Some Apache OpenOffice users are reporting that version 4.1.8 is crashing on Apple macOS 11.0 (aka “Big Sur” or 10.16) when opening OOXML documents – like .docx and .xlsx. The error message is:
OpenOffice quit unexpectedly
Here’s a video showing how it crashes (WebM version here):
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One solution is to install LibreOffice, a more actively developed successor project. (OpenOffice’s last major release – 4.1 – was back in 2014.)
LibreOffice has much better support for modern operating systems, and many other features too, such as OOXML export, an updated NotebookBar user interface, a cloud-based version and much more. This timeline shows the major releases:
LibreOffice 7.1 runs on macOS Big Sur, so download it here and carry on with your work. And there’s more to come: an optimised version of LibreOffice for Apple’s M1-based Macs is being developed, thanks to work from Collabora Productivity, a company in LibreOffice’s ecosystem. And more improvements for LibreOffice on macOS Big Sur are on the way – stay tuned!
Interesting thing – some of our readers use OpenOffice.org yet and they are fans of it.
Pretty weird I think, but their decision and hell.