NeoOffice Feature Comparison

[Texas Mac Man]

I sent a Power Point presentation file to a friend. She is running Panther on a G4, but could not open the file to see the presentation. Micro$oft provides the freeware Power Point Viewer which runs in OS 9 & below. However, I could not find an equivalent viewer for OS X. I downloaded NeoOffice (I have M$ Office for X) to try it out. It opened the .pps file. I even converted it to a .swf (Flash) file. Below is some info on NeoOffice. I burned a copy of NeoOffice on a CD for her. Now she will be able to view .pps files.

NeoOffice is a fully-featured set of office applications (including word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and drawing programs) for Mac OS X (10.3 & 10.4). Based on the OpenOffice.org office suite, NeoOffice has integrated dozens of native Mac features and can import, edit, and exchange files with other popular office programs such as Microsoft Office. NeoOffice is a native Mac application that does not require X11, allowing it to look and behave more like a Mac program when compared to OpenOffice.org. For those of you that don't want to pay $$$ for an office suite, NeoOffice, freeware, is great.

NeoOffice Feature Comparison
Compares NeoOffice to MS Office 2004 for Mac
Compares NeoOffice to Open Office for Mac (requires X11)

[Texas Mac Man]

QUOTE(sneakers @ Jan 16 2007, 08:36 PM) [snapback]116266[/snapback]

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With the Macintosh I have to launch X11 first to use OpenOffice but I am comfortable with that.

If you read the description of Neo Office, it does not require X11 to operate. You should try it.

[kimmer]

QUOTE(Texas Mac Man @ Jan 16 2007, 05:18 PM) [snapback]116268[/snapback]

If you read the description of Neo Office, it does not require X11 to operate. You should try it.

Sneakers seems to like "OpenOffice". I think the geek in him likes to play in X11.

I use NeoOffice and find it works dandy -- although the latest beta version still has some interesting bugs.

[sandyman]

My thoughts for what they are worth

1) The comparison site is, like others, only showing the positives, "we're better than Office in doing this". It does not show what NeoOffice can't do. Unfortunately most of their positives don't relate to most users.

2) With MS Office (Windows Version, don't use it on my Mac) I can do a custom install.  I only need a Word Processor for home use. With MS Office I get that option. With Open Office/NeoOffice, it's all or nothing. It's the whole Office Suite or nothing

3) On Linux,  OO is a resource hog

4) NeoOffice is Java, Ugghhh

Me, I'll stick with AbiWord unless some future employer decides that I must use MS Office for work and decides to buy it for me.

[pendragon]

I don't have NeoOffice and am not familiar with it, so I have nothing to add (I use Office 2004), but this discussion is interesting/valuable to me and I am pleased that TMM started it.

[Mayo]

I know diddly about Office or NeoOffice (Thank Gawd!) but I installed NeoOffice and I'm going to play with it. Thanks for the heads-up!

There seem to be a lot of folks at VersionTracker who think highly of NeoOffice. Reading their comments a person can quickly glean the pros and cons of using NeoOffice vs. The Other Brand.

Maybe some of my "switcher" friends will find that they don't need to pony up the $$$ for M$ Office...