NeoOffice/J

I've mentioned previously that my preferred office suite is OpenOffice.org. I've used it on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS-X. The Mac version requires X11, which while not a terrible thing, isn't ideal. Since it's not a native Aqua app, it doesn't fit in with the rest of the Mac desktop and doesn't behave like a normal OS-X application.

The good folks behing the NeoOffice/J project aim to fix that. I tried it out a couple of months ago but went back to OO.o running in X11, because NeoOffice/J's font display wan't quite right on my system. I'm not sure if it was OS-related or NO/J-related.

Anyway, this morning I downloaded the latest release candidate, and noticed an improvement in how things display. Before, when viewing a document created on Bagend in OO.o running on SUSE, a lot of words would run together, especially around punctuation marks. I am happy to note that this doesn't seem to be the case anymore with NeoOffice/J. Again, I can't say if the improvement is due to upgrading my system to Tiger, or if its due to improvements in the NeoOffice/J codebase.

I was prompted to try NeoOffice/J again after corresponding with a Mac-using attorney. He's using it in his law practice, running on an iBook with good results. So, I figured it was worth another shot. It's looking like it'll pan out.