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OpenOffice.org Hits 1.1

sander writes "OpenOffice.org 1.1.0 has finally been released (after 5 release candidates -- should make it pretty sweet). The announcement is here, there is a really nice features page and a long list of mirrors carrying the goodies." OO.org releases for languages other than English should be here soon, too.

100 of 490 comments (clear)

  1. Start up time? by n1k0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Has the start-up time been reduced for this release? When last I tried (a few weeks ago), it was rediculously slow.

    Here's hoping,

    -Nick

    1. Re:Start up time? by madfgurtbn · · Score: 5, Informative

      Has the start-up time been reduced for this release?

      It looks like their website is groaning under the load right now, so I can't give you a link, but there is a roadmap up somewhere which says startup time is one of the highest priority goals for version 2.0.

      Startup is still quite slow even on speedy hardware, but I don't think it has been one of their highest priorities yet.

      --
      Send lawyers, guns, and money. Dad, get me out of this.
    2. Re:Start up time? by MarcQuadra · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm running on a hotrod 1466Mhz athlon / 768MB/ 10GB running gentoo. First load takes about 11 seconds (that's a long time) but subsequent loads are pretty zippy. I suggest you either prelink the app (which I don't do) or put a script in your init.d directory to recursively cat the /opt/OpenOffice directory to /dev/null, that would effectively 'precache' the application.

      Also, try building from source if you can, you'll be able to set the optimization and several options that you don't see with a binary-only install.

      --
      "Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
    3. Re:Start up time? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Now 9 seconds on my 900MHz PII running Mandrake 8.1 (!). That's about half the time of the 1.0.1 release, so it's better, but still could use improvement.

    4. Re:Start up time? by nusuth · · Score: 2, Informative

      As of 1.1rc3, first start time is about half of 1.0.3 which still kind slow. Second and later starts are very fast unlike 1.0.x.

      --

      Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!

    5. Re:Start up time? by BlackBolt · · Score: 4, Informative

      The horrible startup speed is by far OpenOffice.org's greatest weakness. *In comparison* to either MSOffice or Corel WordPerfect Suite 7 or 8 on Windows it is abysmal.

      Please note: I put "in comparison" in asterisks because the trolls think people should "get faster computers, fool". My friend was given OO.O recently and was immediately disgusted by the startup speed compared to MSOffice. "You get what you pay for", she said. NOT a good showing for open-source software. The price is irrelevant, because they promptly pirated MSOffice97 and were happy.

    6. Re:Start up time? by sickmtbnutcase · · Score: 2, Informative

      $ emerge oooqs
      That'll fix your startup times, and the tray icon is pretty handy.

    7. Re:Start up time? by BrookHarty · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Wouldnt cat'ing a whole directory during bootup take more time and resources? I know there all these stories about speeding up booting for linux, wouldnt you do this after you boot into X? Save the cache for the initial processes and X startup. Then cache all your applications, terminals, office, mozilla, xmms, etc. Thou, seems like overkill for a couple seconds off the application start time, to read the file twice. (My head hurts thinking about it)

      Kinda like windows, it boots up into the login screen, the loads the services. And linux, loads all the services, then boots into the login screen.

    8. Re:Start up time? by MeNeXT · · Score: 3, Informative
      Do like msoffice. Set it to start on login and minimize it. Then it's very fast...It's how MS does it.

      --
      DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
    9. Re:Start up time? by aardvarkjoe · · Score: 2, Insightful

      since cheap hacks like preloads are not the linux way, for the size of the app, the speed is sufficient.

      How is making something faster a "cheap hack?" It sounds like intelligent design to me. When I turn on the computer, the difference between 60 and 80 seconds of boot time is fairly irrelevant -- I'm doing something else anyway. When I start up an application, the difference between 5 and 25 seconds until I can start using it is immense.

      If we're reduced to saying, "well, yeah, it's better ... but it's a hack!" we might as well just admit defeat. Productivity can't be subservient to "elegance."

      --

      How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
    10. Re:Start up time? by obotics · · Score: 2, Informative

      There is an option in the OpenOffice setup program to do just that.

    11. Re:Start up time? by timeOday · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Well, don't worry because I installed Openoffice 1.1 rc5 yesterday (oops) and IIRC it offers preload.

      Why are hacks bad? Because the same thing might be done in a better way.

      I think it would be cool if the linux kernel would collect statistics on which pages tend to be resident in memory. Then after bootup, it could use idle disk time to read those pages so they'd be in the cache. The advantage is that this would benefit ALL apps without any application-specific coding.

    12. Re:Start up time? by ekuns · · Score: 3, Informative

      The horrible startup speed is by far OpenOffice.org's greatest weakness [snip] "You get what you pay for", she said. [snip] The price is irrelevant, because they promptly pirated MSOffice97 and were happy.

      Wow, do you see the irony there? Someone complains that "You get what you pay for" and then pirates commercial software? I have no sympathy, nor respect, for people who pirate software. You mention that person's complaint like it's someone whose opinion should be taken seriously. Someone who is going to pirate software isn't mature enough to get the difference between free as in "Free Beer" and free is in "Free speech."

      If you want start up speeds comparable to Office and to Corel's office suite, then you have to do the exact same thing both of those suites do to speed up their loading -- preload the application. Just because Microsoft has made it non-obvious that they preload the app doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Internet Explorer starts up quickly for the same reason. Once I configured Mozilla to preload under Win2k, it started up exactly as rapidly as IE6.

      By way of comparison, someone who will pirate commercial software because what is freely available doesn't immediately meet their approval, well, is sort of like someone who doesn't like the food they are being given freely, so instead they go rob a store to get different food. Is that someone whose opinion you worry about? IMO, no.

    13. Re:Start up time? by aardvarkjoe · · Score: 2, Insightful

      making office appear faster by loading tons of libs into memory...

      You're wrong on this count. You're not making it appear faster; you really are making it faster. As I pointed out in my last post, preloading means less wasted time for the user. If you've got a "non-hack" way of making it faster, I'm all ears, but if program design detracts from the experience of the user, the design is flawed. A 30-second startup time is simply unacceptable.

      eys, some you ahve to preload, especially system libs. but for an office suite? please.

      If you haven't noticed, the word processor is the most-used application on many people's computers, and is certainly among the most complex pieces of software that the average person uses on a regular basis. I really can't think of many better candidates for preloading than office software.

      --

      How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
  2. Just tried it by KrackHouse · · Score: 3, Interesting

    IBM should help out with the marketing of this, it's really great. Get better icons, etc. here -> http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=7 131 It seems faster than 1.0, more polished.

    --
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    http://houndwire.com
  3. My favorite feature by carl67lp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My favorite feature has to be the ability to export to PDF. It's one of the reasons why I still use OO even though I almost always have access to Microsoft Office.

    That, and there's something to be said for the ability to literally unpack a saved file, look at the raw data, and get exactly what you need. (I had to do this on a spreadsheet before I installed OO again, and was able to retrieve an important CD key. ;-) )

    1. Re:My favorite feature by jlechem · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yes but can it save word files to crappy html files with propriatary tags?

      I didn't think so.
      --
      Hold up, wait a minute, let me put some pimpin in it
    2. Re:My favorite feature by mblase · · Score: 4, Insightful

      My favorite feature has to be the ability to export to PDF.

      You know, in Mac OS X (or Windows, if you buy Adobe Acrobat), you can export a document from any application to PDF format, as long as that application supports printing.

      Come to think of it, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a Linux printer driver to do the same thing....

    3. Re:My favorite feature by koali · · Score: 2, Informative

      Huh, on Windows you can install a postscript printer, print to a file and use ps2pdf :-b The same can be said about Linux.

    4. Re:My favorite feature by carl67lp · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Sure, but in Windows, you either have to pay for Acrobat (not exactly cheap), or find some sort of convoluted workaround. OO does it very smoothly and easily.

      Mind you, it's no substitute for Acrobat (which I use monthly), but it works in a pinch for those short, simple documents.

    5. Re:My favorite feature by mblase · · Score: 3, Informative

      Ahh, good: there's a Linux print-to-PDF solution after all.

      Of course, OO's button is certainly easier to use, but I think adding it either to the "save as..." dialog or the "print to..." list (or both) is more intuitive.

    6. Re:My favorite feature by aled · · Score: 5, Funny

      Why would you want a one-click-save-to-pdf when you can install ghostscript and ghostview and configure... ah, never mind.

      --

      "I think this line is mostly filler"
    7. Re:My favorite feature by Bistronaut · · Score: 3, Informative

      PDF995 is a shareware (free version pops up a web page every time you use it) app that does exactly that. Plus, if you want to register it it's only $9.95 (hence the name). It's great. You can set up the same thing with all free software, but it's a pain. PDF995 takes the pain out of making PDFs for free on Windows. That said, I use OOo. It rocks.

    8. Re:My favorite feature by generic-man · · Score: 4, Informative

      In Windows, you can use PDFCreator to export a document from any application to PDF format, as long as that application supports printing. Unlike Adobe Acrobat, PDFCreator is free (GPL).

      --
      For more information, click here.
    9. Re:My favorite feature by johnnyb · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, Linux supports this to. Just print to postscript, and run ps2pdf on it, or better yet, set up a printer to do that for you.

      In fact, I have my Linux PDF Printer set up using SAMBA so the whole office can use it. This way noone has to buy Acrobat, and we can all print to PDF without even installing software (it's just a printer install - the drivers are already installed on Windows).

    10. Re:My favorite feature by Alan · · Score: 2, Funny

      or find some sort of convoluted workaround

      You mean like kazaa? :)

    11. Re:My favorite feature by lactose99 · · Score: 2, Informative

      There's one called PDFCreator in Windows that emulates a printer and allows you to "print to PDF".

      --
      Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
    12. Re:My favorite feature by PurpleBob · · Score: 2, Informative

      You mean the print dialog is missing the "Print to file" option?

      --
      Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
    13. Re:My favorite feature by platypus · · Score: 2, Informative

      Lookee here

      Freepdf, if you're not doing prepress stuff, it is actually better than acrobat (I use 4.0) IMO.

    14. Re:My favorite feature by Qube · · Score: 4, Informative

      Or better still, PDFCreator does all that for nothing with with no ads or nagging - completely GPL. Comes with a proper no-hassle installer, and is as easy to set up and use as PDF995 or similar.

    15. Re:My favorite feature by nissim · · Score: 2, Informative

      Also http://www.acrosoftware.com/Download.htm
      cutePDF printer driver for windoze

    16. Re:My favorite feature by The+Madpostal+Worker · · Score: 3, Informative

      There is a redirector which will redirect a printer port to a ghost script process, which is essentially a free version of distiller.

      --

      /*
      *Not a Sermon, Just a Thought
      */
    17. Re:My favorite feature by F1re · · Score: 2, Informative

      Use PDF Creator from SourceForge:

      PDF Creator

      --
      ...there is no sig...
  4. Excellent! by Chuck+Bucket · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've been using the 1.1 beta, and this is exactly what Linux needs to show it's "ready" for the corp desktop. Combine OO with Evolution, and what else do most (90% of corp users) need?

    CB

    1. Re:Excellent! by t0qer · · Score: 2, Funny

      what else do most (90% of corp users) need?

      An OS compatible with the "Just install this dialer to get access to TONS OF PRON!" software that I so often find on the laptops of company officers?

    2. Re:Excellent! by allan_q · · Score: 5, Informative

      Just click on Actions > Expunge to delete these marked messages. You can also hit Ctrl-E. After a while it becomes second nature.

    3. Re:Excellent! by AstroDrabb · · Score: 2, Informative

      Did you go into the "Deleted Items" folder and then click "Actions -> Empty Trash"? Works for me. Also, Ximian puts out Ximian Connector that lets you connect to an MS Exchange server and get all of it's features. This is what I use at work and it works great. I have full access to the calander and corporate contacts for meeting requests, etc. With the contacts, when you go to send an email, you click the To button and there you will see a find box. Type in the first few letters of the frist, last name and hit enter, it will return a list of all the corporate contacts. So if you want to find John Doe, you could type in "Jo Do" and hit enter to find all matches, or you could just type Do or Jo, etc. I have been talking with the admins here about using a REAL IMAP server and it is something they plan to do in a year or two. Exchange is proprietary crap, that is why only MS Software can work with it so well. Maybe talk to someone at your company about using a REAL IMAP server that is standards compliant, then you can use any mailer you like.

      As far as comming up with a connector that works perfectly with MS Exchange, you will need to talk to MS and ask them to open up the protocol, good luck : )

      --
      If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
      it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
  5. uprgradeable thu? by cyrax777 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I just wish there was a simple patch to upgrade the old one instead of having to download the whole thing all over agien. But hey its FREE and alot better then MS OFFICE imho so ill take what I can get.

  6. A day too late... by Kadagan+AU · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yeah, I saw this announcement on newsforge earlier today, and I had to hit myself. Just yesterday I downloaded and installed the winblows version of OOo1.1rc5, and now I've gotta update to the final ;). If I had only been slightly more patient!!

    --
    This space for rent, inquire within.
    1. Re:A day too late... by swtaarrs · · Score: 3, Informative
      Actually, rc5 is the same as 1.1. It's not uncommmon with many apps for the final release candidate to be rereleased as a stable version. For those of you who might not believe me, here are the md5sums of the two install zips (ignore any spaces that may get shoved in there..):
      4e38b597c1e646d07bb83153b73fe5d3 *OOo_1.1.0_Win32Intel_install.zip
      4e38b597c1e646d 07bb83153b73fe5d3 *OOo_1.1rc5_Win32Intel_install.zip
      Of course, you have to trust me to believe those md5sums, but life's tough, ain't it? :)
  7. RC5 and 1.1.0 is the same by Lord+Satri · · Score: 5, Informative

    FYI, received this interesting info from OOO's staff :
    In my enthusiasm for OpenOffice.org 1.1, I neglected to clarify a point (see http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ ReadMsg?msgId=848545&listName=announce ).

    OpenOffice.org 1.1.0 is *identical* to the recently released OpenOffice.org RC5.

    Therefore, if you have downloaded RC5, there is no need to download 1.1.

    1. Re:RC5 and 1.1.0 is the same by Dysan2k · · Score: 2, Informative

      Good bit there, but wouldn't/shouldn't the 1.1.0 version have the debugging stripped out to lean it up a bit? Just my opinion. OO's been perfect for an Office replacement for me. Granted, these days I do very little word-processing and even less with a spreadsheet, but when I needed to type up something, it's done me right. I'm using the beta still where my roomie is using rc1. Time to upgrade when I get home.

      Let the sucking of the bandwidth BEGIN!

      --
      -What have you contributed lately?
    2. Re:RC5 and 1.1.0 is the same by Delirium+Tremens · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Therefore, if you have downloaded RC5, there is no need to download 1.1.
      That is not exactly true because there was actually 3 rc5 release attempts, the latest one even being called rc5b.
      So your RC5 being the same as the final version really depends on which RC5 you actually downloaded.
    3. Re:RC5 and 1.1.0 is the same by pmz · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Good bit there, but wouldn't/shouldn't the 1.1.0 version have the debugging stripped out to lean it up a bit?

      I've been bitten by leaving debugging symbols out of open-source software I've compiled. On the occasions that something crashes a program, being able to get something other than gibberish out of a core file is very helpful. It also allows people to e-mail a stack trace along with bug reports. Even though debugging symbols add bloat, I'm almost in favor of distributions leaving them in by default to aid the more-eyes-make-bugs-shallow theory.

    4. Re:RC5 and 1.1.0 is the same by Zathrus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There's also the issue that under some compilers there are different things that occur when you compile in debug mode and when you compile in "release" mode.

      The most common one I've seen is that debug mode will automatically initialize variables to a known value (usually 0), while that's not done in release mode. This makes finding bugs that are exposed by this particularly fun to find (the most common issues are counters or pointers that are never initialized -- in debug they'll be nicely set to 0 or NULL, while in release they're filled with random values).

      I don't know that this is an issue with OO.o... just more of a generalized issue that affects many programs. Realistically, I blame the compiler for doing too much when in debug mode.

  8. Here's a nice page by zr-rifle · · Score: 5, Informative

    with the complete illustrated feature list.
    http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features /1.1/

    Loading times seem to have been improved, that's great news since that's what's keeping me using Abiword for common word processing jobs at uni. Let's see if there's already an ebuild for it...

    --
    Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
  9. Re:For those that have tried both.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    StarOffice 7 has a database component (AdabasD) that is not OSS, since its not created by Sun. SO7 also has more clip-art style stuff, a WordPerfect filter (also not OSS due to 3rd party code), and a different spelling checker (same thing again).

    And it costs $79 (OpenOffice.org 1.1 is free), but you get Sun support with it.

    Dan
    fa@ooo

  10. 1.1 final is the same as RC5 by kg4eyf · · Score: 3, Informative

    The zip file is identical to the RC5 release. If you got it already, then there's no need to download it again.

  11. Re:OS X version? Not there yet... by Lord+Satri · · Score: 3, Informative

    Nope, no native OSX port soon. See

    http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/timeline.html

  12. If it helps... by Sir+Haxalot · · Score: 2, Informative

    Here's the Google Cache for the Openoffice Homepage

    --
    I have over 70 freaks, do you?
  13. What a great office suite by Kadagan+AU · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hey, for those who haven't read all the details of 1.1, I thought I'd point out that this really looks to me like it's far better than MS Office. Not only does it have 99% of the standard functionality that MS gives, at a much much smaller (read: free) pricetag, but it gives some great bonuses! OOo Draw seems like it's got most of Visio's functionality (a $400 app for the pro version, from MS), it also has built in PDF writing capabilities ($450 from Adobe)! Also, as far as I know, the last version (1.0.1) couldn't actually write .ppt (powerpoint) files, it could only view them. 1.1 is supposed to support writing them as well. Overall this looks ultra-damn-sweet!

    --
    This space for rent, inquire within.
  14. Re:Blah by Kadagan+AU · · Score: 3, Informative

    I know this was a joke (and a good one at that), but OpenOffice.org is also available for Windows and OS X, and others.

    --
    This space for rent, inquire within.
  15. The ultimate crime! by ctid · · Score: 2, Funny

    Aaaargh!! Even the list of mirrors is slashdotted! How unspeakably evil...

    --
    Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
  16. w00t!!!! by An+Onerous+Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I've been playing with the earlier release candidates, and so far it's been sweet. Much faster than 1.0, better conversion from Office formats, the whole .pdf exporter.

    In other wondrous news, KOffice plans on switching to the StarOffice file formats. That should save the filter writers a whole bunch of work on both sides.

    I would say, "I'm going to install this on the machines of all my friends and relatives," but rampant piracy has led them to think of Microsoft Office as "free," and the power of brand naming has led them to think of any replacement as inferior. So I'll be installing it on the machines of all friends and neighbors who aren't computer savvy enough to notice the difference. :)

    --

    You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!

  17. "release candidate" != "feature freeze", sadly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    OpenOffice.org 1.1.0 has finally been released (after 5 release candidates -- should make it pretty sweet)

    Don't read too much into the word "release candidate", which is a Sun marketing tool rather than anything like a feature freeze. As someone working on OpenOffice translation, it has been somewhat difficult when "release candidates" come out containing whole new modules like crashrep and officecfg. Also, there is nothing like a timeline or a release plan like the mozilla project uses - as a contributor, the first you hear about an OpenOffice release is when it appears on the website. This makes it very difficult when you're trying to convince organisations in your country to switch - you're working in the dark and have no timescale to plan against.


    Don't get me wrong - I think OpenOffice is a brilliant product and will be pushing it very hard in my country. But if they'd open up the development process half as much as they've opened up the licence, it'd make advocacy a lot easier.

  18. Cool! by the+bluebrain · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... only 1998.9 versions to go (plus a couple of arbitrary letters), and we'll have caught up with Microsoft!

    (hey - there are "industry analysts" out there that count this way)

    --
    yes, we have no bananas
  19. For those who run into trouble looking for mirrors by ErrorBase · · Score: 5, Informative
  20. My impressions.. by adeyadey · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Have been running OpenOffice 1.1 under Windows a little while - only just scratching the surface. Looks like a great prog, but a bit slow to start up. But heck, so is Word..

    Also doesnt seem to load old .WRI (windows write) files, a bit of an odd ommision, considering how much else it does..

    PDF export is extremely useful, worth it for that feature alone.

    If all goes well I think I will be trashing Word soon..

    --
    "You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
  21. Re:No torrents by Trigun · · Score: 2, Informative

    57KB/s sustained from ibiblio.

  22. Bit Torrent link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    There is a Bit Torrent for this at Suprnova.org:
    OpenOffice 1.1 Win32 English

  23. Redhat 9 RPMs? by endoftheroadmatt · · Score: 2

    Anyone know if Redhat RPMs are available?

  24. Great program but missing MUST HAVE feature by jbs0902 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I think OpenOffice (OO) and StarOffice are great programs, but until they allow me to use different line numbering schemes for each section/style, I can't use them.

    I need to have no line numbers on 1 page, line numbering by 5 lines on the majority of the document, and line numbering by 1 line of the rest.

    While they import Word/Visio very well and work on 90% of my other feature needs, that 10% is a killer for work.

    I need OO bug #5131 fixed so I can move out of Microsoft land.

  25. Re:Damn... by prandal · · Score: 3, Informative

    Google has a list here.

    Amazing what searching for "Openoffice mirrors" turns up.

    Phil

  26. Neat! by JediTrainer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Now I'm curious... I've always been looking for a 'better' way to convert Word or Excel files to PDF.

    Is there a way that OO can be scripted to convert a file from the command line on a headless box? (assume we're NOT running X)

    Such a thing would be a lifesaver. I've been using Doc2PDF (and I've contributed to the source a bit too), but I find it annoying to need a dedicated box to run the conversion. I'd much prefer having my Linux server do this (along with everything else).

    --

    You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
    1. Re:Neat! by ReelOddeeo · · Score: 2, Informative

      There are two issues here.

      The headless box. Run soffice -help to get a list of command line options. Or go here to see a list of command line options. On Windows running soffice -help brings up a window showing command line options.

      OOo can be programmed from Basic, Java, and Python. I have done all three. On Windows, you can use any Windows Automatation language, such as Visual Basic, Microsoft Visual FoxPro, Delphi. I personally have used Visual FoxPro to script OOo. Someone on OOoForum has used Ruby on Windows to script OOo.

      The API has a steep learning curve, but it is very powerful and capable. I have run a java program that can be run on one computer, and connect to an OOo running on another computer to create drawings of mazes. The two computers don't have to be running the same OS. Or you can run both the java program and OOo on the same computer.

      If you download the SDK, there is a Java example called DocumentConverter.java. There is also a document converter Servlet in the SDK examples.

      Here are a few places to start.

      Deloper's Guide

      Online API reference

      OOo Developer

      api.openoffice.org

      udk.openoffice.org

      Software Developer's Kit

      Finally, go hang out on OOoForum.org in the Macro's and API section. I frequent that and answer a lot of questioons and post code fragments and examples there.

      --

      Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
    2. Re:Neat! by ReelOddeeo · · Score: 2, Informative

      The headless box question has come up several times on OOoForum.org and I've answered it there. (Macros and API section.) In short, you can either try launching OOo with a -headless option. Or use an X server that draws to a bitmap in memory. VNC server is such an X server. It has the additional property that you can connect to it using a remote VNC viewer to see what the pixels currently look like. This type of X server requires no particular physical display hardware.

      --

      Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
  27. Re:Torrent anyone? by carlmenezes · · Score: 3, Informative

    Windows install torrent link :

    http://www.emptylogic.com/suprnova/torrents/378/ OO o_1.1.0_Win32Intel_install-zip.torrent

    Linux torrent anyone?

    --
    Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
  28. Personal Star/OpenOffice timeline by swordgeek · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ah, how far we've come.

    I got one of the very first copies of StarOffice 5.0b when Sun bought and released it for free. It very quickly got renamed 5.1, and I tentatively recommended it to a client as a means to solving their office-suite-on-xterm problem. Ended up having to support the evil bastard package as a result. Horrible, horrible thing it was. 5.2 was identical, except with slightly fewer bugs.

    OpenOffice.org was born, and I ran screaming. Occasionally I'd drop in and check out the current release (around the 0.300 to 0.500 mark), and find that they had gone light years beyond SO5.2, but still had at least that far to go.

    When Sun announced that SO6.0 was coming out, I started to check out the OO releases again, and found a passable package. Slow slow slow (still), but actually usable and convenient.

    SO-6.0/OO-1.0.1 was a decent product. I used it regularly, learned to deal with its quirks (no anti-aliased fonts on Solaris--ugh!), and was relatively happy.

    Then came the StarOffice 6.1 beta program, which I was a part of. That's when I fell in love, or at least like. StarOffice 7.0 (formerly 6.1) or OpenOffice 1.1.0 are GREAT packages, at long last! Slow to start up, but fast to use once they're running, and really well designed. It's professional quality software, available for multiple platforms, for free. My sole Windows machine is now no more than a games console.

    This is a happy day folks! We finally have a complete non-MS desktop!

    --

    "People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
  29. Re:Hello by Mod+Me+God · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Although for the home your reasons are good, for the business:

    1. My company pays, I do not. They get a huge discount and even if for 1000 users it only costs $100K eacg, that's only $100,000K (the price of a single senior analyst a year). Role that over the three year product lifestyle and $100K is the cost of a junior admin staff over those three years. In anorganisation of 1000 this is hardly a good thing, when all OO can do is all MSOffice can do. If OO did something extra that MSOffice did not that would be different, but it is not. Although OO has suppost for office documents, macros cannot be converted unless weeding the code (this takes time, hence money).

    2. My secretary does the PDF writing if I need it, this takes less than 5 seconds for me to do and little longer for her (though she also checks various points of detail in it). If something big needs doing I'll forward to our printing department, who will ensure the layout stc is perfect - they are the best people to do the nitty picky presentational polishing, not me.

    3. Business licences have already brought down cost of business software for businesses.

    4. It's proprietary, and guess what... I can still change it to my needs! Yes I can write macros etc, and can integrate some VB into it and can seamlessly integrate a MS Access DB with Excel etc... but have you ever used Reuters etc??? Reuters worked with MS to reverse engineer Excel to work with live feeds from Reuters, Bloomberg did a similar thing. OO does not have this feature, and until it does will never be the spreadsheet of choice for front office finance work. In the back of a finance office a spreadsheet which cannot do pivot tables easily or work with the existing implenentation (i.e., existing macros or bespoke software) is not worth having on your hard disk.

    5. The licence is cheap for a corporate, see 1.

    In the end, unless the OO (or even a change over in proprietary software) offers cost savings over the costs involved in changing bespoke applications and macros AND can do all that the previous software will it be implemented by corporates. However to me, the ONLY SURE WAY FOR NEW SOFTWARE TO SUCCEED (proprietary or open source) is to offer new functionality. This is the only thing that can get over the inertia for companies to move. So come on OO, give me something new... I don't know what I want, you've got to do the development of something new and that is truely hard.

    SOrry for rambling.

    --
    --

    FreeNET user? Comfortable with the adverse selection?
  30. Print to PDF from Mac vs Export from OO by Tor · · Score: 5, Interesting
    You know, in Mac OS X [...] you can export a document from any application to PDF format, as long as that application supports printing.


    True, however those PDFs are HUGE compared to those that OpenOffice creates -- with no seeming improvement in quality. Indeed, the OO seems a bit better at detailed pictures etc.

    I printed a 3.2MB MS PowerPoint presentation to PDF from a Mac, and the resulting file was 22MB. I exported the same file from OO v1.1 (which, by the way, has been in Debian 'sid' since Sep 25), and the resulting size was 2.3MB.

    Indeed, the PDF created from OO seemed smoother (despite having to import a foreign document format) than the one created via the "Print to PDF..." option in the Mac OS X print dialogue.

    -tor
    1. Re:Print to PDF from Mac vs Export from OO by Graymalkin · · Score: 3, Informative

      In Jaguar (10.2) the Print to PDF feature doesn't use any compression. OO's print to PDF feature supports image compression. In Panther (10.3) Apple is finally adding compression support to their Print to PDF feature so the files ought to be a whole lot smaller than the ones produced in jaguar. Granted they might not be as small as a dedicated PDF generation utility might output but they are much better than Jaguar's PDFs.

      Regardless, the ability to print anything to a PDF is a very cool feature. Want to send an AppleWorks document to a Windows user? Print to PDF and you're pretty much set.

      --
      I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
  31. Re:Open in one taskbar item?? by Tin+Foil+Hat · · Score: 2, Informative

    Get a window manager that can group similar tasks on the taskbar. KDE and Gnome can both do this. I think WinXP can as well.

    --
    No matter how many of my rights are taken away, somehow I still don't feel safe. -Frigid Monkey
  32. Enough with the startup time complaints! by BuddhaDude · · Score: 3, Insightful
    This seems to be the single most commonly voiced criticism of Open/Star Office. How often do you really need to open your wp or ss during the day? I've been using OpenOffice every day at work this year, and here's how I get around this "problem":
    1. Fire it up at the beginning of the day.
    2. Work.
    3. Shut it down at the end of the day.
    And if you're the type who leaves the computer on overnight, you don't even have to re-open it the next day. Let's get real, folks.
  33. Double ditto for me, and why Word stinks by Schwartzboy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've already pretty much thrown MS Office to the curb. Right now, I have to do a lot of Access VBA stuff and have had to develop bits and pieces for other Office apps, so I can't purge it completely from my life, but when I'm actually using a word processor or a spreadsheet application, it's OOo. I switched a couple of months ago and have never regretted it. One example of why? 3-page report, saved as a Word doc: 24.1 K. Same report, saved as SXW: 12.0K. Minor savings with the hideous HD resources I have, yes, and I can't prove that it's an across-the-board guarantee of 50% smaller files, but...wow. Just wow.

    --
    "Linux doesn't exist. Everyone knows Linux is an unlicensed version of Unix"- Kieren O'Shaughnessy
  34. Here, I'll start a Linux torrent by tugrul · · Score: 4, Informative

    Doesn't seem like anyone else has.

    OOo_1.1.0_LinuxIntel_install.tar.gz.torrent

  35. Re:Just tried it [KDE LOOK ICON SET URL] by ShadeARG · · Score: 3, Informative

    Hyperlinking the URL would fix the problem and make access convenient. Why not try it?

  36. Fix The Installer.. by wfberg · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why a .zip file that contains compressed installer files? Couldn't there be one big executable that's the installer and contains the compressed files? Or even an installer that looks around whether the compressed installation files are on the disk itself, or whether it should download them (if the user chooses to install components which are not available)...

    If you use MSIE, it will first download the .zip in a temporary directory, then COPY the .zip to your download directory (not an atomic MOVE!), then you have to unzip, then the installer has to decompress files.. Quite a lot of disk activity and space being wasted there..

    --
    SCO employee? Check out the bounty
  37. Re:Does anyone have a site for templates? by ReelOddeeo · · Score: 2, Informative

    Someone on OOoForum had posted this link to some nice templates. I don't know if this set has made it over to OOoExtras.org yet.

    --

    Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
  38. other missing features by commodoresloat · · Score: 3, Funny

    I can't get any work done with a word processor that doesn't interrupt every fucking letter I try to write with unhelpful advice. Until OO gets this kind of functionality it will be useless to the majority of MS Office users.

    1. Re:other missing features by nyseal · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I know this will sound like a troll and you're making a funny, but outside of the 'security' features in Office I like the extended functionality (not the help features you describe, but you can turn those off). In a less than perfect world, I've found the format features in Word and the expanded capabilities of Excel to be quite useful both at home and at work. Just my $.02

      --
      [SIG] Remember Mattel handheld games?
  39. Wasted opportunities by pixelgeek · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why does "Office Compatibilty" appear to mean that you need to reduplicated the same horrid Office UI and build the same sort of bloated functionality?

    Why could OS developers not take the opportunity to write a series of applications that work better, are more streamlined, have a better UI and just happen to open and save files in Office formats?

    Why make people have to suffer with the same usability and UI gaffs that MS has foisted on Windows users?

    1. Re:Wasted opportunities by Paddyish · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Why make people have to suffer with the same usability and UI gaffs that MS has foisted on Windows users?

      Because that's what people are used to. The lower the learning curve, the more people you will be able to sign on to the bandwagon. It isn't about making anything better - it's about providing an alternative with zero strings attached.

    2. Re:Wasted opportunities by pixelgeek · · Score: 2, Insightful

      -- Because that's what people are used to.

      The fact that people are used to an inferior product isn't, to my mind, a good enough reason to be copying it.

      -- It isn't about making anything better - it's about providing an alternative with zero strings attached.

      I don't see the point behind this then. You are saying that the developers are choosing to write bad software so they can give people an OS option?

      Why not give people an OS option that isn't a copy of unusable bloatware?

      This really does seem to segue nicely into the discussion or user inferiority and UI design in an earlier topic.

      Is it that developers think that users are too stupid to see that a superior product is a better alternative or is it that they don't have the UI chops to actually provide users with that better experience?

  40. Re:Print to PDF from Mac is inefficient by Alderete · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I love the capability of Mac OS X to print anything to a PDF file, it's a great feature to use in a pinch. But it's no substitute for a real PDF generation tool, like Acrobat, or functionality built into OpenOffice.

    The file size different noted here (22MB vs 2.3MB) is hardly unusual; indeed, it's the rule, not the exception. In dozens of attempts, I never made a PDF file remotely close to what Acrobat Distiller was capable of doing, size-wise.

    If your job doesn't depend on being able to send people PDF files, the built-in version is fine. But if you share your PDFs regularly, spend the time or the bucks to get a real PDF solution.

  41. Yay! by achacha · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I for one am very happy they released version 1.1. I am a happy user of version 1.0 on Windows ME. I had a choice of installing OpenOffice and buying MS Office.

    I thought about what I wanted to do, and came up with a small list:
    1. Read .doc files that people use at work (don't really care about formatting or power features, just want to read the content)
    2. Read Excel files and generate simple spreadsheets

    That is all.

    For email I use emacs, for a database I use mySQL.

    Microsoft Office offered nothing for me.

    I do NOT want VB script (as most MS bugs are rooted in that god awful script).
    I do NOT want Outlook, while it may be nice at work to schedule meetings and manage internal email, it is not suited as an email reader in the age of viruses and worms. Pine is just fine. (no rhyme intended).
    I do NOT want power point (as it is equivalent to brain rot and no one pays attention to those presentations anyways, easier to just give handouts and a URL).
    I sure as hell do NOT want Access database as it is inferior in every way to mySQL.

    So after much thought, I decided that MS office is not worth the money and installed OpenOffice and to this day I am happy with my decision.

    1. Re:Yay! by achacha · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Use Mozilla Firebird as browser.
      Pine for email.
      OpenOffice for "productivity".
      mySQL ad database.
      UltraEdit / Eclipse / WebSphere for development.
      g++ to compile with make.
      Sun's J2EE / J2SE to compile with ant.

      Where in that setup am I required to deal with VB script?

      If you don't use microsoft products, you don't have to deal with VB script.

    2. Re:Yay! by msh104 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you don't use microsoft products, you don't have to deal with VB script. if *this* is your WINDOWS setup, the only thing that might be stopping you from using full-time linux might be your games, since you are naming only opensource programms that are in general more optimized for linux. so if you are not a big fan of games and *this* is your windows setup, please move over to linux and your office experience will be much better.

  42. Do you know if you can import pdf? by Martin+Marvinski · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That would be a really cool OpenOffice feature. I can already create pdf files in my earlier verision of OpenOffice by clicking print and selecting the output to a file (pdf).

    I'd really love it if I could import pdf files and change them. Also on my wishlist is the ability to be able to password protect pdf files created in OpenOffice for the later versions of Acrobat that support it (5.0 or higher).

    The Flash export is excellent, and I thank the OpenOffice team for that. AFAIK, not even Microsoft Office has this feature. Looks like Open Source is starting to really kick some but!

  43. Re:Blah by nocomment · · Score: 2, Informative

    for the record, use the ISC mirror. I got a sustained spike of over 1M/s I downloaded the entire thing in just about 7 minutes. I'm on a T-1 by the way, so your results may vary.

    --
    /* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
    /* http://allyourbasearebelongto.us */
  44. Question (mainly for Gentoo users) by dotgod · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is it worth the time for me to emerge openoffice from source, or will openoffice-bin run just as quickly?

    1. Re:Question (mainly for Gentoo users) by Lord+Ender · · Score: 2, Informative

      First of all, openoffice-bin is only version 1.0.2 while source openoffice is 1.0.3. I have tried both, and personall, I think running openoffice optimized for my AthlonXP is worth having to wait a couple hours for it to compile. Linux is multi-tasking, it is no problem minimizing a kterm that is compiling. Alternatively, you can just start the compile before you go to bed. But OO 1.1 is not in portage yet :(

      --
      A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
  45. Dont forget to checkout the OpenOffice themes! by -unta · · Score: 4, Informative


    I really like OpenOffice but gawd it's ugly! If your running it under *nix make sure you check out the Toolbar themes addon.

    http://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=713 1

    You can replace the normal toolbar icons with ones to match your desktop environment, but pretty-much any of the included ones are FAR better than the OOo ones. Please, someone at OO merge this into the main tree!!!

  46. Quick Note on speed by JayBlalock · · Score: 2, Informative
    I'm on an old 1ghz Windows box. I don't know about everyone else, but the speed (without the Autoloader enabled) on startup is a *vast* improvement over 1.0 and\or whatever RC I had been using. About 2-3 seconds versus the 15ish it used to take. Enough speedup that it's finally become my default application for reading document files.

    But, of course, YMMV.

    Now to go see how well the new features work.

    --
    Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
  47. Re:for company? by SonicBurst · · Score: 2, Funny

    as a hopeless mathmatican

    Good thing you're not an English professor.

    --

    Geek used to be a four letter word. Now it's a six-figure one.
  48. Really fast startup times with preliink by AstroDrabb · · Score: 3, Informative
    I just used prelink on OpenOffice 1.1 and get a 4 second startup time the first time I start it and 2 second startup times after that. I don't think you can get much better then that. This is on a P4 1.7GHz, 512MB laptop, so it is not the fastest box around. To prelink OOo-1.1 try this:

    #cd to where you installed OOo
    prelink -vm --ld-library-path=/opt/OpenOffice.org1.1.0/program soffice.bin


    Replace the --ld-library-path= part with the directory where soffice.bin is installed. You need to do this as root unless you installed OOo as a normal user.
    --
    If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
    it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
  49. Good stuff by soloport · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just put a new installation through it's paces. Nice work! It is faster. Actually (just started it again to check), it's DAMN faster! In fact it seems everything's sped up a bit -- e.g. menus.

    Also tried the PDF exporter and brought the copy up in Mozilla (using the Adobe's reader for Linux). Yep. Looks like a real PDF to me. Haven't tried the MySQL interface, yet, but am excited to get away from the proprietary one.

    FWIW, YMMV

  50. 1.1 RC5 is the same as 1.1 final by Compact+Dick · · Score: 3, Informative

    Those who downloaded 1.1 RC5 for win32 can save themselves a 63.5 MB download and simply rename OOo_1.1rc5_Win32Intel_install.zip to OOo_1.1.0_Win32Intel_install.zip as they share the same checksum "4e38b597c1e646d07bb83153b73fe5d3".

    I am not sure about the other platforms but I wouldn't be surprised if it were the same. Find out by checking out the OpenOffice 1.1 final MD5sums list.

    Riding the first post to save bandwidth and unnecessary downloads.

  51. Make OOo look pretty and match your desktop... by dotgod · · Score: 3, Informative

    Download this to make OpenOffice match your icon theme. Then use this guide to get your fonts looking good. In Gentoo you can get Microsoft's fonts by emerging corefonts

  52. Sill can't embed a chart properly in Publishing Pr by aaron_pet · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Arg!

    This has lots of nice new features... and it is WAY faster than Oo1.0 and they changed the names of their programs to Draw, Writer and the like, dropping hte OpenOffice1.0.3.1 that made my start menu be messed up in 1.0..

    This is very nice, and I stopped using MS Office products for most things... because Draw Rocks as a publishing program...

    But what ticks me off the most is the inability to insert a chart into Draw based off a Calc worksheet. You must manually enter all of the data... Not even copy and pasting works!
    This is the only reason why I keep MS Publisher arround...

    Also thier bug submitting website kinda sucks...

    Also new in this release is a talk back type product.. I used OpenOffice1.1RC1 and it crashed on exit because we were using it on windows 2000 terminal server with multiple users... I allowed it to report the bug... and the crash didn't occur on the next release!

    -AP

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  53. Feature: One-click Export to PDF by Radical+Rad · · Score: 4, Funny

    Watch out! I think Amazon has already patented that one.