This is not a big change per se it just takes some getting used to.
Those that are used to using one application for spreadsheets and another for presentations will need to aclimate to a monolithic application. The primary example is the tight coupling of the different suite functions. Very nice.ģ) The UI is somewhat confusing, since it departs from some of the standard metaphors we usually see in office software. In fact, when using the last RC to get work done I did not experience any crashes. These have been largely successfully addressed. random crashes) was an issue on the earlier releases. At this point I think it is a wash.Ģ) Stability (e.g. That product has UI delays as well, just in different places. They bothered me until I used Office X again. That said, you will find there are still delays here and there that may bother you. I am pleased to say that the interface speed has increased through the release candidate schedule. There were rendering delays with first word typed, pull-down menus, and switching tools, among other things. Office X is used for school work, where I cannot take a chance of my professors not being able to read a document.ġ) In the early releases NeoOffice/J was sluggish. I have both MS Office X and NeoOffice/J installed. That is, I actually tried to get things done with it rather than just clicking around to see how "Mac" it is. I have used the last release candidate to do "real" work on personal projects.
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For anyone looking for a free office suite on their Mac, here it is!
NEOOFFICE G SOFTWARE
Honestly, don't judge it on first appearances or screenshots (I've found numerous Mac 'ports' of software which seem to concentrate too much on cosmetics rather than functionality) - it's truly wonderful. It's in an application bundle, it stores its settings in ~/Library/ - apart from those grey, rectangular buttons and controls, it's a complete, modern Mac application. Even more recent, esoteric stuff like Spotlight searches are fine - when I installed Tiger, all my documents got neatly indexed without me lifting a finger. Before anyone complains about the lack of Aqua widgets and the continuing Windows 95-like appearance of the program, from experience that's probably the last remaining area to be completed.Įverything else is great, and infinitely superior to the old port of to the Mac's X11 - for instance, copy-and-paste works fully (styled text is no problem whatsoever) file associations work correctly native printing, fonts, anti-aliased line art are just fine.