[X Newbies] Alternatives to Word/MS Office

[Bruce Klutchko]

On 1/23/04 9:19 PM, "marina" <marina at reliance.it> wrote:

> I am thinking of buying a new G5 and starting to use OS X seriously,
> and the only thing I'd like to understand before deciding is - what
> would be the best way to avoid using MS Office, and continue sharing
> documents with Windoz users? I understand I could keep using my old
> MS Office in "Classic", but, as a general rule, I'd prefer to avoid
> running two operating systems at a time - so in a way, this is not an
> option (or rather... using my current copy of MS Office for Mac could
> be the fallback option, if nothing else can be done!)
> 
> I write a lot, and my requirements include the following:
> 
> - opening and using Word templates
> - building TOC's and indexes
> - working with complex tables
> - adding headers, footers, and up to 20 footnotes per page
> - working with long documents (300+ pages), with different page
>  layouts within the same document
> - document statistics (word/character counts)
> - applying user-defined styles
> 
> Features I never use in Word, and therefore can easily do without,
> include template libraries, labels, mail merge, dictionaries,
> grammar/spelling tools and multiple-language support.
> 
> I have started researching the possible alternatives (as mentioned
> here by Chas, i.e. Appleworks, OpenOffice, Mariner Write, and also
> Nisus Express), and so far, I haven't been able to understand whether
> any of these would give me the features I need, and equal or better
> results/ease of use as Word.
> 
> I'm not against "splitting tasks" between two or more apps if one was
> not enough for all, and would highly appreciate any input!
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> marina
I can tell you that Appleworks and OpenOffice both will have features that
they do not support correctly; sometimes formatting, tables, or footnotes.
You may need to buy Word to reproduce these features; can you do without
Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage?

-- 
Bruce
____________________________________________________
B R U C E  K.   klutch-at-erols.com