[OT] Mac Office Software

[Paul Mison]

On 23/08/2006 at 11:29 +0100, Dave Cross wrote:
>I've recently bought a new Mac Book for my wife[1] and it came without
>any Office software installed. Well, we got a 30 day evaluation copy
>of MS Office.

If you'd bought an iBook you'd have got a free copy of AppleWorks. 
But it's pre-Steve and barely made it onto Mac OS X (it got a quick 
compatibility fix back in 2001 or something, then nothing), so I 
suppose that it fell by the wayside when the Intel transition 
happened.

It's a shame, because althought it was more than a little noddy- 
Microsoft Works is really the comparable Windows product, and I don't 
know if that's died also now- it was pretty friendly and, hey, it 
came free (with "consumer" Macs).

>So what do other people use on their Macs? Is there a decent free (or
>even cheap) office suite for the Mac? Or do I just have to bite the
>bullet and buy MS Office?

You could buy Parallels or wait for VMWare, get a Windows image, and 
use the proper MS Office. No, I didn't think that would appeal.

I've seen a lot of people mention neooffice, but I'm not sure 
anyone's mentioned AbiWord (which also has a native-ish version for 
the Mac) or some of the more obscure payware apps (Mariner Write? 
Mellel? Nisus Writer? Ulysses?) that lurk around the fringes but have 
their fans. Not that any of them are probably right for you.

>[1] And I must say that OSX 10.4 is a _lot_ nicer than the 10.2.8

Bah, all the niceness came in in 10.3. 10.4's barely worth the hassle 
of upgrading.

-- 
:: paul
:: blue coconut slush