From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Oct 5 01:20:13 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5DD9F16A46B for ; Fri, 5 Oct 2007 01:20:13 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from aryeh.friedman@gmail.com) Received: from nz-out-0506.google.com (nz-out-0506.google.com [64.233.162.229]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1BF5813C45B for ; Fri, 5 Oct 2007 01:20:12 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from aryeh.friedman@gmail.com) Received: by nz-out-0506.google.com with SMTP id l8so298131nzf for ; Thu, 04 Oct 2007 18:20:12 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; bh=SYZJs/AQMOoeNBI3wfKxffQQaZjf8C50ogerACcmOLY=; b=CYgeZ4gi1ECCQiCEJcoybgfROWwJrqEvCptOj81mhIx0iqWJ0wmwcfaBJB3FyaqHHMiBNZwpaD2td1xA9sna1nADc/RwFOHh5wQgf1oKfoaGVQ9W7oBMFbuORQyeQ+Ekgl6Bw3By/q+IVu0QLYoFKtD25hL+ohi2XgkxUYgFYE0= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=KSZICm4C/4oxGcuGAOIL+0LNxlPEbNmgHq3CN1t7MUguVGSlEt9vkkF6NVf6YI5LraZGti22h86qwYOrOqdMIjK2E6X6EEJHGCP5DOl0ciLizHFnDVhj0o/GodWJHiN3a2XrrXSXnpFqM5iyUR6UQ+kUfY1Y9EVG6E27aJ43tio= Received: by 10.65.93.19 with SMTP id v19mr10508531qbl.1191547211700; Thu, 04 Oct 2007 18:20:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.65.105.2 with HTTP; Thu, 4 Oct 2007 18:20:11 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2007 01:20:11 +0000 From: "Aryeh Friedman" To: jahnke@sonatabio.com In-Reply-To: <1191546543.61533.202.camel@pinot.fmjassoc.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <1191546543.61533.202.camel@pinot.fmjassoc.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: good replacement for open office X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2007 01:20:13 -0000 On 10/5/07, Frank Jahnke wrote: > > what would be a good replacement(s) for most of it's functionality > > (word processing and spreadsheets are what matter to me) > > You really have to decide what you want to suite to do. Otherwise, your > problem is underspecified. > > 1) Collaboration (complex). If you collaborate with colleagues who use > Word (for example) then practically you have to use Word if you deal > with complex documents. By "collaborate" I mean exchanging documents > back and forth, with edits in each pass. Mine are always heavy in > equations and chemistry. Read/write .doc, pdf and rtf mainly > 2) Document creation. If you only want to create documents, and Office > compatibility is not that important, then there are many options: > Abiword/Gnumeric are quite good if you want WYSIWYG (but do install all > the extensions), the formatters TeX and groff are exceptionally powerful > if you learn them well. Abiword does not read Word files well; Gnumeric > has many short-comings in reading Excel (particularly for graphics) but > is very good otherwise. Personally I use the groff family for all my > complex documents, but I have used it for 25 years and know it inside > and out. (Well, it was troff and friends long ago.) WYSIWYG editing for the above including embedded graphics and equations I also want to keep the learn curve as small as possible (I know enough troff to be dangerous)