The better Office software
OpenOffice.org have just taken a major step for Mac OS X users, by releasing their first update to OpenOffice.org, their freeware competitor to Microsoft’s Office suite, in roughly a year. You can download OpenOffice.org 1.1.2 for OS X from here. So far, so excellent.
Unfortunately, in their effort to provide a user-friendly installation, they have hardcoded into the installation procedure, that a freeware font converter, fondu , should attempt to convert all installed Mac fonts to True Type format. As I appear to have at least one problem font that can’t be converted, fondu hangs and prevents the installation completing.
I don’t have time at the moment to research whether a work-around for the problem has been reported (I couldn’t find an obvious posting on the OOo site last night and I need the font in question), so I will for now be staying with my favourite office software for the Mac, NeoOffice/J. This excellent software is modestly described by the developer, Patrick Luby, as a prototype, intended for software engineers and not yet complete enough for regular users. It is a Java front-end for OOo 1.0.3 for the Mac, which don’t require X11 (a Unix user interface, which the current official OOo for OS X needs) and allows me to not worry at all about converting my fonts – I have access to all my Mac fonts (and all my installed printers), even the problem cases which fondu can’t convert. It is completely stable, easy to install and I don’t understand why OOo haven’t taken it as an interim solution until they have ported OOo to Aqua – something which at the moment isn’t scheduled to happen until 2006.
Highly recommended! With any luck, Patrick will find time to re-package NeoOffice/J to include the latest OOo release and then I will be completely happy 