OpenOffice.org 2.4 Released

ahziem writes "The multiplatform, multilingual office suite OpenOffice.org has announced the release of version 2.4. New features include 5 PDF export enhancements, text to columns in Calc, rectangular selection in Writer, bug fixes, performance improvements, improvements supporting the growing library of extensions such as 3D OpenGL transitions in Impress, and much more. Downloads are available either direct or P2P. In September, OpenOffice.org 3.0 will add PDF import, Microsoft Office 2007 file format support, and ODF 1.2."

Comments

PDF import?

[morgan_greywolf]

I can't wait for that. PDF import will turn OpenOffice.org into a poor-man's Adobe Acrobat.

Re:PDF import?

[an.echte.trilingue]

Even with acrobat pro, you can't do too much editing to existing to PDFs: change a little text here and there, add comments and that's about it.

I understood that this was because of the way that PDFs store information based on positioning, curves, gradients, etc, so I am skeptical about what this feature of OOo actually does, given that some very expensive commercial software does not even do this. If, however, OOo does allow users to really load and edit PDFs, this could be the break though that it has been waiting for.

Only one comment

[zappepcs]

I'm using Office XP Pro side by side with OO. There is really no major differences now between the two in my use of office packages. One thing is for certain, at this update rate I could not afford the MS version of updates, but with OpenOffice... meh, this is great. If I could get a car manufacturer to upgrade my vehicle for free once a year (new cupholders, dash panel, etc.) It would also be great, but I'll settle for what I get with OpenOffice thank you very much.

I wish OOo would sign (PGP or authenticode)

[mlts]

I wish the OpenOffice.org project maintainers would PGP/gpg sign their MD5 sum files at the least, or if they can get a code signing key, Authenticode sign their installer on Windows.

PGP/gpg is available at no cost, and having the key available from keyservers (and signed by a good number of people) would provide basic software assurance.

I know this is a relatively small gripe, but just for integrity reasons it would be nice that they did so, so I knew a copy I have was not corrupted (or even worse, tampered with.) OOo does such a major role in day to day use for a lot of organizations that if a compromised version made its way around the Internet, it could mean a major disaster.

Last, and I know I'm boring with this, a number of companies won't install anything on their machines unless the files are cryptographically signed in some way. This is more of a legal CYA policy, but it would be nice to be able to use OOo in places like this and have validated, signed executables.

Re:Mac Version

[w3c.org]

Yeah I've been using the 3.0 beta for a week now, on my good ol' powerbook, and it rocks. Really. No X11, it's quick (can't tell how fast loading is from NeoOffice, but quite faster). I didn't run NeoOffice since. Sure, it can be quirky, it has its glitches, but it runs ok, and saves & restores document perfectly if it crashes (happened just an hour early, got everything I was working on restored). Great thing. Go, OpenOffice team, go! :)

What I hope for

[the_crowbar]

Two things that bug me about OOo 2.3:

1) On Linux Impress can not handle more than a few slides before using 100% CPU power. We have several digital billboards (50" Plasma Tvs) and I was tasked with making sure they had something to display. No prob I thought. I set up 3 media pc cases with Ubuntu 7.10 (i386, onboard nvidia gpu) and installed OOo. I was having some problems creating the slide shows with OOo Linux. I switched to my Windows box and was able to create a basic slide show. (1280x720 resolution maybe 10 slides) I tried running the show on my Ubuntu desktop (amd64) as well as the media pcs (Ubuntu i386) and OOo Impress would jump to 100% CPU after a few slides. In the end I used Wine and PowerPoint viewer to display the slideshow because it worked without killing the CPU. Here's hoping 2.4 fixes this bug.

2) OOo base is unable to open a new form from a button on a form. I was trying to use OOo Base as a quick proof of concept for a new HR database. It is easy enough to connect Base to a MySQL DB and create a form to modify records. The problem came when I tried to create a search page. The search was fine. I could display the results in a table, but then there is no way to select a result from the table and then open it in another form. This is not really a bug rather than a much needed feature. At this point Base is ok for only the simplest of things.

the_crowbar

I can't wait to try out OOo 2.4 to see if they have fixed these two things.