NeoOffice

Last updated
NeoOffice
Developer(s) Planamesa Software
Final release
2022.7 [1]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg / 4 September 2023
Repository
Operating system macOS 11+
Successor LibreOffice
Type Office suite
License MPL 2.0 [2]
Website www.neooffice.org

NeoOffice is an office suite for the macOS operating system developed by Planamesa Inc. It is a commercial fork of the free and open source LibreOffice office suite, including a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program and graphics program, it adds some features not present in the macOS versions of LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice. [3] Current versions are based on LibreOffice 4.4, which was released mid-2014.

Contents

The last version was 2022.7, released 2 September 2023. [4]

NeoOffice is no longer active as of December 2023. The project recommends users move to LibreOffice, [5] to which Patrick Luby of NeoOffice is a contributor. [6]

History

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

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

NeoOffice began as a project to investigate methods of creating a native port of OpenOffice.org to Mac OS X. The project now called NeoOffice was originally dubbed "NeoOffice/J", reflecting its use of Mac 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.

All versions from NeoOffice 3.1.1 to NeoOffice 2015 were based on OpenOffice.org 3.1.1, though latter versions included stability fixes from LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice. [7] NeoOffice 2017 and later versions are fully based on LibreOffice. [8]

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 was only available with the purchase of a commercial license. [9] This has changed in 2022 as the code and all commits are released on GitHub. Moreover, the whole application is free of charge. Currently the NeoOffice website has the tag line, "An old fork of LibreOffice", and the notice: "The NeoOffice project is no longer active. As a replacement, you may want to try LibreOffice".

StarOffice major derivatives.svg
A timeline of major derivatives of StarOffice and OpenOffice.org with NeoOffice in light purple
OOo versionVersionRelease dateRelease Notes
1.0.3.1NeoOffice/C 0.0.1June 22, 2003Incendiary Goblin build
1.1.2NeoOffice/J 1.1 Alpha 2September, 2004
1.1.3NeoOffice/J 1.1 BetaDecember, 2004
1.1.4NeoOffice/J 1.1 RCMarch, 2005
NeoOffice/J 1.1June 22, 2005
2.0NeoOffice 1.2 AlphaNovember, 2005
2.0.1NeoOffice 1.2 BetaJanuary 2, 2006
NeoOffice 1.2February 1, 2006
2.0.2NeoOffice 1.2.2March 30, 2006
NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha PowerPCApril 25, 2006
NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha 2 PowerPCMay 9, 2006
NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha 3 PowerPCMay 23, 2006
NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha IntelJune 5, 2006
NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha 2 IntelJune 19, 2006
2.0.3NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha 4July 1, 2006
NeoOffice 2.0 Aqua BetaAugust 1, 2006
NeoOffice 2.0 Aqua Beta 2August 15, 2006
NeoOffice 2.0 Aqua Beta 3August 29, 2006
2.1.0NeoOffice 2.1March 26, 2007Introduced an icon set with designs that more closely resemble typical Mac OS X icons than those of OpenOffice.org.
2.2.1NeoOffice 2.2.1August 27, 2007
NeoOffice 2.2.2October 9, 2007Bug fixes [10]
NeoOffice 2.2.3March 17, 2008QuickTime video support, Menus available when no documents are open, Import images from scanners and cameras [11]
NeoOffice 2.2.4June 16, 2008Media browser support, native floating tool windows, support for newer touchpad gestures, support for horizontal scrolling [12] [13]
NeoOffice 2.2.5September 15, 2008Bug fixes, speed improvements, apple remote support in Impress. [14] [15]
NeoOffice 2.2.6October 27, 2009Last version to support Mac OS X 10.3.
3.0.1NeoOffice 3.0March 31, 2009Introduced access to the Mac OS X spellchecker, grammar checker, address book and media browser; users of languages not supported by the Mac 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. [16] Speed improvements, command clicking on window titlebar, Mac OS X 10.5 grammar checker. Requires Mac OS X 10.4 or above. [17]
NeoOffice 3.0.1October 27, 2009
NeoOffice 3.0.2February 1, 2010Added native Mac OS X text highlighting, smoother text kerning and more [18]
3.1.1NeoOffice 3.1.1May 10, 2010 [19] Added support for "Look Up in Dictionary" context menu item in Writer to look up a word's definition, if it exists, in Mac 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 3.1.2September 7, 2010Temporary files are encrypted when FileVault is enabled. Fix for bugs that cause embedded images to be lost after saving Writer or Impress documents.
NeoOffice 3.219 April 2011 [20] Mac OS X 10.7 Lion support, more font support, smaller PDFs
NeoOffice 3.322 August 2012 [21] High resolution text on Retina displays, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and Gatekeeper, Cocoa replaces Java [22]
NeoOffice 3.422 October 2013 [23] OS X 10.9 support, last version to support 10.6 & 10.7.
NeoOffice 20139 August 2013 [24] First NeoOffice version available in Mac App Store, OS X 10.8 minimum required.
NeoOffice 201412 June 2014 [25] 64-bit and OS X 10.10 support
NeoOffice 20159 September 2015 [26] OS X 10.11 support. [27]
LibreOffice versionVersionRelease dateRelease Notes
4.4NeoOffice 201717 August 2017 [28] First version to be based on LibreOffice [28]
NeoOffice 2022.125 June 2022 [29] Universal installer, runs natively on Apple silicon Mac computers [29]

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." [30] The OpenOffice.org developers said that "a proposal to work together has been made, and NeoOffice developers refused". [31] The NeoOffice developers subsequently expressed support for LibreOffice and the launch of The Document Foundation. [32]

Though NeoOffice is available commercially (for free [33] ), the source code is still available for free under the terms of the Mozilla Public License. [2]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft Excel</span> Spreadsheet editor, part of Microsoft 365

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet editor developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android, iOS and iPadOS. It features calculation or computation capabilities, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Excel forms part of the Microsoft 365 suite of software.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft Office</span> Suite of office software

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">OpenOffice.org</span> Discontinued free office software

OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice, Apache OpenOffice, Collabora Online and NeoOffice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">StarOffice</span> Office productivity suite software

StarOffice is a discontinued proprietary office suite. Its source code continues today in derived open-source office suites Collabora Online and LibreOffice. StarOffice supported the OpenOffice.org XML file format, as well as the OpenDocument standard, and could generate PDF and Flash formats. It included templates, a macro recorder, and a software development kit (SDK).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pages (word processor)</span> Word processor developed by Apple Inc.

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The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of office suites:

This is an overview of software support for the OpenDocument format, an open document file format for saving and exchanging editable office documents.

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Spreadsheet is a class of application software design to analyze tabular data called "worksheets". A collection of worksheets is called a "workbook". Online spreadsheets do not depend on a particular operating system but require a standards-compliant web browser instead. One of the incentives for the creation of online spreadsheets was offering worksheet sharing and public sharing or workbooks as part of their features which enables collaboration between multiple users. Some on-line spreadsheets provide remote data update, allowing data values to be extracted from other users' spreadsheets even though they may be inactive at the time.

The Microsoft Office XML formats are XML-based document formats introduced in versions of Microsoft Office prior to Office 2007. Microsoft Office XP introduced a new XML format for storing Excel spreadsheets and Office 2003 added an XML-based format for Word documents.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Go-oo</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">LibreOffice Writer</span> Open-source word processor

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">LibreOffice Calc</span> Spreadsheet component of LibreOffice

LibreOffice Calc is the spreadsheet component of the LibreOffice software package.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LibreOffice Draw</span> Vector graphics editing software

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apache OpenOffice</span> Free and open-source office software suite

Apache OpenOffice (AOO) is an open-source office productivity software suite. It is one of the successor projects of OpenOffice.org and the designated successor of IBM Lotus Symphony. It was a close cousin of LibreOffice, Collabora Online and NeoOffice in 2014. It contains a word processor (Writer), a spreadsheet (Calc), a presentation application (Impress), a drawing application (Draw), a formula editor (Math), and a database management application (Base).

References

  1. ↑ "NeoOffice".
  2. 1 2 "LibreOffice developers: NeoOffice changes source code license to MPL v2.0". neooffice.org. Planamesa Inc. Retrieved 2 April 2023.
  3. ↑ "NeoOffice features". neooffice.org. Planamesa Inc. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  4. ↑ "Release NeoOffice 2022.7 Professional Edition · neooffice/NeoOffice". GitHub .
  5. ↑ "Update README.md · neooffice/NeoOffice@f25e61f". GitHub .
  6. ↑ "Credits | LibreOffice - Free Office Suite - Based on OpenOffice - Compatible with Microsoft".
  7. ↑ Pluby (7 November 2013). "Mac App Store complaints". trinity.neooffice.org. Retrieved 25 December 2013.
  8. ↑ Pluby (2 May 2017). "NeoOffice 2017 Beta Professional Edition released". trinity.neooffice.org. Retrieved 10 May 2017.
  9. ↑ "NeoOffice FAQ". neooffice.org. Planamesa Inc. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  10. ↑ "2.2.2 Release Notes". Archived from the original on 2012-02-05. Retrieved 2007-10-10.
  11. ↑ "2.2.3 Release Notes". Archived from the original on 2012-02-08. Retrieved 2008-04-09.
  12. ↑ "NeoOffice 2.2.4 Announcement". Archived from the original on 2012-02-08. Retrieved 2008-06-17.
  13. ↑ "2.2.4 Release Notes". Archived from the original on 2012-02-08. Retrieved 2008-06-17.
  14. ↑ "NeoOffice 2.2.5 Announcement". Archived from the original on 2012-02-13. Retrieved 2008-09-16.
  15. ↑ "2.2.5 Release Notes". Archived from the original on 2012-02-14. Retrieved 2008-09-16.
  16. ↑ "NeoOffice 2.1 release announcement". Archived from the original on 2012-02-13. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
  17. ↑ "NeoOffice 3.0 Announcement". Archived from the original on 2009-02-21. Retrieved 2009-01-14.
  18. ↑ "New Features of 3.0.2". Archived from the original on 2012-01-17. Retrieved 2010-02-09.
  19. ↑ "NeoOffice 3.1.1 released". Archived from the original on 2012-02-24. Retrieved 2010-05-26.
  20. ↑ "NeoOffice® 3.2 for Mac OS X Released". NeoOffice. 19 April 2011. Retrieved 20 October 2013.
  21. ↑ "Template:NeoOfficeWords". NeoWiki. NeoOffice. 22 August 2012. Retrieved 19 October 2013.
  22. ↑ "NeoOffice® 3.3 for Mac OS X Released". NeoOffice. 22 August 2012. Retrieved 20 October 2013.
  23. ↑ pluby (22 October 2013). "NeoOffice 3.4 released". trinity.neooffice.org. Retrieved 25 December 2013.
  24. ↑ pluby (9 August 2013). "NeoOffice 2013 is now in the Mac App Store". trinity.neooffice.org. Retrieved 20 July 2014.
  25. ↑ pluby (12 June 2014). "NeoOffice 2014 released in the Mac App Store". trinity.neooffice.org. Retrieved 20 July 2014.
  26. ↑ pluby (9 September 2015). "NeoOffice 2015 Classic Edition released". trinity.neooffice.org. Retrieved 9 September 2015.
  27. ↑ "NeoOffice Download". trinity.neooffice.org. 9 September 2015. Retrieved 15 May 2016.
  28. 1 2 pluby (17 August 2017). "NeoOffice 2017 Professional Edition released". trinity.neooffice.org. Retrieved 17 August 2017.
  29. 1 2 pluby (25 June 2022). "NeoOffice 2022.1 released". trinity.neooffice.org. Retrieved 16 May 2022.
  30. ↑ "NeoOffice FAQ's". Archived from the original on 2016-05-05. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
  31. ↑ FAQ Openoffice.org and NeoOffice Archived 2007-10-06 at the Wayback Machine from the OOo wiki
  32. ↑ 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.
  33. ↑ "NeoOffice downloads". www.neooffice.org. Retrieved 2024-02-01.
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