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Open Office Plans To Party Like It's Version 3.0
penguin_dance writes "The Register reports that 'OpenOffice.org is throwing a launch party in Paris on 13 October' to celebrate eight years, and hopefully announce the release of version 3.0. Some notes: [OpenOffice.org 3.0] will support the OpenDocument Format 1.2 standard, and be able to open files created by MS Office 2007 and Office 2008 for Mac OS X." As maj_id10t notes, though the OO.o site does not yet carry an announcement, "Lifehacker has posted an entry stating the final release of OpenOffice 3.0 is available for download via their distribution mirrors."
Actually, I recently tried the release candidate for the OS X Aqua version. It's horribly ugly (just like on other platforms), but it does seem to work.
Yup. And since Microsoft has dropped the only compelling feature that set Office for Mac apart from other office suites (VBA macros) and STILL hasn't made Entourage into a first-class Exchange client, OpenOffice 3 is now just as good (though not quite as good looking). Grats, OO.o team; adios, billg.
0 1 - just my two bits
I would love to see a feature list.
Took all of three seconds to go to the website and get it.
http://marketing.openoffice.org/3.0/featurelistbeta.html
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
The PPC version is hidden away with one of the openoffice "Projects" -- click on the projects tab, and then you're on your own, but eventually you get to an ftp site. I've found it to be very stable in light use (I mostly use the Linux version).
There is such a huge difference in features and usability that there is no way that OpenOffice would gain any ground over Microsoft, in my opinion.
I'm not a big fan of OpenOffice myself and I can't really say anything about features, but to praise MS Office's usability seems utterly absurd to me.
I am reasonably computer-savy, but if I have to do anything more complicated than typing a really simple letter, Word drives me up the wall. It constantly feels like I have to work against it, instead of having it do work for me.
Same thing in Excel: I'd rather use pencil & paper or write my own scripts instead for every calculation I have to do, than trying to get Excel to do anything that even remotely resembles what I want it to do
Mind you, I'm not saying OO is any better in that respect. I'm just saying it can hardly be any worse
Like any other piece of software, there are things you feel like you couldn't live without and things you have to get used to. I remember it felt clunky when I first started using it, but that went away very quickly. Some things are more elegant than in MSOffice, some less. I've been using v3.0 for a while now (beta and fc releases), and I like it quite a bit. One of the big clunkinesses, the graphical depiction of comments/notes, is now very nice. There are still some screen rendering oddities that don't get in my way but do contribute to the impression of clunkiness. On the whole, I imagine it's still clunkier than its commercial counterpart, but the gap is narrowing. However, I rarely edit documents that are more than a few hundred pages long, and I know many of OO's critics say that its shortcomings are especially obvious if you work on long documents. So I can't comment on that.
How has MSOffice come along in the same time? Is pdf writing integrated now? Do files still bloat to ridiculous sizes on repeated editing?
I'm always sceptical when people talk about using OO seriously with "no problems".
It's strange that so many people on Slashdot make claims like this, yet for me and various people I know in real life, basic things like sorting in OO Calc seem to fail on any non-trivial spreadsheet. Heck, I even got the Undo command not to undo simple find-and-replace changes properly the other day.
And have they fixed the font embedding that kills PDF export from Writer yet? It's only been a bug since forever, with more votes than almost anything else in the bug tracker.
As long as this sort of thing is going on, usability isn't even an issue: OO isn't even useful for more than throwaway work, and it actually seems to be getting worse in the 2.x series to the point that it's not even useful for much throwaway work either.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Miscellaneous Features
Feature list is available here
Release notes are here
OK, i just popped open OO.org to verfy your claims. here's what i found:
unless you're just trolling, you might make a more convincing case if you actually listed specific complaints instead of, oh i dunno, pulling things out of your ass? honestly, there are a lot of things to get used to when switching from MS Office to OO.org (i spent most of my life using MS Office), and that transition can be pretty frustrating. but don't blame your own inability to adapt (or to even try to adapt) on the software.
neither MS Office, nor OO.org are perfect. personally, i've had problems with both of them. but so far i haven't heard a single legitimate complaint leveled against OO.org. so i have to conclude that these groundless criticisms are just knee-jerk reactions to having to adapt to a new office suite application.
the only problem i've had to OO.org is trying to make PDF documents with complex layouts using tables with varying column/row spans. but i've had the exact same problem in Word. all WYSIWYG editors have quirks like these, and i can't say that one is better than the other.
Do yourself a favor and learn LaTeX. Yes, it has a learning curve and you need lots of documentation and/or an internet connection to know which packages you need but at least it provides consistent results, doesn't reformat half of your text on a whim and isn't nearly as frustratingly annoying as any Word-like program.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
It sounds like you should have tried Oxygenoffice instead of Openoffice,as it comes with a lot more with regards to templates and such out of the box. Of course it takes them a little while after the latest Open Office release,so why not bookmark tham and check it out in a month or so when version 3 comes out?
That said I don't really think OO.o is really for the "power users" of MSO,because they get more use out of the little features that a good 85% of the public probably doesn't even know is there. Where I have had luck switching folks is the basic home users,where they are just writing docs,working up some basic spreadsheets,and maybe cooking up a contact list database. They,along with my older users who can't stand the stupid ribbon seem to have no problem making the switch to OO.o.
I have personally always been a believer in the right tool for the job. Since I have a copy of MSOffice 2K I picked up several years ago for cheap at the shop I worked at that is what I primarily use. But for my home users it would simply be stupid to spend even $100 on the student/home edition of MSOffice when OO.o does everything they'd use an office suite for for free. I also like how I can whip out a copy of OO.o 1.5 for those folks around here that are still using older machines and give them an office suite that doesn't slow their machine to a crawl. Both MSOffice and Open Office seem to be getting a lot more bloated IMHO. But if only MSOffice gets the job done for you please stick with it and enjoy. But even as a MSOffice user I'm sure you'd agree having choice in the matter is a good thing.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Look at issue 43029.
Notice that it is classified as a feature request rather than a bug and its target milestone is only 3.2, despite being first created more than three years ago, having over 200 votes, and numerous comments on this issue and its various duplicates showing how it's a complete showstopper for using most professional grade fonts with PDF export.
This bug has become the standard counter-example in on-line discussions to all the OSS advocacy that claims many eyes make all bugs shallow, products will naturally develop according to users' needs because people can contribute their own patches, etc.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Meh. I use Keynote as my main presentation software, but I am thinking of switching back to PPT. It is very easy to use, and looks great, but when you're going to a conference, you end up exporting to PPT anyway, and then you have to edit that PPT in Powerpoint to fix all the things that didn't make the jump. It's wonderful if you're sure that your laptop is going to work perfectly.
Have you tried exporting to PDF? Unless you have some fancy animations is the best way to have a portable persentation. Almost every pdf viewer has a full screen mode for presentations.
Hi, I'm a Mac. I'd rather pay a lot of money for a proprietary closed source piece of software used to make a document, than to download a free piece of software (and hopefully donate a few bucks) that can make an equally good document, because if the software interface I use to make documents does not exactly and precisely match the look of my environment, I am incapable, and even paralyzed, at even the thought of making such documents with such an unfashionable looking interface.
These numbers speak tones.
That's fucking awesome! How do they make them do that?
As a Mac user, I'm excited to finally be dumping NeoOffice. I hate the system-deep installer. With OO.o v3, it's a proper single-directory bundle. Installation is just drag-and-drop. And no more random boat - the OO.o icon is slick and looks great in the dock.
My biggest complaint with OO.o (and I use it exclusively now, and have moved over my parents from MS Office with no issues) is a frustrating bug with OpenType fonts. They always render fine, but exporting to PDF (something I do often) converts them to some other random font.
Looks like it will be fixed, but not until 3.2 — which feels like forever, since this has been an issue for a very long time. It's especially frustrating since some of the best free fonts out there are OTF fonts.
If you to help increase the visibility of this bug, please vote for Bug #43029.
I've come to a conclusion about those who say "write a patch" if you say there's a problem with something. Either they truly don't understand just how powerfully it turns people off from using their software, or they do know and it's an intentional "fuck you" to those they decide are "outsiders."
Either way, the outcome is the same: They actively drive users away, in FOSS's case back into the comforting arms of Microsoft. It creates a rift between reality and the developer's perception of reality, which results in the project not moving towards progress but orthogonally to it, or worse away.
And here enlies the problem with the "write a patch" types: I gaurantee you I can find an aspect of your computer you aren't an expert at, and you'd be pissed at me if I threw it in your face when you asked for help. Your accountant doesn't tell you to fix your own damn tax problem, the mechanic doesn't derisively laugh because you don't know how to re-gap your own spark plugs, and as a user of FOSS I'd prefer not being snidely mocked just because I don't dedicate hours a day learning your little corner of it. For all the egalitarianism of FOSS, there is still fundamentally a business relationship between the programmers and the users. Until we learn that and put a lid on the "write your own patch" people, it will never equal proprietary software except for a handful of diamonds in the rough.
Why so thorny? Because I've been a recipient of that attitude a few times. And not even my hardcore nerd's reverse tact filter could stop it from getting under my skin.
That's not a curve. That is a wall.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
While I agree that the grandparent is engaged in some first-rate asshattery, I'd just like to make one comment. You say:
Your accountant doesn't tell you to fix your own damn tax problem, the mechanic doesn't derisively laugh because you don't know how to re-gap your own spark plugs
The difference here is that you are paying your accountant and your mechanic for their expertise. Most of the people who receive comments along the lines of 'write a patch' have not contributed anything. On the Free Software project I co-run, we have a designer on the core team. He provides a lot of really high-quality artwork and some good UI ideas. If he comes to me with a feature request, then it goes quite high on my TODO list. Why? Because he's contributed to the project in ways that I am incapable of replacing with my own effort. I recently refactored a big chunk of my code to make it more reusable for someone else. Why? Because at the same time as asking me to, he sent me a diff fixing a few of my bugs.
Free Software is about cooperation. I only benefit from sharing my improvements if other people do as well. We both benefit from not having to reproduce the other's work, and so can get on with things we want to do much faster. If you want something done, then you have to convince me that it's in my interest to do it for you, usually by offering something in return. Whether this is code, artwork, documentation, or money is up to you. If you don't offer anything then the reply will be 'patches welcome' which means either offer me something of value in exchange for my time, or offer someone else something and get them to send me the patch.
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