“Major milestones were recently announced for two Mac OS X-compatible software suites that could provide an alternative to the near-ubiquitous Microsoft Office. The free NeoOffice/J, an open-source software development project created by Patrick Luby and Edward Peterlin, has reached its ‘first stable release,’ and South Korea-based Haansoft has announced that it will ship a Mac OS X version of its ThinkFree Office 3.0 suite close on the heels of the July release of the Windows version,” Daniel Drew Turner reports for eWeek.
More info about NeoOffice/J: http://www.planamesa.com/neojava/en/index.php
More info about ThinkFree Office: http://www.thinkfree.com/
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Also, note that Apple’s AppleWorks provides Microsoft Word and Excel compatibility and Apple’s Keynote (part of iWork) imports and exports Microsoft PowerPoint presentations. Apple’s Pages (also part of iWork) also imports and exports Microsoft Word documents. And Apple’s Filemaker also imports Microsoft Excel files and Access data and instantly converts Microsoft Excel files to FileMaker databases.
True about the Apple Alternatives, although it’s expensive to buy multiple programs, not to mention that some of them aren’t that good (tried Pages, didn’t like it as a writing program…)
I use NeoOffice on occasion. While it works pretty well, it is no match for MS Office. But then again, if I didn’t need all the features and workflow speed of MS Office, I may go with the free NeoOffice.
Free vs. $149… isn’t something to be ignored. Right now, I’d take the $149 MS Office.
I use NeoOffice on occasion. While it works pretty well, it is no match for MS Office. But then again, if I didn’t need all the features and workflow speed of MS Office, I may go with the free NeoOffice.
Free vs. $149… isn’t something to be ignored. Right now, I’d take the $149 MS Office.
I use NeoOffice on occasion. While it works pretty well, it is no match for MS Office. But then again, if I didn’t need all the features and workflow speed of MS Office, I may go with the free NeoOffice.
Free vs. $149… isn’t something to be ignored. Right now, I’d take the $149 MS Office.
Also TextEdit will read Word docs fine (unless they’re very complex). In other words, there are lots of alternatives out there!
Hmmm you guys actually pay for Office? Totally unnecessary.
I used OpenOffice on Linux, and now I use MS Office on the Mac, and I think that OpenOffice is superior in just about every way to MS office. I get really frustrated with MS Office’s sluggish response times (eg when scrolling), it’s stupid fade-away eye-candy panels that are hell to navigate, and it’s slow startup times. Given that the hardware I was running OO on was much slower than my 1.25 Ghz PB, and I really can’t see how MS Office can be favourably compared to OO.
I really, really wish there was an Aqua-native port of OO to OSX.
>CeeDee Burner: Hmmm you guys actually pay for Office? Totally unnecessary.
Free vs. $149-$350 can mean different things to different users.
The (free) NeoOffice may be more costly for some. Time is money!
>CeeDee Burner: Hmmm you guys actually pay for Office? Totally unnecessary.
Free vs. $149-$350 can mean different things to different users.
The (free) NeoOffice may be more costly for some. Time is money!
>CeeDee Burner: Hmmm you guys actually pay for Office? Totally unnecessary.
Free vs. $149-$350 can mean different things to different users.
The (free) NeoOffice may be more costly for some. Time is money!
I think he meant it more along the lines of bootlegging the program.
Taxi, I think you answered your own question.
Apple works does not support Excel sufficiently for most usages. Importing workbooks with multiple tabs creates a single sheet monstrosity that is very difficult to deal with.
NeoOffice is reasonably better at this, but it is not a drop-in replacement for MSOffice. For instance importing a tab-delimited text file means selecting tab-delimited file-type when opening it. When exporting a tab delimited-file, select a Windows character set for compatibility. UTF-8 doesn’t seem to be universal.
I like NeoOffice and use it everyday, but it has been a bit of a struggle.
Pages is a nice combination of word processor and page layout program, but has no support for bibliographies (e.g. EndNote or Bookends). Without such support, it cannot be used for serious writing, which is exactly when the page layout features would be useful.
I have contacted the developers of Bookends bibliography software, and they claim that Pages is not designed to allow third party applications to interact with it. If that is so, and will be typical of Apple’s new applications, it would be a real shame. Apple should be trying to help its third party developers, not shutting them out.
“And Apple’s Filemaker also imports Microsoft Excel files and Access data and instantly converts Microsoft Excel files to FileMaker databases.”
Technically correct, even if you have to work afterwards to make them look and behave like databases. (FMP only imports/converts the cell content, but no calcs and the likes).
And FileMaker only costs, what, about $300 to $400 per license…
Why? Because it is a relational database that does far more than a spreadsheet. Using FileMaker for opening a simple spreadsheet is shooting with a cannon at a mosquito.
Bit of a wanting comparison, MDN. Yes, there are alternatives to Office, but if you want to compare FMP with an M$ Product, you should be comparing it to Access.
AbiWord is also a good alternative. I have Word X, but had a font problem (now fixed) that prevented me from starting the application. In the meantime I was able to use AbiWord (http://www.abisource.com/) which is free and works quite well.
Appleworks is shit at reading Office files. More importantly, the output generated by Appleworks just looks awful. Really, really bad.
Can’t believe that anyone would recommend it.
If anyone needs to work on documents at home and at work, transferring them back and forth, then Appleworks is just not the answer. Don’t do it. If you need to get most of a document in once and you have time to fix all the formatting, then it can be useful, but it’s probably a better idea to export the document as a plain file first.
I hate that god damned cute-sy little computer that pops up every time I want to use the help menu in an Office app. Even after you finish with help that little sucker keeps hanging around until you expressly tell the bastard to leave.
I use M$ products only under duress. For example, I have a client that sends me attachments from their feces, (uh, I meant pc’s not feces) in a M$ proprietary format ‘.msg’ so I keep a pc around for converting the files. I use M$ word whenever I need to use APA bibliographies with add-ons programs that invariably don’t support anything but M$ shit (maybe I really meant feces).
Otherwise, I use NeoOffice/J.
Maybe now that Mac OS X will be on Intel, the third party folks will embrace Macs more. Time will tell.
BTW, what’s up with Pages? has it been abandoned? Maybe someone can buy from Apple and finish it.
Good article over at Newsforge comparing OpenOffice.org 2.0 with Microsoft Office 2003. OpenOffice.org has come a long way baby!
http://software.newsforge.com/software/05/06/14/2137222.shtml?tid=152&tid=93
taxi, NeoOffice/J is Open Office for Aqua. It’s not the latest version, but what they call “the latest stable version”. The UI isn’t quite there yet (still looks multi-platform), but it integrates with a bunch of Apple technology, runs from the dock (very pretty lickable icon), and doesn’t need an X server. There are only a couple/few programmers working on it, and they are converting the UI to the Aqua look as fast as they can. The link for it is up at the top of the page in the article.
Overall, this is good news, especially considered with the rumor of Numbers. Office is Microsoft’s biggest card to play against Apple, so the more alternative office suites there are out there that are Office compatible, the stronger the position Apple is in. Mactel will be starting to step on Microsoft’s toes, and the sooner Apple can just laugh at Microsoft trying to pull Office out from under them, the better.
Of course, with Office apparently done with Metrowerks (thought I heard Microsoft used that and not XCode), don’t hold your breath for a Mactel Office. Even with the best of intentions (Microsoft? Good intentions? What am I thinking?), Microsoft has a lot of work ahead of them as they port their stuff to XCode.
I only need ONE thing:
100% COMPATIBILITY WITH MS WORD DOCUMENTS.
No one is able to offer that yet. Sorry guys, still M$ Office for me.
As a high school student, and a guy who bought Tiger, thus, getting a 30-day trial of iWork, I was *very* pleased with Pages.
One reason: themes. The themes Apple creates look incredible once they’re printed, much better than what AppleWorks can pull off. Not to mention (as I said, high school student), my essays and papers look bounds better than what other kids in my class have made. And you can tell they used Office/Word. Ever notice how Times New Roman has essnentially become the standard around high school?
Ever try manipulating text and photos in Word? It’s nearly impossible, and even if you do get a result, it looks terrible. That’s one thing Apple always gets right: the end product – what the damn thing is gonna look like in the end.
Same goes for Keynote. It’s far too easy to spot a PowerPoint presentation nowadays, and again, it looks terrible. I haven’t tried recent version of Office, but look how retarded and cheesy those transitions are! I mean, who the bloody hell wants their image to zoom in and out 5 times after it pops on the screen! It’s a mess!
And yet, Keynote has amazing themes (not trying to sound like a fanboy here, just saying the truth) and elegant transitions that PowerPoint can’t even touch, like the cube effect, or even a simple dissolve.
I tried iWork ’05, and if this Numbers app ever sees the light, you know I’m going for iWork ’06…
Meh.
Frankly, I don’t mind buying MS Office. Word and Excel and Powerpoint are no big whup.
What we NEED is a viable alternative to Outlook.
There are many MS Word users who would love to dump Word for Pages, if only it had support for bibliography software. As an example, check this thread at the Bookends Forum:
http://www.sonnysoftware.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1425#1425
The developers claim the problem is with Apple, who won’t let third party developers in the door.
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