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Excellent Tutorial for OpenOffice.org on Mac OS X

Posted by pudge on from the for-those-of-you-who-are-in-offices dept.

Blano writes "Marc Liyanage recently posted a great article on getting up and running and optimizing OpenOffice.org on Mac OS X. He includes some tweaks and helpful configuration tips." Another option is getting the software on CD.

4 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Open Office is a joke on the Mac by SuperBanana · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Open Office on the Mac is a joke. It runs under X and looks like crap.

    Fair enough, even if the comment was trollish. The article aims to help make it less of a joke, but you really have to ask yourself this-

    There are a lot of talented mac progammers working on all sorts of cute but worthless apps, like 5 billion "download songs off your iPod" programs. The OpenOffice team has repeatedly asked for volunteers to help with the port to Aqua. There are a lot of people who really don't like Microsoft.

    So why is it that OpenOffice for Aqua is so far off? Come on people- stop bitching, step up to the plate!

    --
    Please help metamoderate.
  2. Re:Open Office is a joke on the Mac by capmilk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why the hell would you want to help Sun anyway? To have a decent and free office software running natively on OS X. That's why.

  3. Re:It needs to be OSX native... by liyanage · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I absolutely agree.

    In its current state on Mac OS X, the X11 version is usable for fairly technical people.

  4. Never Understood Integrated Works Suites by Salvo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've never Understood the whole OpenOffice/*Works type Applications.
    Having one Application for Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Drawing and Painting just doesn't make sense. They are three different creative tasks, which occasionally have overlap.
    The Windows-OLE/GNOME-Bonobo concept makes much more sense to me. Write a Document in AbiWord/WordPerfect. If you want to add a pretty Picture, Embed a Sodipodi/CorelDRAW! Drawing. If you just want to write your Resumé, just use AbiWord/MSWord. It just seems a lot more Unixey than including everything in one Application. You can also utilise previous work using a Linked Object. I could create a technical Drawing in AutoCAD and link it into a Report in Word. Then, when I wish to update the Model with more information, I just update the original and the Illustration in my Word Document automatically updates. You can't do something like this with a Works Suite, and if I want to use something more powerful (like AutoCAD) than the built-in Offering, I can. Platform Portability can be a problem with OLE/Bonobo documents, but that's what PS/PDFs are for, aren't they?

    Most *Works-style applications store all types of documents in the single File Format. Where's the sense in that. If I want to find the letter that my father wrote to Grandma, I have to search though a dozen photos of grandma, a spreadsheet on Superannuation, 20 different letters to do with the Family Tree, a Picture of the family tree, a drawing of a desk, until I find the letter that I'm after. All these documents appear as Gobe Productive Files in the File Manager. There is no way to determine that one is a Spreadsheet, Painting, Drawing or Document.