I have installed Open Office in my Mac Mini and the icon for OO shows up in Applications. When I click the icon . another icon opens at the bottom of the screen. When I click it, nothing happens.
Open Office opens in the X11 environment. X11 comes from the unix side of things and is a window manager in a similar way that Aqua is. It's a framework that allows programs to use a common interface.
The thing you double-click is a launcher that opens Open Office in that X11 program. However, as I've also discovered, it seems to be broken.
There were other problems with Open Office, one being that it doesn't use OS X fonts so it includes its own set and that's very limiting.
There is a native port of Open Office for the Mac called NeoOffice, which is better but it's still very slow. You'd be quicker using Microsoft office inside Parallels. Parallels boots in about 10 seconds and Office comes up instantly so it's still quicker than the office alternatives, which is quite pathetic.
Download & install NeoOffice and forget MS Office. If you use NeoO and not OO then you need not worry about X Windows. NeoOffice's speed is not terrible, and is getting better, and the advanced features of NeoO actually work with large documents whereas MS Office does not in my own experience. You may have an occasional and minor formatting anomaly using NeoO with relatively complex MS Office docs, but these are negligible, again in my own experience.
Open Office opens in the X11 environment. X11 comes from the unix side of things and is a window manager in a similar way that Aqua is. It's a framework that allows programs to use a common interface.
The thing you double-click is a launcher that opens Open Office in that X11 program. However, as I've also discovered, it seems to be broken.
There were other problems with Open Office, one being that it doesn't use OS X fonts so it includes its own set and that's very limiting.
There is a native port of Open Office for the Mac called NeoOffice, which is better but it's still very slow. You'd be quicker using Microsoft office inside Parallels. Parallels boots in about 10 seconds and Office comes up instantly so it's still quicker than the office alternatives, which is quite pathetic.
Why use MS Office for Windows under Parallels rather than the Mac version of MS Office?
Why use MS Office for Windows under Parallels rather than the Mac version of MS Office?
The Mac version of Office is not as good and it currently runs under Rosetta.
Mainly I was just saying the fact that you can launch an entire OS in a virtualization environment and the Windows version of Word faster than the likes of NeoOffice or OpenOffice is quite pathetic.
What I would probably do is run Office for Windows under Crossover since it is officially supported.
Mainly I was just saying the fact that you can launch an entire OS in a virtualization environment and the Windows version of Word faster than the likes of NeoOffice or OpenOffice is quite pathetic.
False. Word 2003 x86 is faster than Word 2004 PPC running under Parallels. It's in no way faster than OO, unless you have 8GB of RAM and you dedicate 7.5 of it to Parallels.
False. Word 2003 x86 is faster than Word 2004 PPC running under Parallels. It's in no way faster than OO, unless you have 8GB of RAM and you dedicate 7.5 of it to Parallels.
Ok, time it. Parallels with XP launches in about 8 seconds and Word in about 1-2 seconds. I only assign about 384MB Ram to Parallels. I've never seen OO launch in under 10 seconds. I haven't tested it recently though because every time I tried it before, the launcher script was broken like the OP described.
(Assuming that what you say is accurate...), since when are launch speeds indicative of overall speed? OO takes longer to launch, but once it launches, it is fast. Try running XP and Word 2003 inside Parallels with 384MB of RAM with longer documents, and tell me if it is faster than running (not just launching!) OO 2.0.3 within OS X.
In my experience, it isn't, but I won't automatically discount yours either.
(Assuming that what you say is accurate...), since when are launch speeds indicative of overall speed? OO takes longer to launch, but once it launches, it is fast. Try running XP and Word 2003 inside Parallels with 384MB of RAM with longer documents, and tell me if it is faster than running (not just launching!) OO 2.0.3 within OS X.
That's a fair point. I think the best solution may be to get the Windows version of Office running in Crossover. That way, no ram limitation, low launch time and full compatibility with the Windows versions. I've just been playing Half-Life 2 on my Intel Mini under Crossover and it runs pretty well apart from having to use DirectX 7.
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The thing you double-click is a launcher that opens Open Office in that X11 program. However, as I've also discovered, it seems to be broken.
There were other problems with Open Office, one being that it doesn't use OS X fonts so it includes its own set and that's very limiting.
There is a native port of Open Office for the Mac called NeoOffice, which is better but it's still very slow. You'd be quicker using Microsoft office inside Parallels. Parallels boots in about 10 seconds and Office comes up instantly so it's still quicker than the office alternatives, which is quite pathetic.
Open Office opens in the X11 environment. X11 comes from the unix side of things and is a window manager in a similar way that Aqua is. It's a framework that allows programs to use a common interface.
The thing you double-click is a launcher that opens Open Office in that X11 program. However, as I've also discovered, it seems to be broken.
There were other problems with Open Office, one being that it doesn't use OS X fonts so it includes its own set and that's very limiting.
There is a native port of Open Office for the Mac called NeoOffice, which is better but it's still very slow. You'd be quicker using Microsoft office inside Parallels. Parallels boots in about 10 seconds and Office comes up instantly so it's still quicker than the office alternatives, which is quite pathetic.
Why use MS Office for Windows under Parallels rather than the Mac version of MS Office?
Why use MS Office for Windows under Parallels rather than the Mac version of MS Office?
The Mac version of Office is not as good and it currently runs under Rosetta.
Mainly I was just saying the fact that you can launch an entire OS in a virtualization environment and the Windows version of Word faster than the likes of NeoOffice or OpenOffice is quite pathetic.
What I would probably do is run Office for Windows under Crossover since it is officially supported.
Mainly I was just saying the fact that you can launch an entire OS in a virtualization environment and the Windows version of Word faster than the likes of NeoOffice or OpenOffice is quite pathetic.
False. Word 2003 x86 is faster than Word 2004 PPC running under Parallels. It's in no way faster than OO, unless you have 8GB of RAM and you dedicate 7.5 of it to Parallels.
False. Word 2003 x86 is faster than Word 2004 PPC running under Parallels. It's in no way faster than OO, unless you have 8GB of RAM and you dedicate 7.5 of it to Parallels.
Ok, time it. Parallels with XP launches in about 8 seconds and Word in about 1-2 seconds. I only assign about 384MB Ram to Parallels. I've never seen OO launch in under 10 seconds. I haven't tested it recently though because every time I tried it before, the launcher script was broken like the OP described.
In my experience, it isn't, but I won't automatically discount yours either.
(Assuming that what you say is accurate...), since when are launch speeds indicative of overall speed? OO takes longer to launch, but once it launches, it is fast. Try running XP and Word 2003 inside Parallels with 384MB of RAM with longer documents, and tell me if it is faster than running (not just launching!) OO 2.0.3 within OS X.
That's a fair point. I think the best solution may be to get the Windows version of Office running in Crossover. That way, no ram limitation, low launch time and full compatibility with the Windows versions. I've just been playing Half-Life 2 on my Intel Mini under Crossover and it runs pretty well apart from having to use DirectX 7.