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Alternatives To Office For Mac OS X

Posted by Zonk on from the anything-but-clippy dept.

imatt writes "From eWeek's article on MS Office Alternatives for Mac: 'Major milestones were recently announced for two Mac OS X-compatible software suites that could provide an alternative to the near-ubiquitous Microsoft Office...NeoOffice/J uses a standard Mac OS X installer, presents native Aqua menus, does not require Mac OS X users to install and use X11 software, uses Mac OS X fonts and has native printing support.' Most [options] seem to be open source, which is good for the programming community and better for the Apple user."

6 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. NeoOffice/J by LochNess · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have NeoOffice/J installed on my PowerBook, and it works pretty well. It's a bit slow, but definitely functional, and it has loaded every Office document I have asked it to.

  2. Um by mcc · · Score: 5, Informative

    What do you mean?

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    1. Re:Um by Senjutsu · · Score: 4, Informative

      I like pages a lot, but don't go into it expecting anything like your standard Office-esque word processor, because that isn't what it's intended to be. It's essentially a combination simple word processor and page layout program, and using it is much more akin to a sort of visual version of the experience of writing your document in LaTeX.

  3. Both options are great by AKAImBatman · · Score: 4, Informative

    As a Mac user, I have to say that both Office v.X and NeoOffice/J are excellent options. Microsoft gave Office v.X the full Aqua treatment, and even made certain that the interface was more consistent with the OS X desktop than with the Windows Desktop.

    That said, NeoOffice/J is my personal favorite. While it hasn't looked very "lickable" up until recently, I've found it to be far more user friendly, and overall quite stable. (With one of the best document rescue implementations I've ever seen! If something bad happens, it still usually manages to stop, save the file to disk, then dump its core. Amazing.) IMHO, I couldn't do articles without it.

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  4. Why does Apple need office, anyways? by ChllaPk · · Score: 4, Informative

    I've used Appleworks on every Mac that I've owned, never had a compatability problem yet. You can easily convert most files back and forth between Office and Appleworks, and it has just about every feature that Office does.

  5. Re:Apple Office by LochNess · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, AppleWorks doesn't come with every copy of OS X. It comes pre-installed on the "consumer" Macs (iBook, iMac, eMac), but not generally on the PowerBooks and PowerMacs.