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OpenOffice.org 3.0 Is Officially Here
SNate writes "After a grinding three-year development cycle, the OpenOffice.org team has finally squeezed out a new release. New features include support for the controversial Microsoft OOXML file format, multi-page views in Writer, and PDF import via an extension. Linux Format has an overview of the new release, asking the question: is it really worth the 3.0 label?"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
/. ed already.
"TV, a medium as it is neither rare nor well done." Ernie Kovacs
It's not really the summary at fault. Seems like the whole http://www.openoffice.org/ is giving the same response.
Look, it's simple: 3.0 is not really 3.0, but it should be considered 3.0-developer-alpha-gold. The next release will be 3.2-beta-silver-GTi, followed quickly by 3.1.1.0-gold-gold-always-believe-in-your-soul, which may (or may not) be ready for end users. Provided no show-stopper bugs are found in that (& if they are they'll just be re-classified as "WORKSFORME" and the submitter flamed), the final 3.0.1.45 version will be released to end users (apart from those in Arizona and Ohio. They have to wait for 3.1.5)
This is so obvious you'd have to be an idiot not to understand it! Duh!
The main page is ./'ed but it appears the mirrors are still fine. Just use the mirror list in Google Cache.
http://74.125.113.104/search?q=cache:chsA7FTyP3wJ:distribution.openoffice.org/mirrors/+mirrors+openoffice&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
Content Helm Noodle? Sounds like some kind of off-brand tinfoil hat ...
I think liquidpele just uncovered that Open Office is actually subsidized by the Pastafarian Church.
"DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
Or it will be once the openoffice.org sysadmin fixes their server. Major egg on the face there.
Anyway, this release has one feature that I've been longing after for years now: proper support for marginal comments.
While OO.o has long been capable of opening documents with comments in them, the user interface for reading those comments sucked HARD. The presence of a note was indicated by a tiny, light yellow rectangle at the end of the sentence. Easy to miss. And then if you wanted to actually read the comment, you had to hover your mouse over it to trigger a small yellow pop-up box containing the comment text (which would be cut off if it was a long comment). Basically, actually READING a commented document in OO.o was not practical.
This new version is much, much better. I tried it out using one of the copies that hit the mirrors before the official release, and it's soooo much better. Comments now actually show up in the margins, they've got little lines connecting them to the section of the document they apply to, and they're color coded by author. Hallelujah! Now I can finally quit depending on Word for grading student papers.
The only thing of any interest, then, is the PDF import/editing/export. Ironic, considering that the ad's on /. for this article seemed to consist mostly of Adobe Acrobat ads...
But if it really *can* import any PDF, allow basic editing and export, that could really be a boon. Other apps that allow that are either incredibly expensive, horrible to use or just too out-of-date. Does it support "encrypted" PDF's if you have the passwords, etc.? Does it allow image/text editing/extraction from a PDF? If so, then this update would be worth it for that alone.
The rest is just eye candy and basic bug fixes (e.g. >256 columns in Calc).
I have not RTFM. Nor the link. In true /. spirit, Let me state this - A new version number is sometimes needed for other reasons than adding more features.
At work I use Office 2007 from MS. Of the five systems at home, all but one use a flavour of linux with Ooo 2.x (mostly Ubuntu, but have an OLPC too). I recently decided to work on a work doc from home, but only when I wanted to open it, I realized it was docx format. I had almost given up - Ooo 2.x came before the 2007, so I did not expect support. But some desparate googling brought me to a filter that I could add, and lo presto, I could use the doc in Ooo! I had honestly not expected the functionality in Ooo 2.x!
I had given up based on version numbering and release dates, and most would too. A newer version number might prompt more of us to try harder. It helps!
Ashraya
How could they possibly implement OOXML support in OpenOffice? We've been hearing over and over how the OOXML spec is so convoluted and ill-specified that it is impossible for anyone but Microsoft to implement!
In a few days 3.01, 3.02 and 3.03 will be coming out, so I'll wait for those fixes to come out before I put down my hard-earned money
Best feature for me? New support for viewing a document as two pages side by side on the screen.
That alone for me is worth the upgrade for me, as I can now see two full size A4 pages on my monitor at home whilst typing. Thanks guys! that was a major annoyance with me.
OOXML *is* controversial and I expect a flame war - but they have read-only and I suspect it is a justified inclusion simply to keep abreast of current MS Office and help encourage adoption. I predict MS will be coming out with lots of new versions of this format, so lets see them keep pace....
Actually, it was down before Slashdot posted the story. I tried to access it a couple of hours ago, and it was down then. (Albeit without the ContentHelmNoodle error.)
Check your local friendly mirror. ;-)
The list of mirrors was already up somewhere. I've been using this stuff for a week. ;p
Have they addressed the painfully slow loading times? That is the biggest problem with OOo from my point of view.
They should just kill the minor versioning altogether and move to a "red label"/"black label" system.
Despite your atheist propaganda, you cannot deny that we whitnessing a miragulous miracle of HIs widsom and glory in full extend.
HIs noodle appendages haveth thouched the server and thus it displays his words to enlighten the unbelievers.
Behold the word: "ContentHelmNoodle"
In this time of unrest and crisis his tells us to trust in his tomatoe sauce and that we will be protected by his mercy and meatballs.
Finally! I can now recommend it to all my Mac friends.
-P
Send your resume as PDF. As long as even different Word versions can't open other Word files correctly there is no hope formatting will be preserved.
And if 'they' insist on Word files, you wouldn't want to work there anyway, as they are clearly deluded and stupid beyond measure.
Not kidding either, actually.
ContentHelmNoodle?! WTF?
The next thing we'll be serving our pages with ParkingBrakeTurboAubergines.
I "squeeze out a new release" several times a day. From different repositories, too.
I record my sleeptalking
Well I only use the Writer for majority of the time and I really welcome all the nifty changes that are in place. Good thing it is finally released, so when will the Linux distributions start to update OO 2.x to 00 3.0?
Openoffice.org has been KO'd. Here's where you can snag a torrent file though:
http://borft.student.utwente.nl/~adrian/bt.php
On a stock Dell low-end Dimension C521 running Vista Business, Open Office Writer loads in 9 seconds the first time, and in 1 second thereafter. Not really an issue anymore. Most of my apps take 5-10 seconds to start on this box.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
I work for a company that buys me MS Office. Given that I am out $0.00 for either OO or MSO, is it worth giving this a try?
Before you design for reuse, make sure to design it for use.
You obviously don't know anything about the 60's. At the time, people under 40 mostly supported the Weathermen, because they knew then that their government did not represent them and was in the employ of the military industrial complex. And he was not a "terrorist" -- he was a revolutionary. There is a difference. Washington was a revolutionary. The difference between them is that Washington won. As for your analysis as proof. Are your really that stupid? Yes, yes, you are.
I didn't RTFA (the Linux one) on account of being slashdotted, but I'd presume based on the summary that they don't think 3.0 is a big leap forward. I'm not surprised, since they're not on Mac. As a recent Mac convert, I was incredibly disappointed that OO.o, my favorite office suite, was very bad on this OS for version 2.x, on account of running in a very slow and ugly X11 window. The new version runs locally, meaning that I can finally return to using the suite I know and love.
Looks like OpenOffice already is.
I registered a bug with OO 6.5 years ago, still unfixed, that causes spreadsheets to give utterly wrong results in even the simplest calculations. Sometimes OO treats a number as a string, and assigns it a value of "0" in calculations, e.g., 1+1 could equal 0 or 1.
Either OO should throw an error "can't treat a string as a number" or it should guess the number of the string is a valid number. But a major undetectable error like this is murderous, as has been testified to by the folks reporting the same bug after I did.
(Note the OO bug tracker seems to be having problems at this moment, so the link doesn't work.)
they're lysdexic.
I installed this on a hardy heron using the .deb packages. Then I asked to a friend to send me a .docx file in order to check the .docx usability. She send me this 15.9kb file http://rapidshare.com/files/153511617/diagramas_4.docx.html and this is how it looks like on Ubuntu http://img206.imageshack.us/my.php?image=captureig5.jpg to be honest I feel a little disappointed since the .docx support was the most waited feature on this release and it don't work on linux. but it works on mac http://img406.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture1ln8.png
Less bad this is still a beta... wait a minute.
Maybe they should have just eaten a lot of prunes.
Dude, Symphony might suck giant donkey balls, or make users so happy they crap rainbows, but either way, since you haven't even tried it, of course your opinion is "relatively worthless" -- I'd even go so far as to say "completely worthless". Sheesh. At least try it out before slagging it.
(And no, I don't care about Symphony one way or the other -- something about this "I've never used it but I'm still qualified to bitch about it" attitude just pisses me off.)
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
I'm curious -- if the string is, in fact, wholly numeric, then what's the beef? How is this different from implicit casting? Or is implicit casting also wrong?
I'm not baiting, I'm actually confused by your ire.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Appears that openoffice.org is overwhelmed with download requests. I found this list of mirror sites ...
http://ftp.stardiv.de/mirmon/mirror-state.html
Everything else has tabs nowadays, perhaps splitable tabs will come next in the form of tab views. You could have different zooms as tabs or different docs have have multiple tabs showing as a split view - then you could edit docs side by side which would be great for refactoring.
You're all crazy, and clearly high on 'herbal' products and noodle sauce. Keep it up!
Help feed homeless animals - Free! www.theanimalrescuesite.com
yes there are times, where you use your foot, to move the foot shaped ball.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
You can still download OpenOffice from one of the mirrors in the list on this page: http://ftp.stardiv.de/mirmon/mirror-state.html
OpenOffice.org: "It's fully compliant and supports Microsoft OOXML file format."
Microsoft: "AHAAAAHH!! That's not possible. Uh, ... I mean ... uh, ..." (Psst, hey, did we miss something? How'd they do that?)
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Hi! You must be a Python programmer! ;)
(Full disclosure: I have two open source Python projects that I'm currently working on.)
My blog
America was founded by terrorist. If you hate terrorists then you should be fighting for control of the US to go back to Britain.
Why did the OO.org guys go to the trouble of coding all the way up to 3.0.0RC4 for OS X PPC and then not release a final version? Why bother with all that effort if you're not going to actually release it?
I make my resume in OO.o and save it to .ODF.
I then take screenshots of it (or print to postscript), then paste the cropped screenshots into OO.o and save that result as a .DOC file.
And hey, it keeps formatting exactly as you want it! :)
Actually, I'm a translator, but yes! I have dabbled in Python. :) Does your previous comment mean that you don't like the implicit casting in Python? If so, why? Again, I'm not trolling -- I'm honestly interested in your views.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
They work fine.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
torrent magnet link for the Win32 English version, with JRE: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:IK2EAKZIEQ7VDH5CYDPYQ6MLL4FEUNLG Regular torrent link for Win32 English version with JRE: http://borft.student.utwente.nl/~adrian/torrentphp/torrent.php/OOo_3.0.0_Win32Intel_install_wJRE_en-US.exe.torrent Only 5 DLs, 51 seeds (including me) at the moment. The download was fairly quick.
---
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
This happened last time. Not one week after I download the 150MB+ installer, they come out with a new version.
Need an automatic screenshot taker? Try here.
Does your previous comment mean that you don't like the implicit casting in Python? If so, why? Again, I'm not trolling -- I'm honestly interested in your views.
Cheers,
Well, yes and no. It's a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can be very powerful -- grab a number from a string and start using it with no need to convert it. OTOH, it can cause subtle problems which you may not notice at first. My first programming languages were C and Pascal, so the implicit casting in Python is kind of weird, but kind of cool in a way.
I think a good programmer can spot such problems. But should we expect spreadsheet designers to be good programmers?
My blog
Okay, hang on. I love Obama, not just for his politics but for the kind of person he is, and I think slandering his character due to his association with Bill Ayers is a joke at best, but he was a terrorist. He blew up buildings, statues, whatever, in an attempt to use terror to get attention to his message. That does not compare against Washington, who led armies against armies. We were in the midst of a formally declared war between nations fought by armies.
If it makes you feel better to call Ayers a "revolutionary", then fine. His only casualties, from what I've read, were members of his own group through an accident while building bombs. Having said that, in my book, he was a domestic terrorist, just an atypically innocuous one.
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
The official site which chooses which mirror to redirect you to is still up. You can use the form here to be redirected to a mirror for the version you'd like to download:
http://openoffice.bouncer.osuosl.org/download-form.php
Most people under 40 did NOT support the Weathermen! Your statement is monumentally wrong. You could say that most people in Berkeley, or Bloomington, or Ann Arbor supported the SDS, maybe . . . .
But the Weathermen? Never. The Weathermen were plain violent hypocrites.
I would be happy with the program as long as as a damn spell checker is functional after you install OOo. I installed the beta the other day and it seriously took me a half an hour of scanning through forums and messing around to get it working. And this was after already knowing that I had to do something from much earlier releases! Sure, it's easy once you know how, but it's a really bad first impression when you recommend the program as a alternative to MS word, only to end up receiving a phone call because the thing isn't spell checking! If a web browser can do it, there's not excuse for this. Of course, OOo isn't the only program guilty of this, (I'm looking at you too Abi word!)
And that's why they was rioting in the streets and massive demonstrations against the government. http://uktv.co.uk/history/item/aid/570636 How were they "hypocrites"?
I heard Scott McNealy speak last week. I asked about OOo in the context of team projects where everyone else is using Windows/Office. I wasn't given an answer. The problem with OOo is that it's best for 'home' users or people that don't collaborate at all. For individuals it's perfect, but you won't be asked to join any projects if everyone knows your documents will be full of weird margins and text sizes.
I'm not a programmer. However, I do design spreadsheets. I can't imagine why a designer would intentionally pass a string to a function expecting a number. If it's a matter of end-user input, use data validation.
The spreadsheet designers put strings into formulas...
Why would you do this?
Request a Linux Shockwave player here: http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/
I am holding on. I guess we differ on the definition. The British considered Washington a 'rebel' and today would call him a "terrorist" for sure, you cannot argue with that.
I could, but I'd rather argue against this:
Here is the CIA definition: Title 22 of the US Code, Section 2656f(d): * The term 'terrorism' means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents. *
Washington did not attack "noncombatant targets," nor did he employ, "the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion." (Merriam-Webster). Ayers did.
To keep this short (got work to do), Ayers doesn't fit the CIA definition, but he does fit the Merriam-Webster one. As for the U.S. being a terrorist state... that's a whole 'nother discussion, and one I'm not inclined to agree with you on, for the most part. (Iraq, on the other hand...)
Gary, it was nice chatting with you.
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
"Forbidden Links, Forbidden Fruits; Nothing to Eat, Nothing to Poot".
(Yeh, i know it's lame... but some may see it funny just the same...)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
causes a Church of the Poisoned Hind, you'll need MaxiPriest to restore you from having gone blind...
(Sorry, this from the prunester runester...)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
"Anyway, this release has one feature that I've been longing after for years now: proper support for marginal comments."
I hope you don't forget to remove disparaging (marginal) remarks from the margin/s...., hehehehe
(My comments in the margins we not truly bad, but the system devise it had me bad...)
(Prunester Runester/Punster Munster attacks!)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Wouldn't that have been a better starting point than that thing they call Symphony, which is quite a let-down to me, as I was hoping SmartSuite would have been the basis. Symphony is the name of an earlier Lotus product that got eclipsed by Lotus 1-2-3 and Lotus Approach.
I am most deeply saddened that IBM simply cannot strip out the stuff to which they do not own patents, then ask the Open Source community to restore the broken functionality, then encourage people to comb the code and rebuilt then non-IBM patents version into a patent-free NEW SMART SUITE.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
are reminding me of "Return of the Living Dead", where two characters woke up from the gas leaked from the drum.
The younger one said to the older one, "You stupid asshole!"
The older one said, "You better watch your TONGUE BOY if you like this job."
"LIKE THIS *JOB*????" exclaimed the younger one....
Do you like your job? (hehehe)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Ummm, Python is strongly typed. Try to add "1" and 1 sometime and see what happens. I think you have it confused with Perl.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
A Linux x86_64 (64-bit) version of OpenOffice 3 is available from the openoffice.org website.
Prior versions were available for download only in Linux/i386 versions. If you wanted a native 64-bit version you would either have to compile it yourself (which is supposed to be a real undertaking, though I've never tried it myself) or simply use the one that your distribution provides.
The filename for the 64-bit Linux version is OOo_3.0.0_LinuxX86-64_install_en-US.tar.gz
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Then consider switching the entire project team to OpenOffice. It's free (unlike MS-Office, where as a user community you're forced to upgrade when the first team member starts using the MS-Office-du-jour he got "for free" with his new laptop).
I've had consistently bad experience with collaboration using MS-Office because of incompatibilities between MS-Office revisions and the cost of rectifying that situation.
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
http://74.125.113.104/search?q=cache:chsA7FTyP3wJ:distribution.openoffice.org/mirrors/+mirrors+openoffice&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
Rather than linking to the single server 74.125.113.104, use www.google.com in the link.
&hl=en
&ct=clnk
&cd=1
and
&gl=us
are all noise.
Your search string "mirrors+openoffice" is also noise.
The link becomes http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:chsA7FTyP3wJ:distribution.openoffice.org/mirrors/
gewg_
I got mine a little while ago, and finally (on my own) also got rid of that annoying basic bug soon after. You can scoff, but their site has an apology like its been slashdotted (not just slashdotted but dugg and a few others as well). I downloaded mine via bittorrent in about 8 minutes (not bad for 148 megabytes). I uninstalled my default ubuntu OOo and installed this beast. Starts up fast and looks nice. Will likely be in Ubuntu 8.10. Their site though is being hammered. I don't know what their traffic is like, but I'm guessing their traffic in a 1 hour period is like what Slashdot gets over 24 hours on a really bad/busy day.
> It's one of those things that used to pop up and ask us to buy stuff before adblocker came out.
The internet still has those!? I thought they vanished several years ago because I haven't seen one in so long.
The catch phrase these days is "the Cloud". Google Docs is now the new competitor to MS Office. OpenOffice.org is doomed to a 1995-2007 world. The rest of us will move on and up. I am alread 95% Google Docs. I do all my financing, testing, and data collecting from it. I have been using in almost entirely since I picked up my Teaching Certification with Dallas ISD. I now use it for lesson plans, worksheets, presentations, lectures, and just about everything else. Google Docs leaves MS Office and OOo in the dust when it comes to portability. I do all my work at home, and don't even have to worry about which flash drive it was saved on. I know its safe in the Clouds.
I've given up on Slashdot's comment scores.
The 3.0 version it's only available for half of the supported languages, the others must keep 2.4.1
Sure.
>>> import decimal
>>> d=decimal.Decimal
>>> a="1"
>>> b=1
>>> print d(a)+d(b)
2
My blog
Great link! Forbidden You don't have permission to access /servlets/ContentHelmNoodle on this server.
Apache Server at www.openoffice.org Port 80
Download from your favorite distro: Debian Experimental already has it in and works well within KDE 4.1.2 and Gnome. I've been using the RC candidates for a while.
As long as we're casting about:
:-)
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
> the OpenOffice.org team has finally squeezed out a new release
You know, the image I get in my head from that line is not at all pleasant....
....the opposite of irony is ebony
To sit at 3-oh as the prince of your chair.
[apologies to Will Smith]
Ask me about repetitive DNA
Sort of answering the thread: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/OpenOfficeorg-Grows-Up/?kc=rss
When Sun Microsystems bought the little-known StarOffice productivity suite in 1999, and soon thereafter released the product's code base as open-source software, it was unclear how far the arguably quixotic initiative might reachâ"and what damage it could possibly wreak on Microsoft's ironclad grip on the office productivity market.
Now, nine years later, Sun is on the verge of a major 3.0 release of the project that grew up around that code base, OpenOffice.org. While OpenOffice.org hasn't achieved the same measure of mainstream adoption as its ideological cousin, the Firefox Web browser, the freely available office suite has helped advance the state of file format standardization, to the extent that Microsoft first developed its own open file format and is now prepared to include support for the ISO-standard OpenDocument format in Office 2007.
It wasn't IBM but Sun... My Goof!
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Ooo is often VERY good at importing MS files, sometimes it's better at it than than MS apps, because the Ooo guys know that their code has to respond elegantly to unexpected departures from the strict file specs due to undocumented MS wrinkles. So if you use MSWord, you should probably have a copy of Ooo installed too, for emergency file-recovery purposes: if you ever get a corrupted Word file that Word refuses to read, there's a fair chance that Ooo will still be able to import it (and resave it in a format that Word can read).
Eric Baird
Blowing things up that don't belong to you may be antisocial, but doesn't automatically make someone a terrorist. Same goes for graffiti, public demonstrations, shoplifting and civil disobedience.
Terrorism is about leveraging disproportionate fear to achieve political ends, often with a deliberate randomisation factor to spread fear more widely (sort of like the the inverse of the lottery's "It could be you" slogan).
Similarly, you don't have to blow things up or destroy property or create immediate physical harm to be a terrorist. One can "terrorise" with dummy bombs or fake bomb threats, or threats relating to third parties ("boogeymen").
In fact, technically, what the Bush administration did when they used unrealistic warnings about an Iraqi WMD programme to insist that the US population supported their invasion, could be argued as being terrorism. "Do exactly what we say or the terrorists will get you" could be argued as being a form of terrorism if the threat is unrealistic, as could "Let us do what we want or the terrorists win".
So, given Condi's infamous warning about mushroom clouds, the attempt to push through draconian legislation in the wake of 9-11, the insistence on the need to invade Iraq and the characterisation of dissidents as being on the side of the terrorists (and then the use of the resulting ongoing war to help them get their second election win) ... I guess we could classify this administration as reasonably successful terrorists.
Eric Baird
Well it's pretty damn obvious.
As with this terrorist "Mafiaboy" who should be hanged, even 'tho he was only 15 at the time (See today'sother /. thread), perhaps Ayers and Obama should be hanged also.
Although Obama was supposedly "only eight" when Ayers was dynamiting the WTC or whatever horrendous things he did, it's clear they are BOTH guilty.
And it's a pity we did not know Obama back then! It would have been oh, so much easier to hang him as an an eight year old! And, golly- as a black too!
And while we're at it it, let's hang a few of Ayer's fellow professors, and some of his students. They are guilty of associating with him after all.
We say: "Hang 'em ALL, and let God (he's an American also) sort them out!"
- - Republican Committee to extend Capital Punishment