OpenOffice coming to the Mac natively

I've had success with Neooffice. But my computers are loaded with RAM (2 GB and up).

For the money you save on Microsoft Office, you can probably upgrade your RAM.

Dave, if you're using OpenOffice in X11 instead of using NeoOffice, you are missing out. NeoOffice is OpenOffice, but without requiring X11, and with menus in the Mac menubar where hey belong, an Aqua user interface and icons, and Mac fonts and Mac font rendering. http://neooffice.org

You can use OpenOffice with X11 coding on Macs now.
I have been using it for almost 2 years on 2 Macs:
PPC 1 GHz G4 powerbook and dual core 1.83 GHz iMac.
My wife's 2.2 GHz C2D macbook runs it even better.
Those who complain of speed from OOo are loons.
This app worked better than Office 2007 then...
OOo 2.2 has been out for almost a year, 2.3 soon!
You don't have to wait for the native Mac version.
Go to openoffice.org and see for yourself.

I like storing my data in a format that is an open standard. NeoOffice (and OpenOffice) uses the OpenDocument format, and that's why I use it.

I have to respect the Open Office team for what they have done so far because at the end of the day this powerful application is free. However if they are serious about taking taking on Microsoft in all areas of Office they are going to have to get there arse in gear and get this native Mac version sorted. It may be small market to the OO team but it still counts.

I'm not fan of NeoOffice but it isn't a Java app. The developers posted on Slashdot last fall when the "native" OpenOffice was released and they said the main reason for the speed problems was from when Apple's text handling routines were put into replace the X11 ones. They strongly suggested there was no real way around this and that when OpenOffice got to that stage they'd have the same speed problems. I've no idea if this is true. If someone's really energetic I'm sure they can find the quote from Slashdot.

Until EndNote plays nicely with anything other than Word, I (and many of my colleagues) are stuck with the duo.

I would LOVE to use OpenOffice or NeoOffice or anything else, but without EndNote its just not possible.

Oh well- guess I'm stuck with my crappy non-universal app still :(

I've tried to use NeoOffice for Mac. The learning curve is extremely steep, the interface is not intuitive (for me), and it feels like a PC app. But I keep trying, because it's FREE (donations are accepted).

For a word processor, though, I LOVE Nisus Writer Pro (www.nisus.com), and only use NeoOffice Impress, Calc, and Base (really hard to learn, that one), as a substitute for apps that cost money.

In my experience, open source apps tend to be a little less "Mac-like" in their UI or in their operation. (For example, The GIMP, an X11-based app, actually uses the Ctrl key instead of the Command key for open, save, etc.)

I never could get serious about NeoOffice and while I sometimes use M$ Word (when I absolutely have no choice), I've found the the latest rendition of iWork to do the job in most cases (along with an occasional foray into Scriviner). Regardless, OO may be too little, too late.

http://www.macsparky.com

I've used OOo on Macs, Windows, and Linux boxes...every one of them ran just slightly faster than pond water. I wish the developers would streamline OOo and stop trying to be just like Microsoft bloatware.

Lemme plug my favorite word processor...Abiword! Its quick and simple...and works on Macs