Mac Users: Pick Your Poison

October 14, 2014 | This Just in

[This Just In]

Good evening,

I recently bought a Mac. I need to do some office work, but I don't care for any of the applications. I've read that the Apache OpenOffice, LibreOffice, KOffice, and NeoOffice are popular. From what I've been discovering, the NeoOffice seems ideal given that it's designed for OS X.

Is anyone currently using any of these office suites? If so, what do you like/dislike about it? Would you have any recommendations?

TJI

[balch3]

I use Libre Office. No complaints from me. I’m not what anyone would consider a power user, and it has a lot features I never use, so I can’t comment on them. But for my limited needs, it works fine, and it didn’t cost anything.

[Greysard]

{Open,Libre}Office are essentially the same product (LibreOffice was forked.) It is perfectly fine if you never need anything more sophisticated than a letter to a landlord, or a flyer about a lost cat. Compatibility with MS Office is unreliable. One of our employees decided to save money on MS Office one day and downloaded LibreOffice. The software then happily proceeded to corrupt the MS Office document that we were collaborating on. I guess you could use it as long as (a) you are a geek, and (b) you don't need 100% compatibility with MS Office. By 100% compatibility I mean small, not very significant bugs, like shifted tables or corrupted page watermarks. The text itself will be OK, probably. As I said, in most businesses a single problem that costs a worker 10 minutes is unacceptable.

I would recommend to download what you can get your hands on and evaluate personally, as your needs and your workflow are likely to be different from anyone else. Then pick the least bitter poison. Or you could run Windows in a VM on your Mac; then you can run MS Office and have none of those problems. Or you could install Windows on your Mac :-) It just depends on what you really want.

[This Just In]

Thanks, Greysard. I would prefer to avoid MS Office. If I can find an office suite that isn’t buggy I’ll be happy. I may have to go with the MS. The jury is still out.

[This Just In]

Thanks, balch3

[Wayne07]

I’d just start with Google Docs, that way you don’t even need to bother downloading or installing anything. If you need to do anything more complicated than it can handle, you are probably better off skipping straight to MS Office for the Mac or Office Online.

[Drago]

In addition to Google Docs, MS Office Online is free: https://office.com/start/default.aspx

You looking for one particular program? Spreadsheet or word processor? Or all of them? I take it you tried Apple’s “Numbers” (spreadsheet) & “Pages” (word processor)?

[Loud Mime]

I am playing around with the new Yosemite OS; it doesn’t like Microsoft Word. Stay away from MS programs in Mac.

I’ve been using Pages with absolutely NO problem. Check out the Mac programs; they’re good.

[Drago]

Hi LM...does Yosemite include “Numbers”? I am not currently in the market for a new Mac (to get Numbers free...my MB Air & Mac Pro are doing fine for now). I did get iOS “Numbers” with my new iPhone 6. I was waiting to see if Yosemite had “Numbers” before I paid the $20.00 in the Mac App Store.

[AZLiberty]

Dittos on the Apple software. Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are all much easier to use than Microsoft applications, and if you need to share, you can export as PDF (if no further edits are required) or as .docx, .xlsx, or .pptx as needed. Besides being easier to use than Powerpoint, Keynote produces much more beautiful results (as you would expect from Apple).

The Open Office clones are OK — I finally settled on LibreOffice — but they’re not perfectly compatible with the MS applications. You can’t assume that what you see in the open version is what they’ll get in the MS version.

[Mark17]

Ping

[This Just In]

Mainly Word processor, Drago. I have used Pages. Look at Numbers as well as Keynote.

[Swordmaker]

Freeper This Just In is requesting some advice from all of us Mac users about office suites—PING!

Apple Advice Ping!

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

[Swordmaker]

No that I’ve pinged the users, I’d strongly recommend using Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. These are free with your Mac. The word processor, Pages, can load and output files in Microsoft Word format. The spreadsheet app, Numbers, can save is Excel format. Keynote can load and save PowerPoint. You can share your documents with other Pages, Numbers, and Keynote user interactively anywhere in your office, on the Internet, or even on the Web. . . and track changes. Edits can be made, but not actually accepted until approved by the originator/owner/controller of the document. Photographs and other Apple documents integrate well into these apps.

[Drago]

OK...l am in a similar dilemma, have Office 2003 on a spare Win 7 machine, but want WP & spreadsheet on my Mac Pro and don’t particularly want to give M$ more money for Office 2011 for Mac or pay the monthly Office365 fees. I have used “Open Office” in the past on Windows it was pretty good. It was Sun Open Office back then tho...I notice it is Apache OO now. Let us know how it turns out!

[Drago]

Sword, any chance “Numbers” is included with Yosemite? My newest Mac is 2012 so no free iWork apps for me. Is it even “iWork” anymore? I mostly just need “Numbers” & “Pages”. Thanks.

[Swordmaker]

Sword, any chance “Numbers” is included with Yosemite? My newest Mac is 2012 so no free iWork apps for me. Is it even “iWork” anymore? I mostly just need “Numbers” & “Pages”. Thanks.

Apple may make it free. I don't know. Have you bought any new iPhone or iPad lately? Pages and Numbers are free when you do. . . and then I think you can get it on your Mac too.

[Drago]

Yep, just went from an iPhone 4 (no “s”) to a 6...it is faster to say the least!!! ;-) It came with iOS “Pages” & “Numbers”, but those want me to do the “iCloud Drive” update, and I am not ready to do that because of the OSX incompatibility until Yosemite is out. I didn’t think you got OSX “Pages” just because have iOS “Pages”....but I found that the iOS apps are “Universal” to my iPad. You think Yosemite is going to be released Thursday?

[Swordmaker]

Yes, I think Yosemite will be released then.

[Yosemitest]

Check Out Parallels Desktop 10 for Mac and use your old office suite, until you find something you like.