Thinking about switching

[davidnix71]

If you open the doc in Hexedit or HexeditFAT, you should be able to read the header and know what version of Word it was created in.
If it has a damaged header, then it may not open properly in any program. But, with OO, you can force select a template when you open a doc,
if you think it's not what it was labeled.

[worker201]

FWIW, I didn't get the job.  And I was grossly over-qualified for it.

[worker201]

Update: this is becoming more of an issue.  I've been working on editing some documents these past few weeks - Word docs and PowerPoint shows.  None of them have any weird formatting bullshit, or incompatible features.  I save often, so I'm not losing any data.  But every couple days, OpenOffice trys to update some French thesaurus and crashes.  I think the Mac version is Java, and the whole runtime takes a dirtnap.  6 times in the past 2 weeks.  The only other Java programs I have, Editra and Azureus/Vuze don't seem to have any problems.  OpenOffice has been acceptable when it is working - but that is sadly not very often.

So I have arrived at a point where I have to seriously consider Microsoft Office.  Again.

[Lead Head]

Any possible way of uninstalling this french thesaurus component?

[worker201]

Not that I can find.

[Lead Head]

I'm assuming you have already tried doing a complete un-install of OpenOffice, then re-installing it?

[worker201]

I'm assuming you have already tried doing a complete un-install of OpenOffice, then re-installing it?

It doesn't quite work that way on a Mac.  But I did remove OpenOffice.app, and the support folders from /Library/ApplicationSupport.  Then I installed a clean copy.  Still tries to push the update.  However, you can just tell it to cancel the update, and it won't try to download it.  However, it does sit there, waiting with those puppy dog eyes, upset because you're ignoring it.  Kinda like Windows with that little "I have to download Genuine Advantage!" whine.  It doesn't crash the computer, but it is annoying as hell.

I think doing the whole thing in Java was a mistake.

[worker201]

That thing was driving me crazy, so I started looking around.  If you go to the Apple Store and look at the reviews for MS Office 2008, you will see a lot of angry people.  I guess there's a lot of things about Office that royally suck.  So I started looking around for other alternatives.  I found two - Lotus Symphony and NeoOffice.

Lotus Symphony looks exactly like it does in Windows - I have it on my Windows computer.  It's not extraordinary in Windows, but it gets the job done.  The Mac version, though, sucks.  I don't know what it was doing, but there was a short delay between key presses and letters appearing on the screen.  Which is the kiss of death for a word processor.  I think it was one of those features where it tries to anticipate what word you are typing, but it was doing it for 2 and 3 letter words, which eats up cycles like crazy if you can type 50 words per minute.  Lotus Symphony is no good.  Fortunately, it told me during installation where files were installed, so removing it from the computer shouldn't be too much trouble.

Next is NeoOffice.  NeoOffice is a fork of OpenOffice from the 2.x vintage, but it doesn't look anything like OO.  That must be because it was designed from the ground up to be a native Mac application - totally Aqua-fied.  It also doesn't seem to offer any useless updates like OO, making this an ideal fix for me.  I used NeoOffice to finish up a paper I was working on today, and it performed nicely.  At one point, the NeoOffice window flashed to white and then came back again.  It was only for a split-second, and it was coincided with Time Machine coming on.  So it must have cached something somewhere.  It was odd, but not as big a deal as a stupid French thesaurus update.

NeoOffice is not a universal binary, but they have an Intel version and a PPC version.  The Intel version that you can download is v3.0, patch 0.  Immediately upon install, it will ask you if you want to get patch 4.  I guess you don't have to, but I did.  So far, things are going great.  I'm glad to have found an acceptable alternative to OpenOffice.

[Lead Head]

 - and ironically enough it is based off of (sort of) OpenOffice