NeoOffice for Mac

4.0 stars

"$10 Minimum shareware. No Demo. Best Mac OpenOffice."

September 16, 2011  |   By zunipus

Version: NeoOffice 3.2.1

Pros

This is still the best version of OpenOffice for Mac OS X, stable, great alternative to Microsoft. The file format is an easy to use international standard. Compatible with MS Office formats.

Cons

There is no demo. It is NOT free unless you're willing to compile the app from source code, which takes hours. A payment (called a 'donation') of $10 minimum to even try the already compiled version.

Summary

This is the best integrated and most stable version of OpenOffice for Mac OS X. It is written specifically to be optimized for Mac OS X. The next best version is the up and coming LibreOffice, which is honest to goodness donationware. The problem with LibreOffice has been its stability; However, the stability has improved with each revision and it is a good alternative to NeoOffice. Either version is superior to actual OpenOffice for Mac.

The requirement of Microsoft Office in most situations has become a phenomenon of the past. Office continues to have more bells and whistles. But for day to day document, spreadsheet, charts, database and presentation work, the various branches of the OpenOffice open source project are excellent. The Open Document Format (ODF) is an international standard that is simpler and more reliable than Microsoft's annoying and complicated 'Office Open XML standard' (OOXML).

NeoOffice has a less elegant GUI than MS Office and fewer extraneous features. However, it is a solid application well worth trying and learning for most purposes. In my case, I could not care less whether MS Office even existed.

The BIG problem with NeoOffice is its change in policy whereby only those willing to compile the program from source code are able to use it for free. This is in keeping with its open source license, but a massive roadblock to typical users. Because the application is huge, it takes many hours to compile. Instead a PAYMENT (oddly called a 'donation') of $10 or more is required to obtain the compiled and ready version of the program. Considering this fee compared to the cost of MS Office, NeoOffice is well worth it. The controversy over what constitutes a 'donation' versus a payment, however, will continue.

There are default features of NeoOffice well worth turning off for most users. Be sure to read through the documentation and minimize the automatic features to fit your requirements. For example, I find the automatic item numbering and spell ahead features thoroughly annoying and detrimental. Don't use what you don't like. Meanwhile there are some lovely other features well worth turning on in its preferences such as automatic saving of documents.

NeoOffice is my favorite version of OpenOffice. However, it is well worth checking out the LibreOffice, which continues to actually be free. In the future LibreOffice promises to have features beyond NeoOffice or the original OpenOffice project. LibreOffice has been extremely crash prone in the past but has gradually been improving with each new version. If you want a free alternative to MS Office or simply wish to test an OpenOffice project alternative, try LibreOffice first.

BTW: I have so far had no problems running older and free NeoOffice v3.1.2 patch 8 on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, despite its nag window to the contrary.

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