Slashdot Mirror
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
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
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. ;-)
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.
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.
Sounds like the default settings suck.
Its a fucking word processor - you shouldn't have to nergle your snerds correctly to get it working.
3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
ContentHelmNoodle?! WTF?
The next thing we'll be serving our pages with ParkingBrakeTurboAubergines.
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
Yeah, but you don't make it publicly available via http, ftp and torrent.
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.)
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."
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.
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! :)
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
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