"Office" issues

I've been mostly Mac for a couple of years now. But I haven't needed M$
Office so far.

But now, because of a class I'm taking (assignments can be emailed in
dotdoc format), I have been tempted to buy it.

I think the price is just crazy-too-high, though. So I'm trying to work
with OpenOffice 1.0.3, which is ok, but sometimes isn't too faithful to
the Word docs I feed it.

And it seems that OpenOffice 1.1 isn't ready yet for OS X. Maybe it'll
make things better?

In the meantime, I figure to take the dotdocs, work them over as
required for the class, then save and email 'em as dotrtfs.

Any solice? Guidance?

When is OpenOffice 1.1 expected to be RC for OS X?

--
Jack

Jack B:

Thanks for your post:

in article 220720032149399532%, Jack B at
wrote on 7/22/03 7:49 PM:

> I've been mostly Mac for a couple of years now. But I haven't needed M$
> Office so far.

Lucky for you!
>
> But now, because of a class I'm taking (assignments can be emailed in
> dotdoc format), I have been tempted to buy it.

"Tempted"?
>
> I think the price is just crazy-too-high, though.

If you are student, you may be able to get a much lower price. Check out the
student store or stores near the campus. I don't know about the hoops
required to get a student price in this particular case, but they are
sometimes quite relaxed, and you may find one store to be particularly lax.

> So I'm trying to work with OpenOffice 1.0.3, which is ok, but sometimes isn't
> too faithful to the Word docs I feed it.

Right. I haven't been willing to deal with yet another layer required, that
is, installing X11. But I've used OpenOffice a little on a PC and gotten a
similar impression.
>
> And it seems that OpenOffice 1.1 isn't ready yet for OS X. Maybe it'll
> make things better?

Don't know.
>
> In the meantime, I figure to take the dotdocs, work them over as
> required for the class, then save and email 'em as dotrtfs.

For a 3 - 4 month class, if that plan is allowed by the instructor, then do
it. You don't need the grief of using Word if you don't have to.
>
> Any solice? Guidance?

Repeat: You don't need the grief of using Word if you don't have to.

I recently went through this issue with my wife, who took a college course
last quarter that specified "Word format". My wife has only a Works app on
her Mac.

Turns out that we had a lot of problems just getting attachments of any kind
to the instructor unscathed. We ended up sending multiple attachments and a
text copy of the submissions also following the email-of-transmittal.

Material returned from the instructor was a nightmare of bad formatting. It
was very difficult to see comments she inserted.

In sum...

RTF should be fully sufficient unless you need special features, most
notably, graphics.

You might want to have a technical discussion with the instructor or her/his
IT contact and try to work out kinks in transmission, processing, and return
BEFORE you get deep into the class work.
>
> When is OpenOffice 1.1 expected to be RC for OS X?

Don't know. (Consolation prize: About a year ago, I downloaded the
OpenOffice source. It basically swamped a well-equipped, hi-performance PC
and the source browsing tool I tried to use. I've heard this is the biggest
some-kind-of source tree in history.)

Hope this helps,

Henry


remove 'zzz' antispam

In <220720032149399532% > Jack B wrote:
> I've been mostly Mac for a couple of years now. But I haven't needed
> M$ Office so far.
>
> But now, because of a class I'm taking (assignments can be emailed in
> dotdoc format), I have been tempted to buy it.
>
> I think the price is just crazy-too-high, though. So I'm trying to
> work with OpenOffice 1.0.3, which is ok, but sometimes isn't too
> faithful to the Word docs I feed it.
>
> And it seems that OpenOffice 1.1 isn't ready yet for OS X. Maybe it'll
> make things better?
>
> In the meantime, I figure to take the dotdocs, work them over as
> required for the class, then save and email 'em as dotrtfs.
>
> Any solice? Guidance?
>
> When is OpenOffice 1.1 expected to be RC for OS X?
>
try MELLEL word processor
you can find it at http://www.redlers.com/index.html
I've never really used it but I've heard a lot of positive coments on it

mboy

In article <>,
foo <> wrote:

> On Tue, 22 Jul 2003 21:49:39 -0500, Jack B
> <> wrote:
>
> >I've been mostly Mac for a couple of years now. But I haven't needed M$
> >Office so far.
> >
> >But now, because of a class I'm taking (assignments can be emailed in
> >dotdoc format), I have been tempted to buy it.
> >
> >I think the price is just crazy-too-high, though. So I'm trying to work
> >with OpenOffice 1.0.3, which is ok, but sometimes isn't too faithful to
> >the Word docs I feed it.
> >
> >And it seems that OpenOffice 1.1 isn't ready yet for OS X. Maybe it'll
> >make things better?
> >
> >In the meantime, I figure to take the dotdocs, work them over as
> >required for the class, then save and email 'em as dotrtfs.
> >
> >Any solice? Guidance?
> >
> >When is OpenOffice 1.1 expected to be RC for OS X?
>
> Would Appleworks do it for you?

You might look at Think Free Office <http://www.thinkfree.com/> and try
out their demo. They save files in MSO formats and the price is
somewhat better <$49.95> if you don't need the full capabilites of
MSOffice. Burt

In article <220720032149399532% >,
Jack B <> wrote:
>
> But now, because of a class I'm taking (assignments can be emailed in
> dotdoc format), I have been tempted to buy it.
>
> I think the price is just crazy-too-high, though.

You might want to look at Nisus Writer Express, which has just come out
(Jaguar only, a brand new true Cocoa application). It is still a little
lacking in features, but it reads and writes .doc, and its native file
format is .rtf.

Nisus used to have free trial downloads, but their web site no longer
mentions them.

I have not tried it, but I have used earlier Classic/OS9 versions of
Nisus Writer and liked them. They have powerful support for multiple
languages, and academic layout. Eventually the new version will pick up
most of the old features.

www.nisus.com
--
.... Al Quirt ... Ottawa Canada ...
.... Please remove anti-spam BIRD for email replies ...

In article <220720032149399532% >, Jack B
<> wrote:

> I've been mostly Mac for a couple of years now. But I haven't needed M$
> Office so far.
>
> But now, because of a class I'm taking (assignments can be emailed in
> dotdoc format), I have been tempted to buy it.
>
> I think the price is just crazy-too-high, though. So I'm trying to work
> with OpenOffice 1.0.3, which is ok, but sometimes isn't too faithful to
> the Word docs I feed it.
>
> And it seems that OpenOffice 1.1 isn't ready yet for OS X. Maybe it'll
> make things better?
>
> In the meantime, I figure to take the dotdocs, work them over as
> required for the class, then save and email 'em as dotrtfs.
>
> Any solice? Guidance?
>
> When is OpenOffice 1.1 expected to be RC for OS X?

Thanks for the advice...

Current situation:

AppleWorks, no (latest version? yes). It refuses to import the files I
need.

ThinkFree: hey this is pretty cool. I got the trial version and it
looks good after a few minutes. And the price is right if it works out.

MELLEL sounds like fun (especially if I were taking a Hebrew class, it
seems), but I don't see a try-out version.

Nisus is promising, but has no trial version.

So, here I go with an evaluation of ThinkFree along with Open Office.
Fortunately I have a "Test Drive" Word for the next 8 days to help
compare results.

Thanks.

Jack B wrote:
> I've been mostly Mac for a couple of years now. But I haven't needed M$
> Office so far.
>
> But now, because of a class I'm taking (assignments can be emailed in
> dotdoc format), I have been tempted to buy it.
>
> I think the price is just crazy-too-high, though. So I'm trying to work
> with OpenOffice 1.0.3, which is ok, but sometimes isn't too faithful to
> the Word docs I feed it.
>
> And it seems that OpenOffice 1.1 isn't ready yet for OS X. Maybe it'll
> make things better?
>
> In the meantime, I figure to take the dotdocs, work them over as
> required for the class, then save and email 'em as dotrtfs.
>
> Any solice? Guidance?
>
> When is OpenOffice 1.1 expected to be RC for OS X?
>

You mention taking a class, if you are a student, you might look into
Education Prices either directly or via Creation Engiine or Journey Ed.

M$ offers insanely cheap packages for students at many Universities
(essentially material cost).

So does Nisus and my fave, Mariner.

cheers.