Open Office Install for Dummies

[evildan]

I'm looking to present a free solution to my office... they don't want to give Bill Gates any more money. Their frustration is at the level that they've asked me to look into free alternatives to Office.

I immediately remembered OpenOffice so I went to check it out.

Here's what I've done...
1) Went to Apple's website and downloaded X11
2) Went to OpenOffice.org and downloaded it

I installed X11 and attempted to install OpenOffice... but I think I'm missing something... how does this all work.

I guess I'm looking for a start to finish walkthrough of how to get OpenOffice up and running on my G5... Do I need to also download XDarwin? I plead ignorant and defer to your intelligence on this one.... help

[Viro]

I would suggest NeoOffice/J, which is a fork of the OpenOffice project. It adds some much needed enhancement (like better fonts). http://www.planamesa.com/neojava/en/index.php

[pds]

Although OO is tempting, there are a few kinks that make it hard to deal with. One is the starting of the program. It does not just start, you have to use the script that comes with the package. After getting it going once, a document on the desktop helps in the start-up.

The main OO that runs in an X11 window cannot connect directly to the Mac pasteboard, so you can't cut and paste from regular apps like Safari or others.

And it looks kind of unfinished (not to say ugly).

NeoOffice is nicer to look at, but too slow on my 800 iBook g3. You may get better mileage out of a g5, but then speed is relative. Neo's speed would have been acceptable on my 1400 years ago, but now it is disturbing.

What do you need other than a word processor, and what is the objection, to spend money or to give it to Redmond?

Nisus, Mellel and others make efficient, low-cost word processors, and Keynote certainly does the job for presentations.Mail can handle mail for free (replace Entourage), and packages like Mailsmith and Eudora handle volume mail very well. I don't know what to do with spreadsheets.

There is another Java-based Office replacement, think it was called FreeOffice, but I haven't tried it in a couple of years. It too was slow when I did.

[pds]

Oh, BTW

When I installed it (six months ago) it was simple. Did you get the OSX package? The problem I had was with the startup, not the install. There is an apple script included to get it going. And in the Documentation there is a readme that tells you how to start it from the command line, but I don't have it installed anymore, so I don't have it in front of me.....

So, I guess I'll shut up and watch...

[pds]

I hope Gia and some of the others can chime in here. As I recall, they had some positive comments on the whole process.

My install was rather uneventful, sorry yours went south Wayne. I think the funny part comes when you try to run it. It is not a simple double click. You may have to boot X-11 first and then start OO from a command line. I had it running for a couple months and loved the fact that it did everything that MS Office did and then some (the built in bibliography catalog is fabulous), but couldn't live with the aforementioned pasting problem. I used it off and on till my iBook died, it didn't make it to the new machine... yet. If I had a magic wand, I'd aim it at the aqua port of OO.

But as far as toasting the computer, that must be one of Octane's issues, it won't happen.

Again, I hope some of the OO users will chime in.

PS: on PC with Linux (mandrake at least) it is standard issue and works very well, no pasting problems since everything is running on the same level.

[evildan]

My install of OO was pretty easy. My only problem was the lack of documentation telling me how to launch it... I didn't know until now, I needed a script to do so... So I'll try that out.

As far as alternates solutions to Office... I'm up for anything... however, I cannot go back to my bosses and say let's use these alternative programs UNLESS they are both free and can open the M$ native documents. Because the very purpose of this installation would be so our designers can open files sent to them by clients... it's primarily a copy / paste thing... so reading the pasteboard limitations concerns me.

[pds]

As far as alternates solutions to Office... I'm up for anything... however, I cannot go back to my bosses and say let's use these alternative programs UNLESS they are both free and can open the M$ native documents. Because the very purpose of this installation would be so our designers can open files sent to them by clients... it's primarily a copy / paste thing... so reading the pasteboard limitations concerns me.

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..

You are talking about an all Mac situation, n'est pas? Is it all OS X? I had set up an MS free solution in a pre-X environment. The freebie NisusWriter freebie with Dataviz translation would open the dot doc files. It did a fair job with formatting and then we would save them for whatever purpose as text files. You could set up an older machine just to translate docs and save them to the central server. An Applescript folder could automate the whole process.

I don't know if there are OSX versions for MacLink or Nisus.

[pds]

If you need to be able to see the format, the OSX ver of icWord will open the file. It costs 20 bucks. Get it at macupdate.