Word Processors for Mac!

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BioCore

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Hey everyone,

Ok so I tried out Word for Mac and it was great, the 30 day trial period! now I can either buy the student edition which I will need for school or I was thinking of going free ware like NeoOffice or some other really great and popular word processor for mac. I was wondering are they good substitutes for like school papers and all, and have all the basic features that a student might need? When I mean features, I don't mean basic types like bold, italics! i mean like Auto correct, and all!
 
BioCore said:
I was thinking of going free ware like NeoOffice or some other really great and popular word processor for mac. I was wondering are they good substitutes for like school papers and all, and have all the basic features that a student might need?
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NeoOffice and/or OpenOffice are very well featured, covering pretty much everything MS Office can do and offering full compatibility with MS Office files. I highly recommend them.
 
If you buy Office:mac 2004 now, you're eligible for a free (you pay shipping and package) upgrade to Office 2008. Students version as well AFAIK. I think it's a good deal.
 
One more vote for NeoOffice/OpenOffice.

However, for the time being I would recommend NeoOffice over OpenOffice mainly because NeoOffice "feels" more like a Mac application (give the current version of OpenOffice for the Mac a try and you'll see what I mean ;)).

There is a native version of OpenOffice coming in the future, but for now NeoOffice will do it for you.
 
Hey everyone,

I am currently using NeoOfice, and it seems to be doing a great job! But I have a question, this is probably the same with excel, but when I copy and paste a table of data from excel into Word:

How exactly can i make it look like a table, and not like just numbers floating around?

This is what it looks like, and I want to make it look like a table is it possible or I have to make a table in neooffice and edit manually!
 

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You have to add the border lines around the sections you want. The same would be for Excel.

In NeoOffice, it should show up next to the colorful sphere on the bottom toolbar. If you click on the down arrow to the far right of the bottom toolbar and go to "Visible Buttons", you'll see the "Border" button option. Select that and you'll now see it on the toolbar. Then highlight the sections you want bordered and click on that Border button for options on how you want to add the borders.
 
Hey guys, does NeoOffice support in their powerpoint proram the ability to print three slide son a page with the couple of lines on the right? Like you can do in MS powerpoint.
 
In education you will likely exchange files frequently. So having a word processor that can write files that others can read is very important.

So don't minimise the conversion issue, and make sure whatever you choose will be readable by everyone. If you opt for freeware, you are - somehow - morally responsible for conversion when sending a file to someone that uses *paid* software.

Conversion is an art with many surprises that takes time to resolve - and time is money. So freeware is not really free.

Both iWork and the MS-Suite for mac are good products. I would recommend MS because Excel has more powerful functions such as pivot tables.

For ultra basic text editing, don't forget that TextEdit can read and write files in word format (no pictures though).
 
aicul said:
In education you will likely exchange files frequently. So having a word processor that can write files that others can read is very important.

So don't minimise the conversion issue, and make sure whatever you choose will be readable by everyone. If you opt for freeware, you are - somehow - morally responsible for conversion when sending a file to someone that uses *paid* software.

Conversion is an art with many surprises that takes time to resolve - and time is money. So freeware is not really free.

Both iWork and the MS-Suite for mac are good products. I would recommend MS because Excel has more powerful functions such as pivot tables.

For ultra basic text editing, don't forget that TextEdit can read and write files in word format (no pictures though).
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I've been using OpenOffice and NeoOffice for years now, and OpenOffice 2.3 is a big improvement. I also work in education and for the most part, unless the file has some special function that is proprietary to that suite, the conversion has been pretty good. The conversion excuse given by critics of free and open source apps is a weak one because then the same issue would come up with pay applications like iWork '08 and other commercial non-MS suites (you still have to convert the file even though you paid for the non-MS suite). And of course, this only happens when you're dealing with such a closed file-format like those of the MS Office suites (which I believe is the only way MS were able to obtain and maintain such a large user base on Office).

BTW, the issue is the same for older MS Office users and MS Office 2007 users since Office 20o7 on Windows uses .docx as the default. So now even if you are using a Microsoft product, you STILL have to deal with the issue of conversion! ;)

On the flip side, most applications now are supporting OpenDocument formats and can interoperate easily with one another, not locking you to one office suite vendor. And with the recent rejection of Microsoft's OOXML format (which really isn't that open), things might look even brighter for interoperability. Remember, no one thought that WordPerfect would lose its grip on the world, and up came MS Office. The same could happen to Microsoft given the time.

And from what I've heard from people on here, the Office suite for the Mac is horrendous to use. Probably not as unMaclike as OpenOffice currently is under X11, but that advantage won't last too long once they release the native OS X version.

To answer BioCore question (albeit a bit late), it should be possible to do this in OpenOffice/NeoOffice, since it's really a matter of how you're going to print out the slides and not necessarily affecting the design of the presentation.
 
Does anybody know if the Aqua version is usable ? I have read the list of limitation, nothing really blocking.
 
chevy said:
Does anybody know if the Aqua version is usable ? I have read the list of limitation, nothing really blocking.
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NeoOffice doesn't require X11 and is fully compatible with OpenOffice now. Why wait for an Aqua version of OpenOffice?
 
Because NeoOffice's interface isn't very Mac-like and the hope's there that a "real" Aqua-version will someday solve the ugliness-factor. Right now, though, the Aqua version looks and feels similar to NeoOffice, I find.
 
I was only emitting a warning, not a reason not to go open-source. Don't missunderstand me.

nixgeek said:
... The conversion excuse given by critics of free and open source apps is a weak one because then the same issue would come up with pay applications like iWork '08 and other commercial non-MS suites ...
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How many times have I received unreadable "open source" documents, upon asking the sender how I could read them the only answer I really got was "just install the software it's free".

Sorry, my Mac is not the local dump of all free-ware in the world.
 
The macrumors site indicates that in Leopard textEdit supports OpenDocument and Word 2007 formats and a "Grammar check".

Maybe all you have to buy is Leopard ? ;)
 
aicul said:
How many times have I received unreadable "open source" documents, upon asking the sender how I could read them the only answer I really got was "just install the software it's free".

Sorry, my Mac is not the local dump of all free-ware in the world.
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Oh, that happens both ways. Or all ways.

A file sent in hte hideous MS xml format... "just install MS Office". Oh, great. It's just about as polite as sending a keynote file saved as .keynote, or a .pages document in iWork 08 format, when you don't know whether the receiver has iWork 08 or the newest MS Office installed.

I guess the best for those senders would be to save the files back, instead of generic .doc, .rtf, or .pdf, saved instead in Clarisworks or Appleworks or Appleworks for Windows format. Oh, just download and install hte software..
 
aicul said:
I was only emitting a warning, not a reason not to go open-source. Don't missunderstand me.



How many times have I received unreadable "open source" documents, upon asking the sender how I could read them the only answer I really got was "just install the software it's free".

Sorry, my Mac is not the local dump of all free-ware in the world.
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That fault is of the user, not the software. When dealing with other users, I always ask what they prefer the file be sent in. Of course, I only find Microsoft Office users to be the ones that are ignorant of what everyone else is using, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise. Thankfully, my open source application is able to open the closed source file format. Imagine that a free application can do more than an overpriced, overbloated commercial solution.....hmm... ;)

Keep your cool, aicul. I was merely covering the other side of the issue with some information just as much as you were giving your "warning". If you're going to argue one side, expect to receive a rebuttal from the other side. No one is telling you or forcing you to use open source. If you want to pay for your bloat, that's great! Steve Ballmer would be more than happy to take your money. I would much rather save my money for something more worthwhile than MS Office.

And as for TextEdit, yes it's a solution....to Word documents. What about Excel? PowerPoint? If you don't want to use MS Office, you can use Neo, Open, or iWork '08.

As for the Aqua version of OpenOffice, I've tried it out and I can say that it's still far from usable. I don't mind using the X11 environment, so I use OpenOffice. But for those that need the consistency, definitely go with NeoOffice. It sometimes is maybe a version or two behind the official OpenOffice, but that shouldn't be a problem.
 
nixgeek said:
Keep your cool, aicul.
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But I am cool.

I was emitting a warning and my comments. Only a lot of openware fans considered this negatively and reacted with long paragraphs of text. So here is my long text.

I agree totally with "That fault is of the user, not the software". Absolutely right.

However, openware fans seems to forget that the fact that they use FREE software is not sufficient for the receiver to install a specific software product. They often forget to convert to a "defacto" format.

I have never had a payware fan non chalantly tell me to install MS suite or iWork.

Let us not forget, the person that started the thread says he is at school. I think the importnat thing for this person is to concentrate on "studies" and not complex conversion schemes.

To me, very unfortunately, that would imply aligning with a "defacto" standard.. and that is ... (your answer here :( ).
 
aicul said:
However, openware fans seems to forget that the fact that they use FREE software is not sufficient for the receiver to install a specific software product. They often forget to convert to a "defacto" format.
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Really? Has _anyone_ ever sent you an OpenOffice.org format document you couldn't open without OOo? I find that hard to believe. I, for one, was *never* sent such a file. They send me PDFs, RTFs but most of the time it was _Word_ documents. Because although it's a bad format and a corporate, capitalistic thing etc., people still appreciate that quite _probably_ it's the way of least resistance.
 
Interesting, aicul. I know someone who is completing her Psychology major and has been using OpenOffice on her Windows PC just fine for a while now. I rarely hear from her about any issues (with the exception of the beginning questions that anyone would ask when she first started using it). It's worked for her just fine, and she's using an older version. If she were to upgrade to Oo_O 2.3, she would probably be better served by all the new features. She knows to save her files in Microsoft Office format and has never complained to me since.

She is by no means a computer expert. Case in point: I have to explain to her that apps that she downloads need to be installed after they are downloaded. Yet she does pretty well when dealing with teachers who require Microsoft Office file formats.

So explain to me how the problem is the open source software again?

Also...
However, openware fans seems to forget that the fact that they use FREE software is not sufficient for the receiver to install a specific software product. They often forget to convert to a "defacto" format.
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You just agreed with me that it was the user, not the software.....so what does open source software have anything to do with this point? Your point here is moot. There are ignorant people in all aspects of life, you know. And yes, that can include those using open source.

BTW, how complex is it to click on a drop-down menu under the "Save as File:" section and select "Microsoft Office 97/2000/XP/2003/whatever document"? "Complex conversion schemes".....are you serious?
 
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