[rdionicio]

So I just got my Macbook. I needed an app similar to Microsoft Office (don't have the money at the moment to get it) So I decided to go with Open Office. It says it will work with Intel based Mac but needed X11. Installed that off my cd and downloaded the current version of Open Office. Dragged it to my Apps folder. Then I opened it, it then opened X11, and now I get the window for the word processing.

How do I use the other apps that go along with Open Office? like spreadsheet and powerpoint. Did I install it incorrectly? Can someone recommend a good word processor that will be able to save to .doc extension and also recommend a spreadsheet program?

[Caetano]

File > New > Choose a spreadsheat/whatever from there.

[CharlesS]

NeoOffice or AbiWord would be better choices than OpenOffice for you, since they act more like native OS X applications and don't require X11. In particular, NeoOffice is actually the same application as OpenOffice, but without the X11 stuff, making it easier to use.

[Jellytussle]

I believe NeoOffice doesn't run under Rosetta.

[JKT]

NeoOffice is not compatible with Rosetta and therefore can't be used on intel Macs.

[CharlesS]

Ah, that's unfortunate.

[NeXTLoop]

They're working on adding compatibility, but there's been no date announced as to when it'll be ready.

[D'Espice]

NeoOffice/J will not run yet but there's a native Intel binary of OpenOffice available: http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/2.0.x-intel.html

[Cadaver]

Aside from being less Mac-ish, I don't think there's a good reason not to use the X11 version. Its updated more frequently, released using the most stable codebase, and seems to be much faster than the Carbon/Java combo of the NeoOffice variants.

[wataru]

There's a huge reason: International support. NeoOffice supports all the regular OS X text input methods. The X11 version requires you to manually install (poor) support for each language separately.

[JKT]

There are plenty of reasons for using NeoOffice over the X11 version - as well as the international support wataru mentions, there is also:

support for OS X keyboard shortcuts (command-c,x,v instead of control etc),
support for OS X fonts (and font rendering) rather than poorly rendered TrueType conversions,
support for OS X printing and PDF creation,
support for drag and drop/copy and paste between NeoOffice and other OS X apps,
support/partial support for e.g. Typeit4Me and Textpander,
built-in support for Spotlight (btw, if you are using any version of OpenOffice.org for X11, this can also be added to your system if you install the Neolight plug-in - visit neooffice.trinity.org),
a much smaller footprint and the ability to download updates that are only a few MB instead of having to download the whole app every time (several 100MB),
a Mac menubar rather than an in-window one,
stability (yes, NeoOffice has been/is far more stable than OpenOffice.org for X11),
NeoOffice also has much better user support for Mac people too (in fact, the OpenOffice.org for X11 developers rely on the NeoOffice trinity forums to do the majority of the Mac user support legwork for them).
Submitting and finding bug reports is much easier too.
etc.

There are a few downsides (performance in some places is not so good) but on the whole, if you are needing to use OpenOffice.org on a Mac, NeoOffice is the better choice... unless you are using an Intel Mac which leaves you with a selection of just OpenOffice.org 2.0 for X11.

FWIW, NeoOffice has also been updated far more frequently than OpenOffice.org for X11, with patches for bug fixes released regularly - the only problem is the ability to update it to OpenOffice.org 2.0 which is not a trivial undertaking. Apple hasn't helped there - the bugginess of Java 1.4 prevented it from being used initially so Patrick had to stick to Java 1.3 when he first developed NeoOffice/J; the switch to Intel necessitated a switch to Java 1.4.2 anyway and then it turned out that Rosetta would not support a significant number of Java apps (it also threw a huge spanner in the works for Patrick and Ed as it meant that they had to reschedule their development plans and put back the move to OpenOffice.org 2.0). Having the OpenOffice.org people announce a vapourware native version didn't help either as it completely killed donations to the NeoOffice project.

Historically, the Mac version of OpenOffice.org for X11 has not been updated very frequently at all - e.g. NeoOffice was using the OpenOffice.org 1.1.4 codebase for about a year while OpenOffice.org for X11 was still at v1.1.2. IIRC, NeoOffice was also the first version of OpenOffice.org to have built-in support for the import of Wordperfect files (on any platform, btw).

Obviously, OpenOffice.org 2.0 for X11 has its merits (being the latest version of OpenOffice.org as the most obvious one) but that doesn't mean it is necessarily more suitable to use for the majority of people.

MNSHO.