Anyone tried to use Mariner Calc as a substitute for M$ Excel

RonaldMacDonald · #1 July 2nd, 2005, 12:43 AM

I want to buy a new eMac and there are none left that have Panther in my country (Japan). The problem is I do not want to pay for M$ Office again as the new eMacs have Tiger. I hate being forced to buy that crap. I do not use Excel for very sophesticated stuff. But I need to be able to open Excel files and create spreadsheets that can be opened by Windows Excel users. Will Mariner Calc suit my purpose?

Ashka · #2 July 2nd, 2005, 05:19 PM

I did try Mariner Calc but was not 100% happy with it (as in Trashed it after two days).
NeoOffice/J is far better and can deal with most MS Office files and save to their formats.
Free but a donation would help the guys working on it.
http://www.planamesa.com/neojava/en/download.php

Viro · #3 July 2nd, 2005, 05:40 PM

This is quite interesting. Why were you disappointed with Mariner Calc and what made you choose NeoOffice/J (apart from the price)?

RonaldMacDonald · #4 July 2nd, 2005, 06:52 PM

When I tried MarinerCalc, it would not save a file with layers. Each layer had to be exported separately. But more important than that, I gave a file I created in MarinerCalc to a windows guy and he couldn't open it in excel (unless I am doing something wrong). Can a file created in NeoOffice/J be opened in excel on windows?

Ashka · #5 July 3rd, 2005, 04:40 AM

I started with Excel on Windows 98, then Open Office on Windows XP.
After a very quick play with Open Office on X11 for Mac I changed to NeoOffice/J on OSX3, it is now working well on OSX4 Tiger. No X11 required.

Mariner just isn't in the same ball park. Very few of my installed fonts will work with Mariner, the auto size rows option is flakey, the cell notes will show up on mouse over if & when they feel like it.......etc. I just can't be bothered with it and price really didn't make any difference.

I haven't heard of any problems exporting to Excel on Windows and I haven't had any. The guys on the Neo Forum would be able to give you a better idea.
http://trinity.neooffice.org/modules.php?name=Forums
Best.