[cmeisenzahl]

Rebuilding my G4 iBook after a crashed HD. Is one of these 2 suites markedly better than the other? Or more stable on Tiger?

Thanks in advance!

[Cold Warrior]

NeoOffice is based on OpenOffice but geared for OS X, from what I can tell.
I use NeoOffice - it's faster and more responsive than Mac Office 2008.

On a G4 iBook, I wouldn't expect any of them to run very well, and I can't speak for comparative performance.

[Gavin]

Originally Posted by Cold Warrior 

On a G4 iBook, I wouldn't expect any of them to run very well

Why not? We're not talking about a 386 - and it's an office suite, not a video editor or something

[Cold Warrior]

Mac Office 2008 is slow on my MBP C2D 2.16, 2GB RAM. NeoOffice is slightly better. A G4 iBook is slower and likely has less RAM. It seems obvious that it's going to run much more slowly, depending on RAM and CPU.

[cmeisenzahl]

Thanks, guys. It's a 1.2 Ghz G4, w/ 1.25 GB of RAM.

I used to have MS-Office on it, not 2008, the previous version. That actually ran pretty well.

[besson3c]

Check out the OpenOffice 3 beta. It's native to the Mac now.

[hbg]

I've been using NeoOffice for a year now, along with trying OpenOffice. NeoOffice is superior and much more stable and reliable. It really works great and I use it extensively for my work. I was using MS Office and got 2008, but decided to ditch it in favor of NeoOffice completely. I have not been dissappointed and find it superior. Also, it has macro support. There is a new OpenOffice Beta 3 for the Mac, and I have tried it, but it still crashes a lot.

[mania]

Originally Posted by Cold Warrior 

Mac Office 2008 is slow on my MBP C2D 2.16, 2GB RAM.

I have heard this before, but I don't really see it on my MBP (slowness). seems really quite speedy to me, but I just came from a 1.25 G4 with office 2004 so perhaps my slow meter is broken.

[wataru]

I have MS Office 2004, MS Office 2008, and NeoOffice on my 2.2GHz C2D MacBook. 2008 is the slowest of all of them, while 2004 and NeoOffice are pretty close. All in all I tend to use NeoOffice the most.

[besson3c]

The OpenOffice 3 release candidate is supposed to be available Aug. 25, and the final release on Sept. 16. These dates are subject to change, but my point is that you really should put OOo 3 on your radar pretty soon. Again, it has native Mac elements, so it should probably result in NeoOffice being considered EOL.

[SVass]

A Star Office beta is currently available free and it appears to be quite good. I use NeoOffice and like it as well.
sam

[wataru]

Last I checked, NeoOffice was not only more mature than the native OO.o versions, but it had more integration features as well. I wouldn't count NeoOffice out just yet.

[frdmfghtr]

I received a notice that NeoOffice 2.2.5 is out...

"NeoOffice 2.2.5 includes nearly all of the features in OpenOffice.org
3.0 and includes all of the bug fixes and speed improvements that were
in the various NeoOffice 2.2.4 patches. In addition, this release addes
several new features including:

* Slideshow presentations now run up to two times faster than
OpenOffice.org 3.0
* Web layout view no longer loses cursor position when saving
* Custom folders can be added in the Media Browser
* Slideshow presentations can be run using a remote control"

On top of that, NeoOffice 3.0 is due to come out sometime in November.

Perhaps this brings up the question fresh: NeoOffice or OpenOffice? It's been mentioned that NeoOffice is more mature than the native version of OpenOffice. Doesn't one of them rely on Java (or do both of them)?

I have both installed and occasionally bounce between them (the beauty of using ODF) to compare usability. Since graduating, I haven't had much opportunity to use either extensively (NeoOffice was the tool of choice for my MS thesis) so don't really know which is the "better" suite.

[TheoCryst]

NeoOffice uses Java to power its UI, but you can hardly tell anymore. Feel free to try out both NeoOffice and the OpenOffice 3.0 beta - the best part about free software is that you can easily install both at no additional cost to you.

UPDATE: At the moment, the OpenOffice 3.0 RC1 release is Intel-only. I'm pretty sure that PPC will be supported in the final release though.

[besson3c]

OpenOffice 3.0 RC1 is available in PPC, it's just not advertised on the downloads page, but it's available on the FTP/HTTP mirrors.