Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

2 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Open Office by AKAImBatman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    FYI, I think the moderators marked you "flamebait" because you weren't paying attention. OOo for Mac require X11, looks like crap, acts like crap, and can't properly size a window to save its life. This spurred the invention of NeoOffice/J, which is OpenOffice, but using Java to fill in a few holes (such as the GUI). It does not require X11, it's reasonably snappy, holds up quite well, and has most (all?) of the features of the latest 1.x release of OpenOffice.

    though excel really is the best spreadsheet software that I have yet seen on any platform.

    That is the oddest thing to saY. IMHO, most spreadsheets are alike and interoperate quite well. It's the word processing documents that are the killer.

    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  2. Re:Microsoft has to hate this... by jschoenberg · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The word processing that was in Works is not the same as Microsoft Word. They didn't break any sort of compatibility between versions.

    Most people in this thread who want basic word processing should be comparing the various Mac word processing software to Works, not MS Word. MS Word has way more integrated enterprise and work-group features than a regular consumer will ever want to take advantage of. Most people who migrate away from Word to OO or others just want a word processor, not a collaboration tool, so they shouldn't be buying MS Office in the first place, they should buy Works, or...better yet....download Open Office or other free word processors.

    Comparing any of those basic tools to Office just doesn't make sense. Apples and oranges.