Leopard

[designwebbie]

Welcome beginner. Please answer all of the questions below which may provide information necessary to answer your question.
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Which version of OpenOffice.org are you using? none as yet
What Operating System (version) are you using? Leopard
What is your question or comment? I'm using a Mac Book Air w/ Leopard OS 10.5.1. Is there an Open Office version that is compatible?

thanks!

[kabing]

The X11 version of OOo will not work on Leopard (or at least parts of it won't) due to Java incompatabilities

There is an development preview (i.e. alpha or perhaps early beta) of an Aqua version of OOo that will work on Leopard, but is described as not ready for production or serious work, although reports are it is becoming more stable. A quick Google search didn't turn up the link for downloading this version, but if you search the Mac subsection of the Setup and Troubleshooting forum here, you can probably find a link.

The other option is NeoOffice, an independent Mac port/fork of OpenOffice.org. NeoOffice is compatible with Leopard, and includes some extras like experimental support for Microsoft Office 2007 formats (docx, xlsx, etc.). But it is almost always based on an older verion of OpenOffice.org. NeoOffice is currently at 2.2.2, based on OOo 2.2.1, where as OOo is at 2.3.1.

kabing

[designwebbie]

Thanks, Kabling... appreciate the info.

[wurzel]

For the adventurous only...

Development and unstable versions of OOo Aqua are available here in several languages :

ftp://ooopackages.good-day.net/pub/Open ... org/MacOSX

The latest releases are :

2.4.0RC1 : this will substantially be the next 2.4.0 release, it is currently undergoing QA testing

SRC680m247 : this is the development for the future version 3.0

You will note that there are several types of file name :

PowerPC : for the Power PC processor
Intel : for Mac Intel based processors

If the file name has X11 in it, then the version you are downloading is for use with the X11 windowing environment, i.e. NOT native Aqua.

The files names that do not have X11 in them are native Aqua (except for UDK/SDK and URE which are separate utilities that run on all platforms - in theory, I haven't tested).

None of these are currently considered production quality, although they are mostly usable, they tend to crash without warning (especially the Aqua versions), and you can lose your data.

A truly functional Aqua version is only slated for release along with version 3.0 of OpenOffice.org.

[UweAltmann]

The X11 version of OOo will not work on Leopard (or at least parts of it won't) due to Java incompatabilities

...which means 99% of the program are working! Feel free to install OOO 2.3.1 on your MacBook - you will enjoy it.
The only thing you may notice are some wizzards not working.

[kabing]

It was my understanding that Base will not work without Java. Am I incorrect on this point?

[wurzel]

It was my understanding that Base will not work without Java. Am I incorrect on this point?

No you are not incorrect. Base relies heavily on the presence of a JVM and the Java HSQLDB libraries to make a functioning database document. Without this functionality, OOo 2.3.1 is useless on Leopard. I don' t believe in telling someone that a product is stable on a given OS if one of the modules doesn't even work. It means you can't create an ODB document on one platform and then use it on your Mac Leopard for example. So much for portability.

Writer, Calc, Draw, Impress, Base : 5 major components (I've not listed the MathEditor, although some find this module incredibly important), one of which doesn't work, i.e. 20% of the suite in the 2.3.1 stable version is non-functional on Leopard. Errmmm, not quite 99% is it ?


Alex