Office without Office & iWork

[Whackhead]

Hey there Guys and Gals...

There is an alternative to MS-Office & iWork... AND IT'S FREE!
Yes, it's FREE.

I've not tried it since I do have Office installed on my Windows machine and I have iWork installed on my Mac.

The download can be obtained from www.openoffice.org

The only drawback is that it's ONLY available in English on the Mac (Intel & PPC).
They do however have the Arabic version if you want it on your Windows or Linux machine.

Enjoy!

[Magnus]

Originally Posted by Whackhead

Hey there Guys and Gals...

There is an alternative to MS-Office & iWork... AND IT'S FREE!
Yes, it's FREE.

I've not tried it since I do have Office installed on my Windows machine and I have iWork installed on my Mac.

The download can be obtained from www.openoffice.org

The only drawback is that it's ONLY available in English on the Mac (Intel & PPC).
They do however have the Arabic version if you want it on your Windows or Linux machine.

Enjoy!

Better yet (at least until next version of OO.org comes out, try NeoOffice.

Tip: for future when you want to put in a link, don't just color it, make it an actual link (there's a button for it in the post toolbar.

[Benson]

I finally have a Mac, got myself a 2.4 Ghz macbook. Now making the conversion and getting there slowly. I think I might be posting a few things in here in the future when I get stuck. So far everything seems logical, just got to get out of the mindset that everything must be difficult and complicated !

1st question. I was going to install OO but found Neo Office and it is said to intergrate with the Mac better than OO. So I have just installed Neo Office. So far so good has opened all MS Office docs without a problem. But when I open it, it always goes to Writer. I can then open the others from the menu bar. Is there another way to open the individual parts of office without opening Writer?

Also I have downloaded Google Docs with google gears, which alows you to work on your docs offline then will syncronise later. I haven't tried it out yet.

2nd Question, What do you guys use, iWork or Office for Macs?

[Benson]

I have just had a quick play around with Google Docs offline and it will not allow you to open a new doc when working offline. You can only edit existing docs. So don't think I will be using this. I suppose one way around it wold be to save a blank one of everything so you can just open it as a new one, but think this would have to be replaced every time you use a blank one.

[fangpyre]

I would stick to Neo rather than Google.
There is just no need to overcome that obstacle.

I don't know of a way to jump directly to an application.
But it won't make that much of a difference.
If you notice, opening another one in the suite is quite fast once the suite is up.

Which one you use depends on what you do.
Each suite has its benefits and drawbacks.
Office is the strongest, iWorks is the most presentable, Neo is the best compromise.

FYI
You can configure Neo to save in the default Office formats (XLS, DOC, PPT).
This is convenient in cross platform environments.

[Magnus]

Originally Posted by Benson

2nd Question, What do you guys use, iWork or Office for Macs?

Both, but mostly Office. Largely due to habit, I know Office well by now, but also that I work in an all-Windows environment and it just works better in terms of compatibility. I think Microsoft has done a good job with Office 2008, but they still could improve in many areas.

[Benson]

I see that OO have released a new version. 3,0 in Beta

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