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The OpenOffice.org project is a large open-source effort to create the ultimate office "suite" including a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing software, and much more. With OpenOffice.org, you can easily import, edit, and exchange files with users of other office programs, such as Microsoft Office or WordPerfect.
While OpenOffice.org is developed primarily for Windows and Unix systems and has a user-interface geared for those operating systems, NeoOffice has made tremendous breakthoughs in offering the same to Macintosh users and making it look just like a Mac application!
How does it do this? Get ready for a pretty technical explanation—NeoOffice adapts OpenOffice.org code that uses the X11 windowing system and it then takes advantage of Mac OS X's cool Java integration to tap into the traditional Macintosh user-interface elements. The result? An office experience that feels like any other application on your Mac.
At least that's the goal. At present, NeoOffice has integrated dozens of native Mac features, including a Mac installer, native menus in the white bar at the top of the screen, native print dialog box and printing, Mac-like keyboad shortcuts, mouse scrolling, a double-clickable application, access to all your Mac fonts, and much, much more! It's probably localized into your native language, too.
Best of all, NeoOffice is already remarkably stable at version 1.2. Thousands of people and organizations use NeoOffice to do their daily work!
Here's a caveat though - while NeoOffice is quite stable and feature-complete, it has not entirely adopted the Mac look-and-feel. There are still some bits of the old Windows/Unix interface in there. For example, the scroll bars do not have the familiar blue Aqua rounded look. The dialog boxes and "widgets" like check boxes and radio buttons are not the gorgeous Apple versions you're used to seeing. And the file chooser may look unfamiliar.
We're working on all this. Slowly but surely, and with your help, NeoOffice is moving closer and closer to being indistinguishable from any other Macintosh application. Patches are being released constantly that replace an old Windows/Unix-feature with a nice shiny Mac one.
So if you think $300+ is a bit much to pay for an office suite, we encourage you to try NeoOffice for free and let us know what you think. There's no catch like its parent, OpenOffice.org, downloading and using NeoOffice doesn't cost a penny. Copy it as many times as you wish.
Released as free, open-source software under the GNU General Public License (GPL), NeoOffice is fully functional and stable enough for everyday use. The software is actively developed, and updates and improvements are available on a regular basis.
New in version 2.2.2 patch 4:
- Improves Microsoft Office 2007 file handling and Asian text layout.
New in version 2.2.2:
This release includes all of the NeoOffice 2.2.1 features plus many performance improvements and bug fixes
New in version 2.2.1:
• Based on OpenOffice.org 2.2.1 codebase
• Support for Microsoft Office 2007 Excel and PowerPoint document formats
• Support for Mac OS X 10.5 Beta
• Support for Quick Look under Mac OS X 10.5
• Access to the Mac OS X Address Book as a data source
• Use of the native Mac OS X spell-checker for supported languages
• Enhanced the Akua set of toolbar icons with a more Aqua appearance
• Support for printing high resolution images at their expected DPI
System requirements:
• For PowerPC-based Macintosh: Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later.
• For Intel-based Macintosh:Mac OS X 10.4 or later.
• 512MB RAM
• 400MB free disk space
For more information, visit:
http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php
Tags: Software Updates ď Writing/Publishing ď
