Open Office Install for Dummies

[dlloyd]

MacLink is included with Appleworks. In other words, yes there is an OS X version.
And the Aqua version of OO is not supposed to be available until 2006

[chemistry_geek]

I installed it without any problems whatsoever. I installed Apple's X11 from Panther CD Disk 3, then I installed OpenOffice.org from a CD (downloaded on someone else's Wintel PC 'cause they have broadband and I don't). The install went flawlessly. To start OpenOffice, you have to keep that "StartOOO" icon in your Dock all the time, OR, click on any OpenOffice document in a folder or your desktop; OpenOffice will start automatically, and launch X11 as well. It has been my experience that OpenOffice CAN copy and paste between the Terminal AND TextEdit. I have not tried copy-paste with Safari. One thing to keep in mind is that OpenOffice was designed to run on Unix/Linux workstations - THEY DON'T HAVE AN APPLE COMMAND KEY, so to copy and paste from the "Macintosh side", command-C, then click the OpenOffice X11 Window and CONTROL-V to paste. It should work! When copy-pasting, just understand that X11 (X Windows) uses the control key whereas the Macinotsh side uses the command key.

The only problem with OpenOffice is translation of some (~50%) of The Borg (M$) Office documents. You will be making minor formatting adjustments with any pre-existing [M$ Office] document that has headers, footers, tables, overlayed graphics, and equations. This is a fact of life, slanslation is slanslation, not always the same thing. I've used OOO spreadsheets and they are great, just like using The Borg's spreadsheet. OOO can do just about everything that M$ [Back] Oriface can do, you just have to look in different places. Read the help section, it's more than adequate.

One nice thing about OOO, ALL its documents are saved in XML format, BUT, in 6 different parts, the main part containing content is a standard ZIP file, so your documents will likely be smaller than the virii/worm infected Borg documents.

OOO is a good product for simple uses (Macintosh port, X11/X86 is more evolved), but I don't know if its ready for prime time on the office on a Mac, perhaps a PC, but not a Mac.

One more thing, OOO also can prints directly to PDF files, great for printing on a printer (I'm not sure how to get OOO to print directly to a printer from X11).

[scruffy]

chemistry geek - you should be able to get it to print straight to your default printer, by having it use the "lp" command as its print command. That command is basically a compatibility utility, for translating old-fashioned "lp" print jobs to the OS X print system.

[evildan]

Originally Posted by pds

uhhh, OO does not do Word dotdocs. If you only need to open Word docs (and not Excel files or PowerPoint) to copy and paste, what is wrong with TextEdit? It doesn't get all the formatting all the time, but it does get the information.

We will be using TextEdit, to do just that... but I'm also looking for something that will open Excel and powerpoint documents.

[evildan]

Thanks for all the help... I now have everything working just fine. This isn't the best solution in the world, but it's great when you consider that it is free!

[scruffy]

OpenOffice opens .doc, .xls, .ppt, all kinds of stuff. The formating isn't perfect when you get into embedded notes, revision tracking, tables, etc., but it's certainly a good sight better at it than anything else out there (except MS Office, that is).

[ApeintheShell]

Oh Gia! Save us from Microsoft!

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by chemistry_geek

I installed it without any problems whatsoever. I installed Apple's X11 from Panther CD Disk 3, then I installed OpenOffice.org from a CD (downloaded on someone else's Wintel PC 'cause they have broadband and I don't). The install went flawlessly. To start OpenOffice, you have to keep that "StartOOO" icon in your Dock all the time, OR, click on any OpenOffice document in a folder or your desktop; OpenOffice will start automatically, and launch X11 as well. It has been my experience that OpenOffice CAN copy and paste between the Terminal AND TextEdit. I have not tried copy-paste with Safari. One thing to keep in mind is that OpenOffice was designed to run on Unix/Linux workstations - THEY DON'T HAVE AN APPLE COMMAND KEY, so to copy and paste from the "Macintosh side", command-C, then click the OpenOffice X11 Window and CONTROL-V to paste. It should work! When copy-pasting, just understand that X11 (X Windows) uses the control key whereas the Macinotsh side uses the command key.

Great! What version of OpenOffice did you install? I'm looking to setup something like this on a Mac mini this weekend.

Did the OpenOffice installation put the "StartOOO" icon in the dock or did you do that manually?

Thanks!

Peace...