Posted by Vince Wadhwani on Jun 22, 2006

I've been using NeoOffice for the Intel Mac for a few days now. Through the Early Access Program, Planamesa Software allows users to download the software before it's final scheduled release in July. I'm an open source advocate and, although I'm not swimming in money, believe in supporting people who do good work. Usually this works in the form of shareware where you get to try before you buy. The story with NeoOffice is a little different though; you have to pony up the cash to get the download.

The first iteration of the program was $25 for Alpha1. That was a little steep for my taste... $25 is more money than I'll make in a lifetime of blogging so I'm understandably hesitant to put that sort of money down. But then came June 19 and with it Alpha2 and a price drop down to $10. Sure I could have waited until July and just gotten it for free, but like I said.. I don't mind supporting somebody who is providing a valuable service.

This is not a full-fledged review.. if you are looking for a review of OpenOffice 2.02 then seek elsewhere. This is specifically about how the code base looks on an Intel based Mac. If you don't want to run Microsoft Office 2004 through Rosetta and can't stand launching X11 to run OpenOffice then NeoOffice is one of a few choices you have.

For the last 2 years I've been using GNU/Linux full time for my desktop with mixed success. Some apps (gaim, kmail) are great while others are a little lacking. OpenOffice falls squarely in camp of applications that I just couldn't live without. Koffice as great but could not save as Microsoft Office documents and the Gnome group of Office applications was nice but not compelling. Hence, I'm an OpenOffice brat.

NeoOffice does quite a good job in taking the full functionality of OpenOffice 2.02, warts and all, and making it look good on the Mac. This is still Alpha 2 so there are still problems. For instance, grab the lower right corner of your document and resize the window and the entire contents of your work disappears. Let go of the corner and, poof, it's back. Nothing worrysome, but for those of us used to the shiny GUI of Mac OSX it's definitely something tough to get used to. Almost like taking a trip back to Windows 3.1 and the outline window dragging.

The dialogs are also something that are distinctly non-mac like. Though the window borders and the screenshots may have you believe that it's been completely converted to OSX's look and feel it actually has quite a ways to go. From save dialogs and finder navigation to the scroll bars on the right, there's evidence of OpenOffice's linux origins everywhere you look.

On linux, OpenOffice launch times are notoriously slow. On older computers I could almost go out and grab a coffee while waiting for it to launch. Running on a MacBook Pro I figured things would be better. And they are. In fact, launch times of NeoOffice are better than Microsoft Office 2004 via Rosetta. Whether that's surprising or not I can't say, but it certainly is welcome.

The only bug I have run into so far is a document crash while saving a Drawing Document as a PowerPoint slide. The process took a long time and, not realizing it was still in the works, I had hit command-Q to end NeoOffice. The result was a spinning beachball and an eventual trip to force-quit lane.

Still, I think that the overall job of getting this app ported to work on Intel macs is extraordinary. Finally, a way to open and save Microsoft Docs on my Macintosh without paying $300 for MS Office.