http://www.openoffice.org/ - Although we're on the advent of the OpenOffice.org 2.4 release, there's no harm in looking towards the future. Version 3.0 is not due until September, but the OpenOffice.org 3.0 Developer Preview is available for download from the OO mirrors in the Developer folder for all your office needs.
New in version 3.0 is native support for Mac OS X. You'll now be able to use a native client, rather than a third party port such as NeoOffice, which remains a few releases behind the original. The first thing you'll notice when starting out OpenOffice.org 3.0 is a new welcome screen where you can choose what type of document you want to create. Novel themes and colours for formatting are available across the office apps, allowing you to make prettier documents and stay competitive with those Microsoft Office 2007 users. Although still in in a early release, this version seems to load much faster than the current version.
New in Writer is multiple-page view. Like Microsoft Word 2007, the zoom feature has been moved to the bottom-right hand corner. Here is also where you toggle between single, multiple, and book page view. Calc also has several new and important additions, such as error bars in graphs and the ability to show equations for regressions. Furthermore, multiple users can work on the same spreadsheet document simultaneously. Impress now has table support. A presenter screen remains missing but it is still in the planned features for the 3.0 release.
Version 3.0 will also be the first to support the Microsoft Office 2007 xml file extensions (such as docx, pptx, and xlsx). I had little trouble opening these files in 3.0, but it is still a little buggy. At the moment, the 3.0 handles these files moderately well. Formatting and page layouts seems to work fine, but OpenOffice.org did not show embedded images from docx files.
A feature that I would like to see in a new OpenOffice release is grammar check. Although spellcheck has been there since the beginning, grammar check is an important component found in commercial alternatives such as Microsoft Office.
Of course, this developer preview is still full of bugs, as the final release is still months away. Despite this fact, this version I feel is somewhat usable. The new additions seem promising and practical. It will be a very competitive and free alternative to Microsoft's office suite. I look forward to downloading the final version in September.
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3 comments:
1. This is not a beta. 2. You cannot simply copy a watermarked image from my web site. You may want to read Wikipedia: Fair Use 3. If you use another site as reference, you should cite your references.
Andrew, I've removed the image and fixed the "beta" claim
Thanks for responding. I don't mind you using a small number of images if you cite your sources. Actually, I wrote a license for that. It may be easier for your users to find the original article if you link to it like this "OpenOffice.org 3.0's new features, an early look", but that's not a huge deal. Have a nice day and I wish you well with your site.
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