good option.
If you don't really need Office compatibility, but just need a word processor, there are many options out there: TextEdit being the most basic and free, but if you need more options (for comparatively cheap prices) you should take a loot at Mellel and Nisus Writer Express.
Both nice and also non-M$
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cpac
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Provo, UT
Status:
Offline
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I've tried most of the alternatives, but none are as good as OfficeX. They are long overdue for an update though. They don't even take advantage of 10.2 features let alone 10.3 features. Likewise there is a long rumor regarding Appleworks getting an update. It is even more overdue for one than OfficeX.
I'd not advise OpenOffice unless you are very cheap. The problem is that cupying graphics and drag & drop do not work with X11 applications. Further it doesn't have the feel of a native OSX application. I personally think it feels clunky but that is my view. I like Abiword better on X11. If you are really cheap, look at that.
The alternatives on the Mac are Thinkfree Office which is a fairly nice office app written in Java. It is surprisingly fast and has a pretty good OSX Interface although not as good as OfficeX (IMO). There is also NisusWrite which I've not used and can't really speak to.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Edmond, OK USA
Status:
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If you just want an editor, use what you want. If, however, you work with Word documents, stick with MS (as much as I hate to say that).
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Yokohama, Japan
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You might as well give OpenOffice a try, since it's free. I've been using it for my recent papers, and in some ways it's very nice (it doesn't decide to randomly change what you type, doesn't unexpectedly quit every 10 minutes) but in other ways it can be a pain (printing can be weird). Give it a shot before dropping the money on Word (you do know you can buy Word separately, right?).
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Nov 2001
Status:
Offline
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If you are JUST using Word, you may be able to get by with TextEdit, if you're using Panther. TextEdit in Panther can read/write Word docs pretty well... it may be sufficient. I'd certainly give it a try if I were you.
If you're also using Excel, then you may need Office.
I wouldn't use OpenOffice in any case ;-)
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Aug 2000
Location: Retired
Status:
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I tried to like OO.o, I did, but the interface is just plain nasty. I'm not a big interface guy but OO.o just plain hurts my eyes.
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Power Macintosh Dual G4
SGI Indigo2 6.5.21f
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