NeoOffice Appearance Customization

From NeoWiki

While NeoOffice still retains a large portion of the cross-platform ("Windows/X11") look-and-feel of OpenOffice.org, there are still a few tweaks that you can perform in order to ameliorate this non-Mac appearance.

Contents 1 Use a more Mac-like font for the user interface elements 2 Use a more Mac-like background color 3 Use a more Mac-like icon set 3.1 Switching icon sets 3.2 Resources for alternative icon sets

Use a more Mac-like font for the user interface elements

1. From the Tools menu, choose Options.
2. In the left-hand column, if the box next to NeoOffice is a plus sign (+), click it once to reveal its sub-categories.
3. Select the Fonts sub-category.
4. On the right portion of the window, check the box next to Apply Replacement Table if it is not already checked.
5. Use the pull-down menus to replace Andale Sans UI with Lucida Grande.
6. Click the check box to the right.
7. Press OK at the bottom of the window.

Note: OpenOffice.org uses Bitstream Vera Sans as default UI font. NeoOffice now uses various appropriate fonts depending on the locale of your user interface.

Use a more Mac-like background color

Beginning with NeoOffice/J 1.1 Release Candidate Patch-1, NeoOffice uses colors from your System Preferences Appearance settings for much of the UI; however, a slightly-lighter background color for Writer documents is often still desirable.

1. From the NeoOffice menu, choose Preferences….
2. In the left-hand column, if the box next to NeoOffice is a plus sign (+), click it once to reveal its sub-categories.
3. Select the Appearance sub-category.
4. Under Application Background, change to Grey 20%.
5. Press OK at the bottom of the window.

This makes the blank areas in a window look far, far less "Win95."

Use a more Mac-like icon set

Until we can find designers willing to create a nice Aqua set of the approximately 30,000 icons required by NeoOffice, there are several third-party sets that many users find an improvement upon the default icon set (itself much improved in NeoOffice 2.0). Some users find the "Crystal" icon set included with NeoOffce (developed for versions of OpenOffice.org running on Linux under the KDE environment) more palatable and simply switch to it. Others have created their own sets, including one set that "borrows" icons from Apple applications.

Switching icon sets

1. From the NeoOffice menu, choose Preferences….
2. In the left-hand column, if the box next to NeoOffice is a plus sign (+), click it once to reveal its sub-categories.
3. Select the View sub-category.
4. Under Icon size and style, choose the desired set.
5. Press OK at the bottom of the window.

N.B. Due to an OpenOffice.org bug, all of the shipped icon sets are not available to all locales (UI languages).

Resources for alternative icon sets

• Iconic (née NeoIconer) helps you construct an icon set based on custom icons
• The 15-pages-and-counting thread on trinity about custom icon sets

  In particular, "Punto Mac" has cobbled together an Aqua set based on Apple icons, which he makes available from time-to-time

• Ovvldc has an older set available on his website (may not work with NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha)