Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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.
Animoog.org
with the complete illustrated feature list.s /1.1/
http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/feature
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.
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
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.
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.
... 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
Now at a station near you !
Windows : Linorg Projeto Brasil ISC | IndianaU | BinaryCode | ibiblio.org | PAIR | SecsUp | Telentente | Umbc Vienna UT
Linux : IndianaU | ISC | BehrSolutions | BinaryCode | ibiblio.org | pair | SecsUp | Telentente | Umbc Vienna UT Belnet | KULeuvenNet CVUT Sunsite FUNET
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
Just click on Actions > Expunge to delete these marked messages. You can also hit Ctrl-E. After a while it becomes second nature.
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
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
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.