Unfortunately, Open Office is badly outdated and buggy on the Mac, and has big security problems on both the Mac and on PCs because of the reliance on Java. It also doesn't handle the page breaks correctly in a rtf document on either the Mac or PC version. The development on Open Office stopped some time back, and it has been replaced by the completely rewritten LibreOffice which was done by the same group of developers after a commercial company took over Open Office's development and stalled it out.
LibreOffice is open source, does virtually everything Microsoft Office 2010 does and is up to date, plus it doesn't have the security problems Open Office had as the developers have made a concerted effort to rewrite it without using JAVA. About 99% of the modules are now rewritten and JAVA free, and the remaining modules that use JAVA are in the graphics programs I think. However, I can't recommend LibreOffice for use for Bookshare files, either.
LibreOffice has some unresolved bugs in how it handles rtf documents, including maintaining the proper paginations, depending on the original document that is imported. So it's a crap shoot on whether or not it correctly works with any particular rtf file. It may or it may not. LibreOffice is fantastic for pretty much everything else -- except what we need for proofreading books. We have it on both our Mac and PC systems and I love it, but I have to use Microsoft Office's Word still for anything I do with book files as a volunteer for Bookshare.
Judy s. However, having said that On 12/13/2012 4:23 PM, John Simpson wrote:
You might want to try Open Office. Itis a free, downloadable office suite written in Java. It is very similar to Microsoft Office. Their download page shows a version for Mac on Intel platform. I have used it occasionally, and it seems pretty comprehensive. I am not a Mac user and I am not familiar with Text Editor. I can't verify that it will actually work for you. Since it's free, it's certainly worth giving a try if you don't find another solution that you like better. Good luck. -----Original Message----- From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Darrell Shandrow Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2012 1:44 PM To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Questions about using a Mac for Bookshare validation work. Hello Fellow Bookshare Volunteers, I would like to know how to do the proofreading and editing work necessary for Bookshare validation on Mac OS MountainLion. Specifically, I am interested in knowing how to use find and repave in Text Editor, or another application, to work with page breaks, section breaks and other special symbols typically found in scanned books. Any ideas would be appreciated all over the place. Thanks, Darrell To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line. To unsubscribe from this list send a blank Email to bksvol-discuss-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put the word 'unsubscribe' by itself in the subject line. To get a list of available commands, put the word 'help' by itself in the subject line.
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