NeoOffice reliability

[mkraft]

I am not yet a user of NeoOffice but have become interested after reading about it.

The feature comparison at this website (NeoOffice v. MS Word) is pretty impressive. I have not yet seen (here or elsewhere) a lot of consistency in reports about NeoOffice's reliability (particularly re: crashing, data corruption, etc.) or the speed of its operations.

Where am I likely to get an accurate picture about its actual performance and, e.g. any special precautions, if applicable, that should be taken before using it?

Thanks.

[Lorinda]

I don't know where you might find "objective" information, but I can share my own experience.

I have used NeoOffice since the Spring of 2006 (that's since version 1.2) and I've found it to be quite stable.

I have encountered a few crashing bugs, but the developers have been quick to fix them when I have reported them. The only exception in that regard is a crash triggered by clicking on a particular button in one of the Base wizards. In this case, the crash is caused by a bug in the OpenOffice.org code, which puts it beyond the resources of the NeoOffice project to fix. (It is being worked on by the OpenOffice.org developers, however).

Launching the program is slower than most apps, as is opening files. (Opening large calc files can be particularly slow sometimes). While I am occasionally impatient with this, I am quite willing to put up with some slight delays in exchange for free software.

I use the Writer and Base components the most, followed by Calc. I do not use Draw or Impress much. If I were doing serious presentation work, I would probably opt for iWork and Keynote for that purpose, but others here might disagree. I have been able to use Impress to view and edit Powerpoint files I have been sent.

In terms of precautions/preparations, I would say:
-Make sure you have enough memory. I think 512 MB is the minimum recommendation, but you will have better performance with 1 GB or more.
-Check your system for haxies as described here. There are several haxies that can cause problems with NeoOffice, including causing crashes.
-Once you have Neo arranged to your satisfaction (default toolbars, autotexts, templates, etc.), make an archive of the NeoOffice Preferences folder in ~/Library/Preferences. This can be handy if preferences become corrupt, which has happened to me on occasion. (Note, however, that I myself had not done so until I suggested it here. It is possible to salvage much of the Preferences folder when a file within it is corrupted, and that process is described in our wiki., and this is how I've tended to handle it.)

I hope that helps a little bit.

Lorinda

[mkraft]

[deviantintegral]

I've found NeoOffice to be incredibly stable, at least as stable as any commercially equivalent application.

I have a MacBook with 2 gigs of RAM, and it runs NeoOffice way faster than my old 867/640MB PowerBook. The biggest issues I have with it are loading speed, especially compared to Pages/Numbers. As well, it's not completely compatible with Spaces on 10.5, but that's pretty minor.

Compared to Office 2004, I find NeoOffice to be significantly faster, and much more stable. For some reason Office seems to be much worse under Rosetta, and having universal builds of NeoOffice makes a huge difference. If you're still on PPC, you will probably find Office 2K4 to be faster and a bit more stable.

Of course, NeoOffice is free, and uses ODF. There's no reason not to give it a try and save your money.

[shrinkie1964]

My office suite needs are modest--uncomplicated word processing and smallish spreadsheets, and prior to going Mac I got a good many years use out of an old installation of MS Office 2000. In recent weeks I have cut the umbilical cord to MS and do all of my document and spreadsheet stuff in Neo. No problems at all. The formulae in my old MS spreadsheets seem to port just fine, and old Word docs come over with at best minor formatting issues. Opening PPT files is no big issue, but like another poster I may splurge the 80 bucks on iWork if I ever find a need to get fancy in creating a presentation.

I like the odf concept and have no problems with my files in OpenOffice under XP or Ubuntu. Holdouts to MS Office will benefit from the ODF file converter for MS Office that Sun distributes. Seems to work fine for me, but I must admit I don't use MS Office much now to report on huge experience.

I also think Mac lovers value design and cosmetics, and Neo just plain looks good, especially with fixes brought in with patches 2 and 3.

NeoOffice is great software and is enthusiastically supported by an active community. And it is free. You really can't go wrong trying it out. The developers modestly suggest it is always an imperfect work in progress, but I think if you exercise good judgment and safety precautions--frequently saving work and making backups, which we should always do anyway--Neo will serve you very well, particularly if you are already used to office.

Les

[ovvldc]

I have been using it since 1.1 came out and I am quite happy with Neo (getting happier with every release). The only downside is the scrolling with my touchpad, which is a bit wobbly.

Feature-wise, Calc is lagging behind Excel, but all of the other components stand tall in competition. Speed could be a little better, but with 1GB of RAM (as I have) it works well enough. Get yourself a shiny new Core2Duo Mac and you won't have to wait long enough to worry about it.

Reliabilty is quite good. Ed and Patrick can never promise it works well because of US liability rules. It would leave them open to all kinds of lawsuits when something inadvertly goes wrong. Still, I remember more questions here from people who forget to save their document or erased and then saved it, than from people who cannot recover their document after a crash.

In any case, you can try it out and throw it away if you don't like it. That will cost you nothing but a little time.

best wishes,
Oscar

[Jim]

I've been using OpenOffice through X11 since before 1.1 came out. After 1.1 arrived, I stayed with OOo-X11 until 1.2 came on the scene. At that point, I dumped X11 and stayed with Neo. It is as stable as any other app. I use Writer and Calc mostly, and sometimes Draw. I've got FileMaker Pro, so I don't use Base. I don't do presentations, so I don't use Impress either. The only file corruption problems I've experienced is the loss of some graphics out of Writer documents, but Patrick fixed that fairly quickly.

When you *do* find a glitch in this program, you file a bug report. The fastest turnaround I've had is about an hour and a half from bug report to test patch, and the test patch fixed the problem. Try getting that kind of service out of MS.

I use Neo daily to produce fairly large narrative appraisal reports. These reports include a lot of photos and charts, and they have some fairly complex formatting. Neo meets my needs quite well.

One thing, though: I used to bixch about how slow Neo was to open. Decided I'd see about that, and went to an Apple store. Got on the fastest MacPro they had running, and sure enough, MS Office was on it. I double clicked Word. Damn thing took longer to open than Neo did. I quit bellyaching and went back to work.