NeoOffice

NeoOffice
Developer(s) Planamesa Software
Stable release 2015.6[1] (April 29, 2016 (2016-04-29)) [±]
Operating system OS X 10.8+
Type Office suite
License GPL
Website www.neooffice.org

NeoOffice is an office suite for the OS X operating system developed by Planasema Inc. It is a commercial fork of the free/open source OpenOffice.org that implements most of the features of OpenOffice.org for OS X, including a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program, and graphics program, and adds some features not present in the OS X versions of LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice.[2]

History

Versions of OpenOffice.org for OS X prior to 3.0 did not have a native OS X interface; they required either X11.app or XDarwin to be installed.

NeoOffice was the first OpenOffice.org fork to offer a native OS X experience, with easier installation, better integration into the OS X interface (pull-down menus at the top of the screen and familiar keyboard shortcuts, for example), use of OS X's fonts and printing services without additional configuration, and integration with the OS X clipboard and drag-and-drop functions. Subsequently, both LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice followed NeoOffice's lead and implemented similarly native OS X versions.

NeoOffice began as a project to investigate methods of creating a native port of OpenOffice.org to OS X. The project now called NeoOffice was originally dubbed "NeoOffice/J", reflecting its use of OS X's Java integration to enable a native application. A related project was NeoOffice/C, which was a simultaneous effort to develop a version using Apple's Cocoa APIs. But NeoOffice/C proved very difficult to implement and the application was highly unstable, so the project was set aside in favor of the more promising NeoOffice/J. The "/J" suffix was dropped with version 1.2, since there was no longer another variety of NeoOffice from which to distinguish it. Many of these releases were preceded by a version that only Early Access Members could download; these versions were released about a month before the official release date.

NeoOffice 3.1.1 and later is based on OpenOffice.org 3.1.1, though recent versions include stability fixes from LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice.[3]

In 2013 NeoOffice moved to a commercial distribution model via the Mac App Store. As of 2016, the source code is still available for free, but the software package is only available with the purchase of a commercial license.[4]

A sparse timeline of StarOffice derivatives. NeoOffice tracked OpenOffice.org and then Go-oo up to version 3.1.1 before forking.
OOo version Version Release date Release Notes
1.0.3.1 NeoOffice/C 0.0.1 June 22, 2003 Incendiary Goblin build
1.1.2 NeoOffice/J 1.1 Alpha 2 September, 2004
1.1.3 NeoOffice/J 1.1 Beta December, 2004
1.1.4 NeoOffice/J 1.1 RC March, 2005
NeoOffice/J 1.1 June 22, 2005
2.0 NeoOffice 1.2 Alpha November, 2005
2.0.1 NeoOffice 1.2 Beta January 2, 2006
NeoOffice 1.2 February 1, 2006
2.0.2 NeoOffice 1.2.2 March 30, 2006
NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha PowerPC April 25, 2006
NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha 2 PowerPC May 9, 2006
NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha 3 PowerPC May 23, 2006
NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha Intel June 5, 2006
NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha 2 Intel June 19, 2006
2.0.3 NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha 4 July 1, 2006
NeoOffice 2.0 Aqua Beta August 1, 2006
NeoOffice 2.0 Aqua Beta 2 August 15, 2006
NeoOffice 2.0 Aqua Beta 3 August 29, 2006
2.1.0 NeoOffice 2.1 March 26, 2007 Introduced an icon set with designs that more closely resemble typical OS X icons than those of OpenOffice.org.
2.2.1 NeoOffice 2.2.1 August 27, 2007
NeoOffice 2.2.2 October 9, 2007 Bug fixes[5]
NeoOffice 2.2.3 March 17, 2008 QuickTime video support, Menus available when no documents are open, Import images from scanners and cameras[6]
NeoOffice 2.2.4 June 16, 2008 Media browser support, native floating tool windows, support for newer trackpad gestures, support for horizontal scrolling[7][8]
NeoOffice 2.2.5 September 15, 2008 Bug fixes, speed improvements, apple remote support in Impress, last version to support OS X 10.3.[9][10]
NeoOffice 2.2.6 October 27, 2009
3.0.1 NeoOffice 3.0 March 31, 2009 Introduced access to the OS X spellchecker, grammar checker, address book and media browser; users of languages not supported by the OS X spellchecker can use the Hunspell system originally used. It also improved support for Microsoft Word 2007, Excel 2007 and PowerPoint 2007 documents, and for spreadsheets with Visual Basic for Applications macros that made their debut in version 2.1.[11] Speed improvements, command clicking on window titlebar, OS X 10.5 grammar checker. Requires OS X 10.4 or above.[12]
NeoOffice 3.0.1 October 27, 2009
NeoOffice 3.0.2 February 1, 2010 Added native OS X text highlighting, smoother text kerning and more[13]
3.1.1 NeoOffice 3.1.1 May 10, 2010[14] Added support for "Look Up in Dictionary" context menu item in Writer to look up a word's definition, if it exists, in OS X's Dictionary application. Also, users can view 10 versions of each NeoOffice Mobile file, The NeoOffice Mobile window is collapsible, and the NeoOffice Mobile menu uses less space in NeoOffice's menubar.
NeoOffice 3.1.2 September 7, 2010 Temporary files are encrypted when FileVault is enabled. Fix for bugs that cause embedded images to be lost after saving Writer or Impress documents.
NeoOffice 3.2 19 April 2011[15] OS X 10.7 Lion support, more font support, smaller PDFs
NeoOffice 3.3 22 August 2012[16] High resolution text on Retina displays, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and Gatekeeper, Cocoa replaces Java[17]
NeoOffice 3.4 22 October 2013[18] OS X 10.9 support
NeoOffice 2013 9 August 2013[19] First NeoOffice version available in Mac App Store
NeoOffice 2014 12 June 2014[20] 64-bit and OS X 10.10 support
NeoOffice 2015 9 September 2015[21] OS X 10.11 support

Supported file formats

Listed here, in the order of appearance in the Save As dialogue box, are the file formats supported for saving documents in NeoOffice 3.1.2. In cases where NeoOffice is used to edit a document originally in a Microsoft format, NeoOffice can save to that format without loss of formatting.

Word processor application

Spreadsheet application

Presentation application

Graphics application

Database application

Formula application

(*Pre-chosen save default format.)
By default, NeoOffice loads and saves files in the OpenDocument file format, although this can be changed by the user. The OpenDocument file format is an XML file format standardized by OASIS (Organisation for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards).

Licensing

Sun first released OpenOffice.org under both the LGPL and SISSL, later under only the LGPL, with a requirement for copyright assignment for any contributions to the main code base, which allowed Sun to create proprietary versions of the software (notably StarOffice). NeoOffice chose not to assign its code to Sun, which prevented Sun from using NeoOffice code in official OpenOffice.org versions.

There were initially some attempts to resolve the licensing differences and foster more direct cooperation and code-sharing between the NeoOffice and OpenOffice.org developers. However, the NeoOffice developers said that they preferred to work separately from OpenOffice.org because "coordination requires a significant amount of time."[22] The OpenOffice.org developers said that "a proposal to work together has been made, and NeoOffice developers refused".[23] The NeoOffice developers subsequently expressed support for LibreOffice and the launch of The Document Foundation.[24]

Though NeoOffice is sold commercially, the source code is still available for free under the terms of the GPL.[4]

See also

References

  1. pluby (29 April 2016). "NeoOffice 2015.6 Classic Edition released". trinity.neooffice.org. Retrieved 29 April 2016.
  2. "NeoOffice features". neooffice.org. Planasema Inc. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  3. Pluby (7 November 2013). "Mac App Store complaints". trinity.neooffice.org. Retrieved 25 December 2013.
  4. 1 2 "NeoOffice FAQ". neooffice.org. Planamesa Inc. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  5. 2.2.2 Release Notes
  6. 2.2.3 Release Notes
  7. NeoOffice 2.2.4 Announcement
  8. 2.2.4 Release Notes
  9. NeoOffice 2.2.5 Announcement
  10. 2.2.5 Release Notes
  11. NeoOffice 2.1 release announcement
  12. NeoOffice 3.0 Announcement
  13. New Features of 3.0.2
  14. NeoOffice 3.1.1 released
  15. "NeoOffice® 3.2 for Mac OS X Released". NeoOffice. 19 April 2011. Retrieved 20 October 2013.
  16. "Template:NeoOfficeWords". NeoWiki. NeoOffice. 22 August 2012. Retrieved 19 October 2013.
  17. "NeoOffice® 3.3 for Mac OS X Released". NeoOffice. 22 August 2012. Retrieved 20 October 2013.
  18. pluby (22 October 2013). "NeoOffice 3.4 released". trinity.neooffice.org. Retrieved 25 December 2013.
  19. pluby (9 August 2013). "NeoOffice 2013 is now in the Mac App Store". trinity.neooffice.org. Retrieved 20 July 2014.
  20. pluby (12 June 2014). "NeoOffice 2014 released in the Mac App Store". trinity.neooffice.org. Retrieved 20 July 2014.
  21. pluby (9 September 2015). "NeoOffice 2015 Classic Edition released". trinity.neooffice.org. Retrieved 9 September 2015.
  22. NeoOffice FAQ's
  23. FAQ Openoffice.org and NeoOffice from the OOo wiki
  24. The Document Foundation (28 September 2010). "OpenOffice.org Community announces The Document Foundation". documentfoundation.org. Archived from the original on 30 September 2010. Retrieved 28 September 2010.

External links

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