NeoOffice and OpenOffice: any recent experiences?
 

I've searched the threads and most of the posts regarding NeoOffice and OpenOffice are a bit outdated. There are recent versions of each now available, and I'm wondering if anyone has had experience with NeoOffice 2 Alpha and OpenOffice.org 2.

On my older PPC G4 733 tower with 0S 9.1, I've been using MS Word from the Office 2001 bundle. Documents created with lots of formatting of textboxes in specific locations, don't translate well to Word on the windows machines at work. I have to do quite a bit of reformatting to get things in the proper places. Same after revising on the windows machines and trying to view those documents in Word on the mac.

I'd prefer not to spend the money to upgrade to Office 2004 and have it on my newer G4 mini running 10.4.7, and am wanting to know if anyone has had experience with either of the newest versions of NO or OOo, especially regarding complex formatting. For that matter, how does mac Word 2004 do when complexly (?) formatted documents created in it are viewed on a windows Word machine?

I use all 3! OpenOffice, NeoOffice and MS Office...


I am using NeoOffice out of choice until MS release a UB of Office, OpenOffice is very good, but I prefer NeoOffices lack of dependancy on X11.

Thanks Photek. Have you had any opportunity to determine if either NO or OOo might be better at retaining complex formatting done in Word on a windows machine? I wouldn't mind using OOo on X11 if it does retain formatting.

I have had a few problems with a few formulars done on NeoOffice (saved as a .xls) being opened on a PC.... but not the other way round. In general all my work is fine on all platforms.

Give NeoOffice a try, its amazingly good for free.... :D

Thanks. Giving NO a try is going to be my next step. I was waiting to hear from some folks before downloading either NO or OOo, as my mini G4 only has a 40G HD, and half is gone. I'm reluctant to download both.

Following the go at NO, I'll post how it fared with looking at a Word document, done on a windows machine, that has textboxes in very specific locations.

NeoOffice is pretty good. It's free too. It has just a few problems with opening up, .doc files, but other than that, it's ok. NO is basically OOo, just with MUCH better Mac support.

OOo needs X11, and doesn't have all of your fonts. It also seems to run even slower than NO.

Both are a tad slow 'repainting' (resizing window, inserting large image).

MSO works well with windows, but, well, it's costs money!

Well, installed app and most recent patch. NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha 4 Patch 3, when opening the particular Word document I had created on a windows machine, had the textboxes way out of kilter, same as MS Office '01 on my older 733 G4 powermac running 9.1. My guess is that because NeoO is based upon OOo, OOo wouldn't fare any better. And as ThreeDee says above, OOo requires X11, and runs a tad slower than NeoO, I'm willing to live with a free alternative to MSO. Unless of course someone can tell me that MSO 2004 can translate well the complex formatting of a document created in Word on a windows machine.

Edit: Figured I'd also mention that this version of NeoO didn't translate well some symbols that were inserted. The symbol inserted was a square that the user of the form would tick (paper form, not electronic). Instead of looking like a square, NeoO showed it as a skinny vertical rectangle.

And as I more closely examine the document, NeoO actually did translate well the position of three of the textboxes. It's been no more difficult to re-arrange the aberrant textboxes than it would have been in Word. Format>Object worked for precise positioning of one set of textboxes, while Format>Frame worked for another set. NeoO for some reason, differentiated between these objects, all of which were created as textboxes in windows Word.

I'm describing this so that if someone else were to search the forum for info about NeoO v Word, they might be helped by this.

Edit: (yet again) Opened an excel spreadsheet into NeO Calc, and it appeared to have done so perfectly, in terms of formatting. The excel document was only being used to list players on a team, parents, phone numbers, and email addresses. It wasn't being used as a spreadsheet for formulae, so I can't speak about NeO calc's ability to translate that aspect as yet.

Opened an excel spreadsheet in NeO Calc which had been created from MSO 01 on my G4 running OS 9.1. This spreadsheet had simple summing calcuations in a couple columns which then had to create a sum of the two columns and subtract from a total in a separate cell. NeO Calc had no trouble. Also, two columns had formatting for dates, two for money, two for item description. This formatting was followed as I entered new data.

I saved as, giving it a slightly revised name, in excel type, and it opened perfectly back in MSO 01 on the older mac.

So, things look pretty good. NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha 4 Patch 3 does at least no worse in translating windows MS office documents than MS for mac does, and at a severely reasonable cost.

On August 30, there will be a new version coming out, NeoOffice Aqua Beta.

idk what 'Aqua' exactly means, but it sounds good.

I believe it refers to the over all grand theme of OS X, with the blue lozenges, etc.

When I updated to the most recent patch of NeO 2, it took me to a screen announcing aqua beta, which ordinarily I would have thought was a fish. Perhaps called Wanda?

ugh -- better stop now, or will descend into old Monty Python routines! (Punishment being the comfy chair)

Of course it is only for word processing, but I now do the Word .doc papers using Apple's Pages. It is much better at translating the MSW files that I get than my MSWord! I get Chinese chars and when I open the files in MS Word, the char width is 1/2 of what it should be. I mean the column width is double what the chars actually use. In Pages (or in Neo Office) they show wysiwyg. I just have an eMac 800 and NeoOffice is just too slow. Pages is up to speed.

Which version of mac Word?
 

Thanks chinajon. Which version of mac Word have you been using? And which version of Pages? Others who may stumble across this thread might want to know.

And personally, I'm curious to hear if you would know if Pages can create textboxes similar to Word, and if so, have you had opportunity to see if windows Word sees the formatting the way that Pages had set up the .doc file?

Pages version 2 manual
 

During my last post I was rummaging around Apple's website and stumbled across the pdf manual for Pages 2.

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/Pages_2_User_Guide.pdf

And yes, Pages 2 creates textboxes in a similar fashion to either mac Word or windows Word.

Pages looks almost like a cross between Word and InDesign from what I'm seeing on the Apple site.

As my HD is half full (or half empty) I'll have to check on how much space Pages will occupy before deciding whether to actually activate it. I'm pretty sure iWorks, at least in a trial version, came with the mini when purchased this past January.

iWorks Pages opening windows Word doc
 

Thought I'd post my results should it be helpful for someone else looking to compare mac Word, NeoOffice, and now Pages.

The same windows Word document that I opened in mac Word and NeoOffice, I tried in Pages. iWorks came on the mini G4 that I purchased this past January.

Unfortunately, Pages was the worst of the lot in terms of viewing the textboxes. This particular document was created to be a form used at work. It's primarily set up with tables to form columns. The textboxes were positioned precisely within certain columns.

Mac Word from Office 2001 had all the textboxes scattered. NeoOffice had two sets of three textboxes scattered and one set of three textboxes perfectly rendered. Pages didn't show any textboxes anywhere at all. I tried all the view options without success.

So, I hope that the above information may be helpful for someone.

NeoOffice 2 Aqua Beta 3 patch 1
 

Thought I'd update this thread on the chance that someone, like I had been, is looking for an alternative to Microsoft Office.

I've been using NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha 4 Patch 3 since early August. It was decent. The only complaint I had was how long it took to open, whether clicking on its icon or by control clicking a .doc file to choose the app.

A couple days ago I downloaded and installed the latest version, NeoOffice 2 Aqua Beta 3 patch 1. It opens very quickly. Its version of 'Word' still wasn't able to retain the complex formatting of the document I'd mentioned earlier in the thread, but neither was MS Word 2001 for Mac.

The toolbars are much more 'Word-like' than previously. Everything works much more quickly. I haven't yet used its spreadsheet, but thus far, Aqua Beta 3 is looking very good.

So, I hope this might be helpful for someone looking around as I had been.

Unless the .doc file has a sensitive data, you can send to me. I have a windows box with Office 2003 and I have Office 2004 on my PowerBook. I can compare the two and even take screenshots.

Yeah, Beta 3 has really improved. Has a nicer UI too.

I never got Open Office to work, but NeoOffice works smoothly. I just have a li'l problem with macros but am confident of figuring that out soon, probably with Beta 3. The trick, as I've learned when we were shifting to InDesign from Quark Xpress, is to prepare oneself for the new environment and not expect the new software to do everything the older one does. I've encountered people who have decided to shift to Mac from Windows and insisted on doing everything they used to do in Windows, instead of learning what Mac can do that Windows can't.

Thank you. There isn't any sensitive data, it's just a form I was making that fellow therapists use to document treatment. I had used text boxes to get tiny font sized stuff into columns.

Will try to send via private message. (after I hunt for the version made on the windows machine at work!) So it'll probably be Sunday.

Again, thanks for the offer.

Edit: are you also running NeoOffice?

The documents with 'comlex' formatting
 

Well, when I tried to send a private message to macaframa, there didn't appear to be an option for attaching the files, so I'm back posting.

This is the first time I've tried attaching something to a post. Previously I've only inserted code copied from terminal.

And as I've now seen from previewing the post, the attachments come below this text.

OP_prog4d.doc is the version created on the windows machine, although when I click on GetInfo, it says it's an appleworks doc. When I open it in NeoOffice, the text boxes with CDM and the text boxes showing minutes and units are way off kilter.

OP_prog4dneO.doc is the version modified in NeoOffice, but saved as if it were a Word document. When I tried opening it on a windows machine, it's formatting was way off.

I'll be curious to hear what these look like on your machine.

Again, thanks for taking a look.

Here's the results:
 

I used to have Office 2003 on my PC, but i deleted it a week ago. :rolleyes:

The screenshots of a DOC file, in PDF format, in a ZIP archive, are attached.

NeoOffice 2.0b3, Office2004:Mac, and I threw in AbiWord just for fun :)

Thanks ThreeDee. When I opened them in Adobe Reader, the only one which appeared to be oriented correctly was the file named 'Word2004.pdf' while the others were fairly mangled.

Which of the two files that I had attached are we looking at in the three screenshots you sent?

If only Abiword had a better win word support. It's the fastest, less resource hungry word processor for OS X IMO. It reminds me of Word 5

NeoOffice 2 is OK
 

I have used NeoOffice 1.1 and 1.2 for quite a while. It works well, but it's slow on a PowerMac G4.
This weekend I downloaded NO 2.0 beta and although starting it is equally slow, the other things are faster now, such as the menus. Also open/save dialog now looks more like OS X. I'll keep using it. I also have AppleWorks, but that sucks. I don't have Office, because MS sucks.
So I don't love NO, but it gets the job done.