Open Office Install for Dummies

evildan

evildan

Super Moderator
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 :)
 
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.
 
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... ;)
 
I tried OpenOffice and I just got the feeling it was going shag my mac to hell and back.

I had decided to delete it before I'd finished the installation.

I simply wouldn't recommend OpenOffice to anyone right now, not in it's current state.

I was reminded of the installer for the Zend php development application which remarked quite glibly [which I paraphrase]: 'oh, if this installer messes up -- which is quite possible -- it'll turn your mac into a really expensive door stop in about 10 minutes flat.'

My beta testing days are long gone...
 
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.
 
I probably made a pretty grim account of my experiences with OpenOffice, but I must hasten to add that I have every faith in the many boys & girls working on this project, and I'm sure that they'll iron out these little creases and get the thing in a more refined shape.

I have to say, I use Microsoft Office X nearly all of the time and I love it. My company simply couldn't function without it.

So my fleeting defection to OpenOffice was just out of curiosity. But I'd be happy to look again when there's something a little more shapely.

I'm a bit of an UI aesthetics fiend, so OpenOffice left me a little cold, so the look & feel would need a great deal of attention...
 
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.
 
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
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.
 
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 :(
 
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).
 
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.
 
pds said:
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.
Click to expand...

We will be using TextEdit, to do just that... but I'm also looking for something that will open Excel and powerpoint documents.
 
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! :)
 
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).
 
chemistry_geek said:
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.
Click to expand...
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...
 
The thread is a bit old - NeoOffice trumps the X11 install.
Try it at planamesa.org
 
I'm still waiting for the clean OS X port of OOo 2. ;) I'll switch to OOo then. What are we expecting this in now... 2009? 2015?
 
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