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Sneak Preview of New OpenOffice 3.2
omlx writes 'The last developer milestone (DEV300m60) of OpenOffice.org has been released. The next version of OpenOffice.org 3.2 has more than 42 features and 167 enhancements . The final version is expected to be available at the end of November 2009. Many companies have contributed to this version, like RedHat, RedFlag and IBM, making OpenOffice more stable and useful. I couldn't stop myself from seeing new features and enjoying them. So I downloaded the DEV300m60 version. After playing with it for many days I could say that OpenOffice developers have done very good work in it. Well done!"
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A sneak preview of new OpenOffice 3.2 part 1
By FahadTue, 10/20/2009 - 17:20
The last developer milestone ( DEV300m60) of OpenOffice.org has been released. The next version of OpenOffice.org 3.2 has more than 42 features and 167 enhancements . The final version is expected to be available at the end of November 2009.Open Office 3.2
Many companies have contributed to this version like RedHat , RedFlag and IBM, making OpenOffice more stable and useful. I couldn't stop myself from seeing new features and enjoying them. So I downloaded DEV300m60 version. After playing with it for many days I could say that OpenOffice developers have done very good work in it. Well done !
I will review in this post some interesting features : more secure , faster , easier and more international.
more secure
Detect if non-encrypted streams are in encrypted document:
OOo expects that an encrypted document does not contain any non-encrypted streams starting from ODF1.2 version. The exceptions are the streams that are part of the ODF format: "mimetype", "META-INF/manifest.xml" and signature streams that follow the pattern "META-INF/*signatures*".
The manifest.xml is part of the document signature now:
In OpenOffice.org 3.2, the manifest.xml will be signed . This will introduce the limitation that macro signatures can't be introduced after the document was signed, because this would need manipulation of the (then) signed manifest.xml.
ODF document integrity check:
The document integrity check proves now whether the ODF document conforms the ODF specification. It mainly affects the ODF1.2 documents. If an inconsistency is found, the document is treated as a broken one, the office suggests to repair the document in this case. The macros are disabled in repaired documents.
Faster
Many issues have been fixed in order to make OpenOffice.org faster. The happy news that OpenOffice.org 3.2 is now faster than before in many aspects. The startup now 30% faster in Windows. Many issues have been ironed out in Writer (6 issues) and Calc (10 issues) regarding loading and saving times.
Now I can see that OpenOffice is faster than before but still there are many things have to be done in speed side.
More easier
Default button in password dialog now is "OK" :Default button in password dialog
Although it is a small change but it makes OpenOffice more usable . Now The OK button in the password dialog is the default button again .
Remove the password length limitation:
password length limitation" The current minimal password length limitation ( 5 characters ) is outdated and makes no sense any more. Thus the limitation is removed, although the password is not allowed to be empty. "
Import of password protected Microsoft Office XML documents:
This is a great feature. Many people asked me how we can open password protected docx/xlsx files. All document types are supported including: MS Word 2007 documents (*.docx, *.docm) - MS Word 2007 templates (*.dotx, *.dotm) - MS Excel 2007 documents (*.xlsx, *.xlsm) - MS Excel 2007 binary documents (*.xlsb) - MS Excel 2007 templates (*.xltx, *.xltm) - MS Powerpoint 2007 documents (*.pptx, *.pptm) - MS Powerpoint 2007 templates (*.potx, *.potm).
Encryption support for "Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP" :
This new feature make saving password protected Microsoft Word document possible with Microsoft Office standard RC4 algorithm.
Keyboard shortcut configuration dialog now supports "ALT" modifier:
supports ALT modifierBefore OpenOffice.org 3.2, the dialog for configuring keyboard shortcuts never allowed to use the ALT-key. Now ALT as well as SHIFT-ALT, CTRL-ALT and SHIFT-CTRL-ALT modifiers can be used in the dialog.
Impress and Draw now support comments:
To support collaboration, it is now possible to add comments to a presentation or drawing
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Actually, Microsoft Office isn't all that compatible with Microsoft Office, when you are talking about different versions. In my 6-7 years running Linux at work, I used OpenOffice exclusively to write and edit documents, and to create and modify spreadsheets. I never had a problem exchanging documents with others. Of course, I was careful to save documents in the Microsoft Word "DOC" format, and spreadsheets in the Microsoft Excel "XLS" format.
It's true that sometimes Word will fail to render a document properly. But it's not the fault of OpenOffice - sometimes, Microsoft Word fails to properly display other Microsoft Word files. An example I wrote about a few months ago:
I think it just goes to show: if you have a document that absolutely must preserve formatting, send it as a PDF.
It is as compatible as different versions of MS Office...
Sorry, but that simply isn't true. The last major screw-up Microsoft made on that front was nearly a decade ago. They may have introduced different file formats since, but new versions of Office open files created in older versions just fine, and in some cases vice versa if you download the right add-in software from MS.
You are only totally compatible when everyone is running the same version of the same program.
Indeed. And that means your comment overlook sthe fundamental problem: most people aren't comparing moving from one version of MS Office to either another version or to OpenOffice. They already have a version of MS Office that works fine, and is compatible with itself just fine. OpenOffice being 100% compatible isn't a plus point relative to what most users already have, it's merely a prerequisite for even being equal, and one that isn't yet satisfied for a lot of people.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
This is not my experience in the least. In my day-to-day, I have far more documents created in OO.o that end up looking mangled in all versions of Word than ones that come out looking right. And it's also a rare occurance when a .doc sent to me displays properly in OO.o, and I'm certain many are made in 2003 and some in 2007.
For example, I recently had to make a .doc format resume for a job application, and it was completely mangled on the other end even though it looked fine in OO.o. The only thing this had was some alignment changes, headers, and paragraph text. After getting the job, I had to coordinate with background check people, movers and the like, which included sending lots of word documents, some including forms, back and forth. The forms didn't work at all (they showed up mangled, I couldn't click them even though the fields were visible), and the layout of the non-form-encrusted documents were usually mangled.
In fact, I can't recall a single instance where a somewhat complicated word document (one that contains more than just text of various sizes in standard paragraphs) displayed correctly in Open Office when it was created with Word or displayed correctly in any version of Word when it was created with Open Office.
...Therefore, all (yes, ALL!) of the available vertical space in the application
window should be devoted to displaying the document.
There is plenty of room for controls to the side, or perhaps sliding down
from the top on demand. A one-line control bar at the top might be
justified for inherently horizontal things like font and style names, but
that's it.
As it is, we are editing our documents through the letter slot in the door.
Maybe that will be version 4.0
Running OpenOffice.org 3.1.1. The default toolbars can be docked to either side of the document window, or dragged off onto floating palettes. This leaves only the horizontal ruler above the document.
(One bug: If you have the toolbars as palettes, and you arrange two document windows side-by-side on your screen, the palettes will jump around whenever you switch from one window to the other.)
It's not 100% compatible like Office.
For home use the compatibility is good enough but in business EVERYTHING has to look just right and consistent. When we evaluated it we found that:
1. We would have to recreate a 2nd set of templates for OpenOffice. We're talking 100s of templates that need to be duplicated and then maintained.
2. Most of our old documents (we're talking TBs worth) had at least minor formatting issues. Like something as small as the logo moved 5mm to the left. Which in the business world is a big deal. It's impossible to fix them all.
3. Even if we did fix them when they're opened in Word again there's a high chance that a new formatting issue would be introduced. So you can't reliably collaborate with people using MS Office (that means other employees in the company, clients, partners, etc!)
The only way it would have worked for us is if we invested in recreating templates, given up on old documents and kept that department working in isolation.
Every couple of years we put together a team of a dozen volunteers and test it again. OpenOffice has been getting better and it's just a matter of time before it's good enough.
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I was going to say post links to the RTF issue that you are talking about but I did a Search and H01y$hit!
229 issues!
http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/buglist.cgi?issue_type=DEFECT&issue_type=ENHANCEMENT&issue_type=FEATURE&issue_type=PATCH&issue_status=UNCONFIRMED&issue_status=NEW&issue_status=STARTED&issue_status=REOPENED&issue_status=RESOLVED&email1=&emailtype1=exact&emailassigned_to1=1&email2=&emailtype2=exact&emailreporter2=1&issueidtype=include&issue_id=&changedin=&votes=&chfieldfrom=&chfieldto=&chfieldvalue=&short_desc=rtf&short_desc_type=allwords&long_desc=&long_desc_type=allwords&issue_file_loc=&issue_file_loc_type=fulltext&status_whiteboard=&status_whiteboard_type=fulltext&keywords=&keywords_type=anytokens&field0-0-0=noop&type0-0-0=noop&value0-0-0=&cmdtype=doit&order=Reuse+same+sort+as+last+time&Submit+query=Submit+query
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My experience is just the opposite. I've had several documents created in MSOffice95 that wouldn't open properly in MSOffice2003. Open Office 3.0 on the other hand opened them just fine.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
I've had the same experience - frequently, a document too fouled up to open in MS office, will magically be "fixed" if opened and resaved from OO.o.
My experience is just the opposite. I've had several documents created in MSOffice95 that wouldn't open properly in MSOffice2003.
Office95 had major compat problems with other Office versions, but that's ancient history now. Most people who use MSOffice today use either 2000, XP, 2003 (majority), or 2007 (second largest). Between those 4 versions, it works.
I had used a resume template to build the resume. I kinda liked it and have stayed with it. The template had lines drawn on it. These lines were moved all over the page and the text blocks were also not aligned. Basically, it would require a re-write.
This was done because my current job didn't have a copy of my resume on file, so I wanted to update it before giving it to them.
Recently, I've started re-desiging it anyways just to come up with something modern to feel out the market. I'm using Apple's pages now.
Honestly, I like iWork over office or openoffice.
My work is pushing open office right now. We have it easy as most outbound documents are published as pdf. The transition for us has been seamless. We are dual piloting office 2007 and open office. More users are leaning to open office because the interface of 2007 is 'scary'.
Until you try to save a file in Excel that says it saves fine, but if you close it an open it again, it blows up massively. Excel 2003 will do that if you have too many comments in cells (which is a nice way of annotating differences between sheets). Self-compatibility doesn't even work half the time in MS Office.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
You know, I used to think it was solely an OpenOffice.org issue, and while the application certainly could be snappier and less bloated in some areas, I don't think it's nearly as bad as people make it out to be.
As the only Computer Science teacher at my high school, I often inherit lots of older hardware. The other day our local technician gave me three old Celeron 600MHz laptops that he was just going to throw in the trash. I decided to turn them into workstations for my students who did not have easy access to computers at home. As they were slow machines, I set them up with a basic Ubuntu install running IceWM -- it runs quite snappy, and is a bit more user-friendly than say DSL.
I considered installing AbiWord for a word processor, but chose OO.o mainly because we have it installed on the school servers anyway. The result? It takes about 6-7 seconds to load up, and responds quite well. As a point of comparison, the 2GHz Pentium 4 machines running XP and Word in our department office launch Word in approximately 5-6 seconds, so it's pretty much on par.
I know that OO.o is a beast sometimes, but my experiences have been fairly positive.