Support: Mac

Support Resources

So you've started using OpenOffice.org. Wonderful! Chances are you may have questions about problems you encounter in the software or want to learn more about it. There are a number of ways you can get help with the software. Visit our OpenOffice.org Support Home for more information on getting help with OpenOffice.org

To find information, resources, and much more in your native language, please visit the NLC projet page.

Download troubles

There are various reports from users on our mailinglist that they have problems downloading OpenOffice.org using Safari the default browser for Mac OS X. Safari isn't capable of directly downloading from FTP servers so Safari passes download requests for files from a FTP server through to the Finder, the Finder connects to the FTP server and fails. This may be a bug in Mac OS X 10.3.x and 10.4.x which cannot be solved by OpenOffice.org developers.

There are two known solutions:

Even though the Finder has problems with passed through downloads from Safari the download often works when you copy the download url to the clipboard, switch to the Finder->Go->Connect to Server and paste the url in the empty line below Server Adress. Click "Connect" and the see if the Finder now connects to the download server.
Mozilla/Gecko based browsers like Firefox or Camino are capable of directly downloading from FTP servers.

As the file is downloaded, you will see the icon of the Disk Image (dmg) File appear. When the download is finished, simply double click on the icon of the "dmg" file, and drag the OpenOffice.org "Icon" in your applications folder.

OpenOffice.org X11 How-To

There is a small how-to install and use X11 and OpenOffice.org Mac OS X available in

FAQ

Please take a look at our new FAQ pages.

For any other installation or mac-specific question visit this page. There are the latest news and informations on known OpenOffice.org Mac OS X (X11) issues and problems.

Mailinglist

If you still can't find your answer there, try the following community staffed mailinglist: users@openoffice.apache.org

To make life easier for yourself and other volunteers on the mailinglist please subscribe to the mailinglist. In order to do so send a blank email to this address wait for the daemon to answer you. Now answer the mail the mailinglist daemon sent to you yourself by pressing the reply button in your mailer. After the second confirmation your able to post and receive mails from users@openoffice.apache.org

In order to make life easier for both end-users and developers we decided to move end-user support to the project wide users mailinglist while mac porting remains the mailinglist for OpenOffice.org mac development.

Remember, these are staffed by volunteers who donate their time to help users, so be patient and polite:

Online Help and Manuals

One of the quickest references to get to is the OpenOffice.org Online Help (under the Help menu). This online help contains a thorough description of the application.

You can also go to your local bookstore and pick up several books such as the OpenOffice.org Resource Kit and StarOffice Companion. While these books are not specific to Mac OS X, OpenOffice.org on Mac OS X is nearly identical to all other platforms and these books will still be valuable references.

If you get help from any of these places, please consider helping out by browsing through them from time to time and answering questions to which you know or learned the answers. Support, too, is an effort that needs

Paid Support

If you require commercial support, you may want to check out some of the commercial OpenOffice.org support providers. Be aware that not all may provide assistance with Mac OS X, however, so be sure to check to make sure they support the Mac OS X plat form..

Filing Bugs

OK, say you've found a glitch in the software (a bug, like the software crashes when opening this certain file) and haven't been able to find an answer in any of the support resources. The next step is to file an issue about it. See the IssueZilla page for more information about what a proper report should contain and where to file it. Mac-specific bugs should be filed against the porting project.

Last updated by $Author: smsm1 $ on $Date: 2007/02/11 01:26:04 $