OpenOffice 3 for the Mac

At the termp place where I work, the program that runs supreme is the Microsoft Office suite. It gets the job done and is second nature. Then last week I had to use a macbook with no MS office, but instead came with Openoffice version 2x. It was a horrible experience. Made me hammer nails after nails into the coffin of 'get a Mac'.

Then I installed an office suite was called NeoOffice. It did a much better job but it was as if someone took a pc version of Openoffice, stuck a mac theme on it, and plonked it on a mac. It was like Frankenstein, forced to wear a non branded turtle neck sweater. Hammer, hammer, hammer!

Then quite recently OpenOffice 3 for the mac was released. Once I had installed it, I was pleased with the somewhat polished interface compared with the other apps I had previously mentioned. It felt great. Now here was an office suite I thought was going to do very nicely. That was until I started to do some printing. Sometimes words were missing, sometimes frames or borders were missing and at times it crashed. Hammer, hammer, hammer!

I have always admired opensource apps on the PC. Opensource apps on the macs are a nightmare. Most, if not all, require some heathen 3rd party X app to run or they have to be compiled. I don't mind learning how to compile them, if they come with the necessary instructions. But having to wait hours for them to compile is just trying.

Still, I'm sure OpenOffice 3 for the Mac's next update will iron out all the said bugs. Just to end on a positive note.