| KOffice 1.5 goes gold |
Apr. 12, 2006
 The KDE Project on April 12 announced the availability of the final release of KOffice 1.5, which features OpenDocument as its default file format, enhanced accessibility for users with disabilities, and the addition of a new project planning tool, among other improvements.
The project team had shipped RC1, the final "dress rehearsal" for the final product, on March 29. The gold version of KOffice 1.5 arrived three days earlier than had been anticipated.
KOffice is an integrated office suite for KDE that offers free and open standards for its document formats, component communication, and component embedding.
Key news: Improved support for ODF
KOffice said its developers have used feedback from the beta and RC1 releases to improve support for OpenDocument Format (ODF) and interoperability with OpenOffice.org, among other programs. KChart is the program that is most improved, because its implementation was the least mature; it is still lacking in some areas, the team said.
Increased use of ODF is widely regarded as one of the most important developments in the IT industry right now, the team said on its website. ODF will give users worldwide the ability to control their own documents and ensure that all documents will always be able to read at any time in the future, the team added.
Other features of KOffice 1.5
The v1.5 release includes the following key features, according to the project team:- a frame-based, full-featured word processor (KWord)
- a spreadsheet application (KSpread)
- a presentation application (KPresenter)
- a flowchart application (Kivio)
- an integrated database application (Kexi)
- a new project management application (KPlato)
- a pixel based image editing and paint application (Krita)
- a vector-drawing application (Karbon14)
KOffice v1.5 RC1 also includes these embeddable objects:- a business-quality reporting software (Kugar)
- full-featured charting engine (KChart)
- mathematical formula handling (KFormula)
- a built-in thesaurus (KThesaurus) and support for many different file formats.
To see a detailed list of improvements, go here.
Enhanced accessibility for users with disabilities
The 1.5 version of KOffice has new support for enhanced accessibility through the means of mouseless operation and text-to-speech functionality. This improvement was sparked by Microsoft's assertion that programs using the OpenDocument file format could not be used by handicapped people, which surfaced during the ODF-vs.-proprietary formats debate in the Massachusetts legislature last fall.
Massachusetts ultimately decided to mandate use of the ODF in all state offices by Jan. 1, 2007.
"The direct outcome of this debate was that OpenOffice.org, KOffice, and vendors of other office software have been working hard on rectify this situation," the KOffice team said.
First major release of Kexi included
KOffice 1.5 contains the long-expected final 1.0 version of Kexi -- a data management application that is the KOffice counterpart to MS Access or FileMaker. It is designed from the ground up as a standard KDE database application, the team said.
Using Kexi, a new database project can be set up in less than one minute as a single efficient file, without a need for administering servers, KOffice said. When needed, MySQL server can be used for storage or existing project can be imported from MySQL server or MS Access file. The final version focuses on the data exchangeability and server support, the team added.
A number of Linux/Unix vendors have provided binary packages of KOffice 1.5 for some versions of their distributions, the project said, and in other cases community volunteers have done so. Some of these binary packages are available for free download from KDE's http and ftp mirrors.
Screenshots are available here.
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