[novalug] Re: OT: is it possible to click on a microsoft word icon and end up with OpenOffice?

[Kevin Kitts]

I installed both X-11 and OpenOffice on Mac OX 10.4 recently and found the
process to be very simple. I haven't worked on a Mac in 15 years before I
tried this - and still - I thought the process was pretty simple.

Incidentally, the way you install "normal" applications on the Mac, just by
dragging them to the Applications folder - and the way that downloads
usually auto-mount a "drive" to start this process is so simple - for me it
is so simple that it is a bit disconcerting. You keep thinking that it can't
be this easy. Linux distros could learn something from Mac OS X ease of
install/use.

Kevin

On 1/1/07, C Megan Larko <larkoc at cola.iges.org> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Dec 29, 2006 at 06:19:08PM -0500, Nino Pereira wrote:
> > On further thought.....
> >
> > after the discussion on this mailing list I decided to download
> > OpenOffice for the mac, just to see if I could get my spouse
> > to click on it and, when she sees that the computer doesn't
> > explode, start to use it. But, it turns out I can't do that yet.
> >
> > There's an X-11 version of OpenOffice for the mac, but installing
> > this version of OpenOffice demands that you also install X11 on the
> > mac. The blogs tell me that this is a laborious process, something
> > I certainly don't want to get into on someone else's machine.
> > And, the mac-native version (called Aqua if I understand this properly)
> > is not yet in good enough shape for use by anyone else but an expert.
>
> It is not bad at all.   X-11 is on the Mac OSX CDs.  Use the "lightswitch"
> icon
> for s/w install and just click it on the CD or enter then name in the
> installer
> GUI.   After that OpenOffice works fine (although it will always open a
> single X-11 shell window; I tell my folks to just ignore that window).
>
> megan
> >
> > So, I'll wait for a few months, and hope to detox my spouse from word
> > when the mac version runs smoothly.
> >
> > Thanks for all your thoughts.
> >
> > Nino
> >
> > On Fri, 2006-12-29 at 16:50 -0600, Keith Casey wrote:
> > > On 12/29/06, Nino Pereira <pereira at speakeasy.net> wrote:
> > > > But, for some reason, there's this block about
> > > > windows/word: she doesn't want to have to deal with anything that's
> > > > non-standard. I can point out that Word is non-standard all I want
> > > > (it doesn't use the .odt or .odf formats for example), I could not
> > > > get her to try OpenOffice.
> > >
> > > I got bitten by this one earlier this year.  When I sent in my slides
> > > for the Better Software Conference, I sent them in as a pdf exported
> > > from Open Office's Presenter or whatever it's called.  Just before
> > > they go to print for the booklets, I was contacted and told that I
> > > needed to convert the whole thing to Power Point for the printer...
> > > of course, the last time I checked, this was what the point of pdf,
> > > but I didn't have much negotiation room.
> > >
> > > Turns out, they just stuck all the presentations on cd anyway...
> > >
> > > kc
> > >
> >
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