OpenOffice.org 3 Released

[Rob Williams]

From our front-page news:

We've been waiting for a little while, but wait no more - OpenOffice.org 3 is here. The initial release is available in eight different languages and all current platforms, including Linux, Unix and Apple. Opinions are mixed, but if you are already an OOo user, there is literally no reason for not upgrading. The UI looks slightly better and the functionality has been improved (although none of those enhancements have effected me directly, yet).

One writer at a Houston Chronicle blog seems entirely pleased with the latest release and states that it's becoming an "even better alternative" to the more mainstream office suites, including of course, Microsoft Office. The best part is the fact that it's free, and it's hard to beat that. Plus, if you are a Mac user, you'll notice a nice stability boost since this is the first version of OOo to run on that platform without the use of the X11 Unix shell.

In addition to native OS X support, the latest OOo updates support for more formats, including Microsoft Office 2007's XML-based files, and you can see an example of that in the image below. In this particular case, OOo did import the proper graph graphic, but it's non-editable... so the options for actually editing Office 2007 documents is going to be a bit limited. It's definitely improving, though. That aside, that's going to be a limited issue, and doesn't detract from the great application it is. I'm still unable to shift from Office 2007... but I'm confident it will happen someday.

OOo supports several file formats, but uses OASIS's OpenDocument Format (ODF) by default. ODF is rapidly gaining widespread acceptance and is also supported by Google Docs, Zoho, IBM's Lotus Notes, and KDE's KOffice project. ODF is increasingly being adopted as the preferred format by government agencies in many different countries. This trend has placed pressure on Microsoft, which has agreed to include native ODF support in future versions of Office.

Source: Ars Technica
​

 

[Merlin]

Download was painless, at 1.2 MB/sec ( server limit ) for a 143 mb program.
I'll install later

Merlin

 

[Rob Williams]

I'm officially pleased with the latest version, but man, I really, really, really want better graphing capabilities. You simply cannot recreate the graphs we use in our reviews in OpenOffice. I think I'd begin using OOo for more than just Calc if that kind of functionality improved. Office 2007 is just too robust to look away.

 

[madstork91]

I am a -HUGE- proponent of openOffice. I feel that paying microsoft money for finally making improvement to something that they have been milking for years is simply buying into a system that will prove to disappoint us again later.

I feel that for a true transition to take place though, schools will have to start using this program.

 

[Rob Williams]

I am not sure I entirely agree with that argument Stork. Microsoft has released new versions of Office, but there was never a big reason people had to upgrade. If they had Office 2000, I don't think there was any real incentive to upgrade to 2003 (although I do know it enhanced Excel especially), so it's not really enforced on people, like Windows.

Office 2007 was a major upgrade in every sense of the word. It became easier to use (overall, can be debated), looks better and for us personally, allows us to create nifty-looking graphs for our reviews, something that the previous Office's and OpenOffice fail to allow us to do, unless we want some flat-colored bland offering (like we used to have).

I'm the first to admit when something sucks, but though I didn't like Office 2007 at first (and there are still quirks that drive me nuts), I've come to like it quite a bit. The same goes for Vista. I haven't run into an issue with it for quite a while, but I know there are people who have. Microsoft's been alright to me in the past year though.

 

[madstork91]

In the past year. Give it another year and lets see what you have to compare office, and vista too. Then we will see.

 

[Kougar]

If OpenOffice worked with MS Office formats, I'd be using it more. But spending $50 to 80 to buy MS Office to save headaches, hassles, and my time was an easy choice for me. OpenOffice just doesn't work well with MS Office formats, ESPECIALLY with excel docs. It always screws up Excel formating even when it can open the filetypes I use. I shudder to think about the newest "x" formats.

I'm happy enough with Office 2007, it's a much needed improvement over Office 2003. Even if Visio and Project are no longer part of Office, and Frontpage got spliced into Publisher...

 

[Rob Williams]

If OpenOffice worked with MS Office formats, I'd be using it more. But spending $50 to 80 to buy MS Office to save headaches, hassles, and my time was an easy choice for me. OpenOffice just doesn't work well with MS Office formats, ESPECIALLY with excel docs. It always screws up Excel formating even when it can open the filetypes I use. I shudder to think about the newest "x" formats.

I'm happy enough with Office 2007, it's a much needed improvement over Office 2003. Even if Visio and Project are no longer part of Office, and Frontpage got spliced into Publisher...

In my limited experience, it seems to handle .xlsx "alright", but I haven't given it a real thorough test, nor have I used a real intense file.

As for Frontpage, didn't that just become Expression? How has Publisher taken elements of FP?

 

[Kougar]

Hm, you are right they did Link

It's mostly what I've heard though, Frontpage's basic features and options got rolled into augmenting Publisher. I've never used either Expression Web or Sharepoint Designer, and don't use Publisher either.