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OpenOffice 2.2 Released
xsspd2004 wrote with a link to a Desktop Linux post about the newest version of OpenOffice.org. Bug fixes and the usual changes can be found in the project's release notes. The developers are using the turn of phrase 'a real alternative to Office 2007', hoping to win over some folks not too thrilled with the commercial software's new look. "Overall, version 2.2 should appear better to users thanks to its support for kerning, a technique that improves the appearance of text written in proportional fonts; kerning is now enabled by default. OpenOffice's PDF (Portable Document Format) export function has also been enhanced with the addition of the optional creation of bookmarks feature, and with support for user-definable export of form fields. A quick look at the release notes also reveals that many minor bugs have been repaired in this new version. Most of these appear to relate to the Calc spreadsheet and Base database programs."
OpenOffice is not Java 'based'. It does have Java sprinkled all around (like the help system requires Java I believe, and it uses several other languages as well (I think OpenOffice uses at least 11 different languages, counting all compile time as well as run time...).
OpenOffice isn't what you'd call a pleasant experience to hack on (some might blame the closed source roots where it would mostly be the same group of developers for a long period of time that are paid to work on it).
Microsoft Word on Mac with a super dual core intel has an irritating delay
Office Mac 2004 (I'm assuming that's what you are using) was compiled for PowerPC, therefore the Rosetta PPC emulation layer is executing the program. Even the best PPC emulation can come close to but is not going to match the "real thing". (http://www.emaculation.com/ppc.php) I run MS Word for Mac 2004 on a G3/266 (OS 10.2.8 w/ 384MB RAM) and it is fairly snappy. Using the MS office suite on Intel based macs will get better when the next version comes out, since it will be a Universal application ("Fat binary").
Accentuate the positive, don't waste your mod points on the negative.
> OpenOffice isn't what you'd call a pleasant experience to hack on
> (some might blame the closed source roots where it would mostly be
> the same group of developers for a long period of time that are paid
> to work on it).
I would blame the fact that it is a very diverse and unique code base. It is mostly C++ but it is not based on any common libraries. Even for their GUI they decided to completely go it alone, which means that they make no contributions back to any libraries, and learning to hack it is very hard. At one point they considered switching to standard libraries but then didn't get around to following through. And then they started adding Java everywhere they could.
I'm running the Ubuntu Feisty Beta with OO2.2 and I exchange fairly complex Word docs with others, including legal pleadings and other hairy stuff, and I'm having no problems whatsoever.
On the Mac? First, you don't want to use that on the Mac. Try NeoOffice instead. That will keep you from having to run X11. Second, for all the nice things I would want to say about NeoOffice, it's not exactly snappy.
Really, I use NeoOffice. I've donated to the project. I'm grateful for all the good work they've done. But even the Intel-native version doesn't run any faster than Word 2004.
Come on Zonk, why is this categorized under "Linux" with a Tux icon? OOo is cross platform--runs on Linux, Windows, and OS X (even if it does take X11 to run under Mac.) I'd even be willing to bet that there are more Windows users of OOo than there are Linux users of OOo.
Penny - plain text accounting
That's wrong. StarOffice was developed by a company called StarDivision in Germany in 1986. Sun didn't enter the picture until 1999.
See here
Je ne parle pas francais.
In most European countries the comma is used as the decimal separator. Three thousand dollar and twenty-five cents would be $3.000,25 (not $3,000.25 you might be used to). In a locale that does this Excel uses the semi-colon too.
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