OpenOffice.org for Mac

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET Staff on November 07, 2008

A credible rival to MS Office, OpenOffice.org includes powerful applications for making text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, diagrams, and databases, as well as HTML and XML documents. Not only does it let you edit basic documents, such as letters and faxes, it also handles equations, complex and multipart documents with bibliographies, reference tables, and indexes.

The interface is similar to that of MS Office users, and even advanced Office users will find almost everything they're used to: templates, collaborative features (versions, recording changes), macros, and even a programming language. OOo, as it's known, lets you open and save documents in formats as diverse as MS Office, PDF, HTML, and XML. It can also import files from those formats, as well as the WordPerfect format and others. However, it normally saves files in the open-standard Oasis OpenDocument XML format, for maximum compatibility with other applications.

The latest versions of OpenOffice have seen a spurt of growth in the extensions available for the program. These include templates for professional writers, an export tool for bidirectional functionality with Google Docs, blog publishing, and others. Blog publishing assistance especially strikes us as a natural area for word processing to grow towards.

We were pleased to find that stability has improved too. No doubt about it, the multilingual and cross-platform OpenOffice.org is a compelling option for anyone in search of an alternative office suite.

Publisher's Description

From OpenOffice.org:

This office productivity suite for Mac OS X includes desktop applications such as a word processor, a spreadsheet, a presentation manager, and a drawing program, with a user interface and feature set similar to that of other office suites. OpenOffice.org also works transparently with a variety of file formats, including those of Microsoft Office.

Note: In order to use OpenOffice, you first have to download and install the latest build of X11 from Apple. See Apple's page on X11 for information and download links. This is a very large (133MB) file and may take several hours to download via dial-up modem.

What's new in this version: Version 2.2 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.

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