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OpenOffice.org 3.0 Is Officially Here

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the who-needs-office-anyway dept.

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?"

12 of 284 comments (clear)

  1. Great by rimcrazy · · Score: 1, Interesting

    /. ed already.

    --
    "TV, a medium as it is neither rare nor well done." Ernie Kovacs
  2. Great ... err ... by Selanit · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Great ... err ... by electrictroy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      So as a newbie to this free software; open software paradigm:

      - Can I use OpenOffice to create "Word formatted resumes" and forward them to potential employers? Or is this like when I used GEOSwrite, and nobody could read the file, except another Commodore 64 user?

      --
      The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
    2. Re:Great ... err ... by Bert64 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You'd be surprised, windows is about the only os that doesn't have a pdf viewer by default these days.

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  3. PDF by ledow · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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).

    1. Re:PDF by domatic · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

      It imports into Draw. Short edits to text and filling in forms is simple. If you're wanting to make extensive changes to the formatting and style of the document then it is more difficult but possible. The PDF is treated as a vector image with text layers and objects for graphics and table elements. Upcoming versions of the PDF Import Extension will import into writer which will make extensive edits easier but at the expense of fidelity.

    2. Re:PDF by CaptainPalapa · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually, with most of the IT/tech jobs being staffed by recruiters, you should be used to providing the resume in Word. They do it so they can strip off all your pertinent contact information for initial presentation to the client. If you only provide it in .pdf format (I know, I've tried), then the headhunter simply won't submit you.

  4. Its useful to update version numbers... by ashraya · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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

  5. Re:Best feature for me? by JasterBobaMereel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ah OOXML support - So now even though I have licences for 4 different versions of MS Office I can now only read the documents people send me, by using a free program..... don't you just love Microsoft ....

    --
    Puteulanus fenestra mortis
  6. Writer by motang · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:Writer by Knuckles · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Depends on the dates of their next releases, I would think. Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) might have a fighting chance to have it included in its release at the end of October, there are already testing previews (ppa's). But then, 8.10 is an in-between release that does not promise maximum correctness, so they can afford to take some risks.

      --
      "When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
  7. Still Has The 6.5-Year-Old Lethal Bug? by occamboy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.)