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Jake · **OpenOffice for mac? -** 11-13-2010, 02:27 PM

Anyone use OpenOffice for mac? I like the price, but if it's not very good I will just get the real deal.
I'm not a big MS Office user, but I kind of need something.

thaddeussmith · 11-13-2010, 02:37 PM

i haven't used open office in over 5 years, and it was pretty crappy. I'm sure it has improved since then.

I'm currently on the new MS Office 2011 and it's "meh". Surprisingly laggy when trying to do things in Word, etc.

Since it's free - give openoffice a try and decide from there.

slallen · 11-13-2010, 03:44 PM

I use OpenOffice. While there are some quirks (as there are in most packages) I have yet to see a reason to use anything else. To me the only reason to use Office is if you need Outlook. Word Processors and Spreadsheet stuff can be handled by other applications.

Also you might want to keep tabs on OpenOffice.org, it seems that Oracle (Acquired in the Sun purchase) has not been providing the support they promised and a spin off has occurred with a large portion of the developers moving to the new organization.

LibreOffice is the new app and a new Foundation was set.

Welcome to The Document Foundation! - The Document Foundation

texkam · 11-13-2010, 06:34 PM

I use it on PC and Linux machines with no problems. I guess if you are a power user you may want to go with the MS product. Sounds like you're not. Check these out.

NeoOffice Home
Your Office Suite

Some Idiot · 11-13-2010, 06:37 PM

I have used it on several machines, it gets the job done. I have starting using google docs now...http://docs.google.com/demo/edit?id=...et#spreadsheet

Bob_S · 11-13-2010, 08:41 PM

Ive been using it for years. It does everything the MS suite does (that I need anyway) and you can even exchange files with MS users. With all of that, I never saw a reason to give MS more money.

Kalrog · 11-14-2010, 10:28 AM

I agree with Bob. I run linux, so I don't have the MS Office option at home, but that is what I use at work. And I have never had a problem sharing files between the two programs. The worst thing that I have seen is that sometimes - in very formatting intensive doc files - the print comes out just slightly different (like maybe 1 line will be a page down instead of on the first page).

texkam · 11-14-2010, 01:30 PM

Sharing between different versions of the MS product is often not without problems.

Jake · 11-15-2010, 07:40 AM

Thanks for the info y'all! I'll give it a try.