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OpenOffice.org and its Macintosh ports
From NeoWiki
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OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org (OOo) is the "main" office suite, written primarily for Solaris, Linux and Windows, with the most developers and users. The OpenOffice.org project provides the source code from which many other versions are derived. It is currently (July 2006) at version 2.0.3.
OpenOffice.org Mac OS X (X11)
OpenOffice.org/X11 is a very stable port of the OpenOffice.org office suite that runs on Mac OS X and uses the standard Unix X11 display system. That is, to use OpenOffice.org/X11, you must have Apple's X11 system installed on your computer or another X11 package.
Apple's X11 is available for Mac OS X 10.3.x and above; it is normally installed in /Applications/Utilities; for more information on obtaining X11 packages and OpenOffice.org Mac OS X (X11), see Downloading X11 and OpenOffice.org/X11.
OpenOffice.org/X11 is entirely functional and looks like its Unix counterpart, but it does not use the native Mac controls and requires an included startup application to run. For many Mac users, OpenOffice.org/X11 looks and feels "out of place" when compared with other Macintosh applications. As of July 2005, the official Mac OS X build of OpenOffice.org/X11 varies depending on language and processor, but version 2.0.3 is expected to be available shortly in English and many languages, for both PowerPC and Intel Macs.
NeoOffice
The best, fastest, most Macintosh-like port to date, NeoOffice (formerly "NeoOffice/J"), uses bits of Java instead of X11 to display to the screen and bits of Cocoa and Carbon for other features like printing, menus, and fonts. Because Java is so well integrated into OS X, NeoOffice feels much more "Mac-like" than the X11 version. There are numerous improvements over the X11 version—native menus along the top menu bar, native OS X fonts, the print dialog screen you're used to seeing, scrollwheel support, traditional Mac shortcut keys, drag-and-drop, Aqua scrollbars, etc. NeoOffice is also extremely stable. As of August 2006, the latest version is NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha 4, but NeoOffice 2.0 Aqua is in beta via the Early Access Program.
NeoOffice/C (abandoned)
The goal of this highly-experimental port was to prototype methods of making OpenOffice.org a fully Aquafied program and a 'first class citizen' on the Mac OS X desktop. The code is based on the 1.1 version of OpenOffice.org. NeoOffice/C would build on Mac OS X 10.2.x and 10.3.x but was at the pre-Alpha stage and was extremely buggy; it ran only on Mac OS X 10.2.x and then only for a few minutes before crashing. With the release of NeoOffice/J 1.1 Alpha, NeoOffice/C ceased development, as resources are being channeled into NeoOffice/J 1.1 and its successors, NeoOffice 1.2 and 2.0.
Which one should I use?
Most Macintosh users who are looking for a good office experience should give NeoOffice a try.
However, if you are more familiar with Unix and need the few OpenOffice.org 2.0.x features that have not yet been implemented in NeoOffice, the OpenOffice.org/X11 version is your bet.
You can also look at the comparison charts for more detailed comparisons.
Hope this helps!
