Re: Mac OS X OpenOffice

[Onno Benschop]

On Thu, 2003-07-31 at 19:09, David Watkins wrote:
> Onno
> 
> It is getting close to a gig with the supporting applications
> needed, unless my mathematics are not what they used to be. The
> following is taken from the Open Office Read Me file.
> 
> 
> OpenOffice.org 1.0.3 Mac OS X (X11) requires the following to run:
> Mac OS X 10.2 or higher or Darwin 6.0 or higher.
> 256 MB of memory to get decent performance. 512 MB recommended.
> 300 MB free hard drive space for OpenOffice.org
> 600 MB additional hard drive space for installation of auxiliary
> applications required to run OpenOffice.org.
> 1 GB additional free space on your System drive for use as swap
> space during installation and execution.
> XFree86/XDarwin or Apple X11, dlcompat, ESP-Ghostscript 7.05,
> fondu, and libfreetype 6.2+. The installer will attempt to detect
> whether you are missing any of these required components and
> install them for you.
> G4/400 or higher recommended


I'm familiar with the 300 Mb, dunno what's in the 600 Mb of "auxiliary
applications", but if that's from the ReadMe, then I stand corrected.

Cheers,


Onno Benschop 

Connected via Optus C1 from S33:37'33" - E115:07'30" (Dunsborough, WA)
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Re: Mac OS X OpenOffice

[David Watkins]

Onno

It is getting close to a gig with the supporting applications
needed, unless my mathematics are not what they used to be. The
following is taken from the Open Office Read Me file.


OpenOffice.org 1.0.3 Mac OS X (X11) requires the following to run:
Mac OS X 10.2 or higher or Darwin 6.0 or higher.
256 MB of memory to get decent performance. 512 MB recommended.
300 MB free hard drive space for OpenOffice.org
600 MB additional hard drive space for installation of auxiliary
applications required to run OpenOffice.org.
1 GB additional free space on your System drive for use as swap
space during installation and execution.
XFree86/XDarwin or Apple X11, dlcompat, ESP-Ghostscript 7.05,
fondu, and libfreetype 6.2+. The installer will attempt to detect
whether you are missing any of these required components and
install them for you.
G4/400 or higher recommended


Dave Watkins




At 1:17 PM +0800 31/7/03, Onno Benschop wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-07-30 at 18:29, David Watkins wrote:
>> Thanks to all for your comments about OpenOffice.
>>
>> Certainly got a cross section of views which is what it is all about.
>>
>> Considering the it is going to take up nearly a gig of my hard
>> drive
>
> OpenOffice.org a gig?
>
> I don't think so.
>
> Onno Benschop
>

Re: Mac OS X OpenOffice

[Onno Benschop]

On Wed, 2003-07-30 at 18:29, David Watkins wrote:
> Thanks to all for your comments about OpenOffice.
> 
> Certainly got a cross section of views which is what it is all about.
> 
> Considering the it is going to take up nearly a gig of my hard
> drive 

OpenOffice.org a gig?

I don't think so.

Onno Benschop 

Connected via Optus C1 from S33:37'33" - E115:07'30" (Dunsborough, WA)
-- 
()/)/)() ..ASCII for Onno.. 
|>>? ..EBCDIC for Onno.. 
--- -. -. --- ..Morse for Onno.. 

Proudly supported by Skipper Trucks, Highway1, Concept AV, Sony Central, Dalcon
ITmaze - ABN: 56 178 057 063 - ph: 04 1219  - onno at itmaze dot com dot au

Re: Mac OS X OpenOffice

[David Watkins]

Thanks to all for your comments about OpenOffice.

Certainly got a cross section of views which is what it is all about.

Considering the it is going to take up nearly a gig of my hard
drive and that I have MS Office on my PC, I will continue dragging
files through the little network I have. If I did not have the PC
with Office there is no doubt I would have given it a try.

Well, I know where to come for an opinion next time I'm thinking of
getting a new program.

Thanks againDave

Re: Mac OS X OpenOffice

[Paul Mulroney]

Hi Everyone


I was looking at the downloads that were available on the wamug
site and I and noticed that OpenOffice was there.

As it is a fairly big download at 170 MB, I thought I would ask the
opinion of those who have tried it out to give me some feedback as
to if it is worth getting.


It's not bad, but its not all that great either. For the price, you
can't beat it.



On another side to this,..if you were looking for something a little
better, then consider checking out ThinkFree Office. It's not free,
but at $99 it's actually pretty good for a replacement to Microsoft
Office. It handles Word, Excel and Powerpoint in their "native" file
formats so it reads and writes to them in their "own language". (It
even includes the .doc and .xls suffix when you save!) It works on
Macs (OS9 and X), Windows and even Linux.


I looked at ThinkFree office some time ago, and it was much slower on 
my poor Mac than OpenOffice is. Also, ThinkFree didn't offer features 
like table of contents and indexes, which I absolutely need for the 
documentation that I created.


For simple stuff, it works great.

YMMV

Regards,
Paul.
--
Paul W. Mulroney 
Logical Developments

[EMAIL PROTECTED] 86 Coolgardie Street
www.logicaldevelopments.com.au BENTLEY WA 6102
Ph: +61 8 9458 3889 ICQ# 154484472 Fax: +61 8 9458 7204

Re: Mac OS X OpenOffice

[Paul Mulroney]

Hi Everyone,

On Tuesday, July 29, 2003, at 05:47 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


I was looking at the downloads that were available on the wamug
site and I and noticed that OpenOffice was there.

As it is a fairly big download at 170 MB, I thought I would ask the
opinion of those who have tried it out to give me some feedback as
to if it is worth getting.



If this is the latest version which was released recently, then I can 
tell you that it's not fast, but it is very functional. Much better 
than the previous (alpha) release.


The GUI still uses X-windows, so you need to have either Apple's X11 
software , or XDarwin/OroborusX installed. I opted for Apple's X11 
software.


The setup of printers is a bit strange - you need to define the printer 
within Open Office before you can print.


The word processor is functional (including the annoying "office 
helper"), the spreadsheet is also operational. It appears to handle 
documents created by Word and Excel just fine.


pluses: more features than Appleworks.
minuses: requires a bit more "tech" to get it working, non-Aqua 
interface.


Hope this is useful.

Regards,
Paul.
--
Paul W. Mulroney 
Logical Developments

[EMAIL PROTECTED] 86 Coolgardie Street
www.logicaldevelopments.com.au BENTLEY WA 6102
Ph: +61 8 9458 3889 ICQ# 154484472 Fax: +61 8 9458 7204

Re: Mac OS X OpenOffice

[Shay Telfer]

On Mon, 2003-07-28 at 21:07, David Watkins wrote:
> I was looking at the downloads that were available on the wamug

site and I and noticed that OpenOffice was there.

As it is a fairly big download at 170 MB, I thought I would ask the
opinion of those who have tried it out to give me some feedback as
to if it is worth getting.


Prefacing this response with: I run OpenOffice.org on a Linux box and
not a Macintosh.

I run my business on it, and it works well. It's responsive, feature
rich, configurable and open source.


It is also dependent on X-Windows, and as yet doesn't use the native 
Aqua GUI, which is a mark against it in my book.


If people just need to read Word and Excel documents (rather than 
perpetrate the evil by writing them), then other good alternatives 
are icWord and icExcel




Have fun,
Shay
--
=== Shay Telfer 
Perth, Western Australia Technomancer Join Team Sungroper, race the
Opinions for hire [POQ] 2003 World Solar Challenge
[EMAIL PROTECTED] fnord 

Re: Mac OS X OpenOffice

[Onno Benschop]

On Mon, 2003-07-28 at 21:07, David Watkins wrote:
> I was looking at the downloads that were available on the wamug
> site and I and noticed that OpenOffice was there.
> 
> As it is a fairly big download at 170 MB, I thought I would ask the
> opinion of those who have tried it out to give me some feedback as
> to if it is worth getting.

Prefacing this response with: I run OpenOffice.org on a Linux box and
not a Macintosh.

I run my business on it, and it works well. It's responsive, feature
rich, configurable and open source.

If I have a problem, there are many people who can help me.

As I'm a software developer, if I come across a problem, I can look at
the source-code, figure out where it died, and either fix the problem
myself, or send a bug report to the developer community.

And just to be pedantic, the name for the software is OpenOffice.org -
read the website to see why.

On a final note, the more users there are, the more people describe and
communicate what they feel is a problem with it, the better the software
can get.

So, download and try it now - who knows, it might be the best thing you
ever did!

Cheers,


Onno Benschop 

Connected via Optus C1 from S33:37'33" - E115:07'30" (Dunsborough, WA)
-- 
()/)/)() ..ASCII for Onno.. 
|>>? ..EBCDIC for Onno.. 
--- -. -. --- ..Morse for Onno.. 

Proudly supported by Skipper Trucks, Highway1, Concept AV, Sony Central, Dalcon
ITmaze - ABN: 56 178 057 063 - ph: 04 1219  - onno at itmaze dot com dot au

Re: Mac OS X OpenOffice

[Daniel Kerr]

On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 9:07 PM, David Watkins wrote:


I was looking at the downloads that were available on the wamug
site and I and noticed that OpenOffice was there.

As it is a fairly big download at 170 MB, I thought I would ask the
opinion of those who have tried it out to give me some feedback as
to if it is worth getting.

Thanks
Dave Watkins


Hi Dave

It's not bad, but its not all that great either. For the price, you
can't beat it.

PROS
Its free
Its open source
It runs under MacOS X
It opens MS Office files pretty damn well.

CONS
It's ugly
It doesn't use all the features of MacOS X that make OSX cool
It sort of prints...
It's slow on all but the fastest machines.

Is it worth the download... certainly. It is a viable full-time
replacement for MS Office on OSX... not really.

- Matt

--


On another side to this,..if you were looking for something a little 
better, then consider checking out ThinkFree Office. It's not free, 
but at $99 it's actually pretty good for a replacement to Microsoft 
Office. It handles Word, Excel and Powerpoint in their "native" file 
formats so it reads and writes to them in their "own language". (It 
even includes the .doc and .xls suffix when you save!) It works on 
Macs (OS9 and X), Windows and even Linux.


I've sold it to a few clients who don't want to spend the $1000 odd 
(or $300 if you can get education) for Microsoft Office and their 
feedback as been all positive.


If you want more info have a look at:


or drop me an email and I'm happy to discuss or supply.

I hope that helps!

Kind Regards
Daniel Kerr
--
---
Daniel Kerr
MacWizardry

Phone: 0414 795 960
Email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Web: 


**For everything Macintosh**

Re: Mac OS X OpenOffice

[Matthew Healey]

On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 9:07 PM, David Watkins wrote:


I was looking at the downloads that were available on the wamug
site and I and noticed that OpenOffice was there.

As it is a fairly big download at 170 MB, I thought I would ask the
opinion of those who have tried it out to give me some feedback as
to if it is worth getting.

Thanks
Dave Watkins


Hi Dave

It's not bad, but its not all that great either. For the price, you 
can't beat it.


PROS
Its free
Its open source
It runs under MacOS X
It opens MS Office files pretty damn well.

CONS
It's ugly
It doesn't use all the features of MacOS X that make OSX cool
It sort of prints...
It's slow on all but the fastest machines.

Is it worth the download... certainly. It is a viable full-time 
replacement for MS Office on OSX... not really.


- Matt

--

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Matt Healey [EMAIL PROTECTED]