From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Oct 6 05:14:57 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 EEB7916A41A for ; Sat, 6 Oct 2007 05:14:57 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from icantthinkofone@charter.net) Received: from mtao03.charter.net (mtao03.charter.net [209.225.8.188]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9061E13C461 for ; Sat, 6 Oct 2007 05:14:57 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from icantthinkofone@charter.net) Received: from aa04.charter.net ([10.20.200.156]) by mtao03.charter.net (InterMail vM.7.08.02.00 201-2186-121-20061213) with ESMTP id <20071006051456.FMCT10962.mtao03.charter.net@aa04.charter.net> for ; Sat, 6 Oct 2007 01:14:56 -0400 Received: from robs-laptop.com ([71.85.241.27]) by aa04.charter.net with ESMTP id <20071006051456.RKVL1254.aa04.charter.net@robs-laptop.com> for ; Sat, 6 Oct 2007 01:14:56 -0400 Message-ID: <470719CF.7030502@charter.net> Date: Sat, 06 Oct 2007 00:14:55 -0500 From: icantthinkofone User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.6 (X11/20070914) MIME-Version: 1.0 CC: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <1191546543.61533.202.camel@pinot.fmjassoc.com> In-Reply-To: <1191546543.61533.202.camel@pinot.fmjassoc.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Chzlrs: 0 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: Sat, 06 Oct 2007 05:14:58 -0000 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. > > Run it in a virtual machine (VMware, Win4BSD, qemu/kqemu) on XP, W2K or > 98SE. You probably don't need the latest and greatest version of Word > unless you colleagues are very sophisticated. Word 2000 has been fine > for me. > > 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.) > > 3) Read-only. You can use Antiword to get the raw text, but you lose > all formatting. It is a pretty lousy choice in my opinion. > Textmaker/Planmaker do a very good job for this. > > 4) Mixture. If you have a general mixture of these tasks and don't want > to set up a VM, use Textmaker. The programs are quite good, they are > quite compatible with Office (but choke on obscure files I use > regularly, as does OO.o and all the others), and much better than OO.o > and Aibword/Gnumeric in my opinion if you like Word. They are also > quite inexpensive -- you can often find them for $20 or so on sale from > the publisher. > > Personally, I use groff (with chem, grap, pic, refer, tbl and eqn for > all the heavy text formatting), VMware/XP/Office 2003, > Win4BSD/W2k/Office 2000, Textmaker/Planmaker, OO.o, Abiword/Gnumeric, > and Windows computers. What I use depends on what I am doing. > > Good luck! > > Frank > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > > Why not use Google Docs?