| OpenOffice 3.0 ships |
Oct. 14, 2008
 OpenOffice.org (OOo) has shipped a major update to its free, cross-platform office suite. OpenOffice.org 3.0 features native Mac OS X support for the first time, along with more MS Office interoperability including "Open XML" and ".accdb" file format support for Office 2007 and Access 2007, respectively.
The new version of the eight-year-old office suite was celebrated at a launch even in Paris today. Other touted new features include better support for VBA macros, and features aimed at helping Writer users create XHTML and MediaWiki documents.
OpenOffice is a C++ desktop productivity suite that includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, graphics, "formula," and database capabilities, according to OOo. It targets enterprises, offices, schools, and home users. The new 3.0 release has already been downloaded "hundreds of thousands of times," in pre-release form, according to the organization.
The new release boasts a "fresh look," including a new start center, splash screen, new icons, and usability improvements, OOo said. The group lists new features as follows:- Writer (word processing):
- New slider control for zooming which allows multi-page display while editing
- Powerful new multilingual support
- Improved notes capabilities
- Ability to edit wiki documents for the web, in addition to conventional office documents
- Calc (spreadsheet):
- Increase in capacity of up to 1024 columns per sheet
- Powerful new equation solver
- New collaboration feature for multiple users
- Draw (graphics):
-
- Ability to cope with poster-size graphics - up to three square meters or 32.3 square feet.
- Impress (presentation):
- Fully featured table designer inside a presentation
Additionally, support for extensions lets organizations and individuals customize the suite while avoiding "feature bloat," the OOo said. Avialable extensions are said to include an Impress presenter console, support for business analytics, PDF import, creation of Hybrid PDF documents, and support for additional languages.
Louis Suárez-Potts, community manager of OpenOffice.org, stated, "As government after government, enterprise after enterprise adopt the Open Document Format (the ISO-approved format OpenOffice.org uses natively), they frequently adopt OpenOffice.org and love it. With 3.0, the application is more interoperable with MS Office, more capable, more extensible. It frees the desktop from vendor lock-in."
Florian Effenberger, marketing project co-lead, stated, "OpenOffice.org 3.0 is more powerful than ever before and with support for MS Access 2007 .accdb files, improved support for VBA macros, and a new ability to read MS Office Open XML files, it's even easier to make the change away from legacy MS Office software."
John McCreesh, marketing project lead, stated, ""OpenOffice.org 3.0 shows that despite the growth of web applications, when it comes to serious work, desktop-based software reigns supreme for the speed of use and sheer range of features offered."
OpenOffice 3.0 is available now for download, here.
Additionally, OOo announced its OpenOffice.org Conference 2008, to be held in Beijing, China, Nov. 5-7.
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