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OpenOffice 3 has PDF import, native Aqua UI, and Tara Reid

blog.gobanquet.com — There ’s been quite a bit of buzz recently after it was announced that OpenOffice 3 was due in September. It seems, however, most people still aren’t aware of what’s in store.

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  • dynacrylic, on 01/28/2008, -9/+322This makes me laugh:
    "Support for MS Office 2007 XML. Microsoft confusingly calls this ‘Office Open XML’. We call it Stop Naming Your Unstable Undocumented ***** Format To Sounds Like Ours Thanks."
    • manitoba98xp, on 01/28/2008, -1/+61SNYUUSFTSLOT. Catchy.
      • thcobbs, on 01/28/2008, -4/+24basically.... Microsoft is stuffing bad ***** up a slot?
      • gameforge, on 01/28/2008, -1/+22Most people will recognize it not as the clever acronym that it is, but as the sound of somebody snorting a line of cocaine... that's why it'll stick.
      • benplaut, on 01/31/2008, -0/+1Gesundheit.
    • Darkhacker, on 01/29/2008, -0/+20That's why I personally refuse to call it "OOXML" and instead use the term MSOXML, for Microsoft Office XML.
      • JohnFlux, on 01/29/2008, -0/+5I like 'MOOXML' personally :-)
        • buddyfarr, on 01/29/2008, -2/+1is that the same as MOOXML Prime? wasn't he in the Transformers??
    • esc27, on 01/29/2008, -1/+1Odd that such an "Unstable Undocumented ***** Format " is even supported. Given the commentary I'd expect it to be either impossible or highly undesirable.
    • Vinvin, on 01/29/2008, -0/+2Damn right, Dugg for awesome writing style :)
  • KevinJim, on 01/28/2008, -11/+121I hope Microsoft's crap "Office Open XML" format don't pass as international accepted format and ODF get the stage. Then OOo developers can focus on essential thing like efficient UI ( and hopefully good looking ), speed and other stuff, instead of reverse engineering BS.
    • lengau, on 01/28/2008, -1/+30Here's the thing, though.
      NO office suite supports OOXML.
      One would think that Microsoft Office 2007 would.
      It doesn't.
      It supports something *very similar* to OOXML. But it does NOT support standard OOXML.
      So there is absolutely no real reason to support OOXML, especially when one considers that there are already ways for MS Office to read and write ODF files...
      • lewscroo, on 01/28/2008, -5/+6OOXML is just going to be whatever Microsoft says it is and will be updated regularly to reflect what they want/need, so it does 'support' ooxml
      • psilanthropist, on 01/29/2008, -1/+1the pages app in apple's iwork 08 suite supports ooxml just fine,
  • ekso, on 01/28/2008, -8/+35I've been using OO for quite a few years, but... on the new version, can you EASILY AND QUICKLY change and install dictionaries in other languages???
  • Cymrubeats, on 01/28/2008, -32/+6The last time i tried open office (a few weeks ago), i got a warning, after the splash, that it couldn't find a valid java install. That kinda put me off, for very obvious reasons (and for the 'less cerebral' out there, yes, yes, it had been working for over a week beforehand, and yes, i had, and still have jre1.6.0_04 installed ).
    • SuperWinner, on 01/28/2008, -5/+31Just cuz your computer is messed does not mean OO is a ***** product...
      • Cymrubeats, on 01/28/2008, -15/+8I don't understand how you conclude my computer is messed up. I haven't reinstalled java since before the problem occurred, yet everything else that utilises it still works fine (just as i pointed out in the 'for the less cerebral' part...i knew i should have simplified it further, i do apologise.)

        Or perhaps you meant nothing is supposed to work with java, and it's messed because it was only OO that ***** up?

        Either way, i went over my intial post and still can't find where i said it was *****. Projecting in a defensive manner are we?
        • Luminoth, on 01/28/2008, -2/+13"Projecting in a defensive manner are we?"

          Welcome to Digg.
        • rezonq3, on 01/29/2008, -1/+8I think the reason SuperWinner said that is, the majority of people who install OpenOffice do not have a problem. The logical conclusion to problem solving your situation is, your computer is messed up. Call a tech.
        • LastDitchHero, on 01/29/2008, -0/+4Try to download OpenOffice with JRE if you are under Windows, if your under Linux check again for your Java, if your on a Mac I have no clue.
        • buddyfarr, on 01/29/2008, -0/+0tr uninstalling and reinstalling Java.
    • rastakid, on 01/29/2008, -0/+1Are you running Ubuntu? Some weeks ago an X client update b0rked installed Java-based apps.
  • Bartboy919, on 01/28/2008, -8/+78Tara Reid? DO NOT WANT!
  • meshman, on 01/28/2008, -22/+5Does it have an Outlook replacement yet? That would make it kind of useful.

    • carbon12, on 01/28/2008, -1/+25FTA:
      "New PIM....Specifically touted by OpenOffice developers as an ‘Outlook replacement’"
    • SuperWinner, on 01/28/2008, -0/+21Thunderbird works very well, I replaced Outlook with it a long time ago and thanks to the plug ins, I can do about 10 times more with Thunderbird than I ever could with Outlook. Like one click to send phishing emails to phishtank, one click to pass all my spam on to KnuJon, Message level authentication, a button to do redirects... etc etc etc. All this is great for average users but its amazing if you are a system administrator.
      • noahsawyer, on 01/28/2008, -0/+17Plus it's free.
        • ashmon, on 01/28/2008, -1/+22Big deal. Outlook comes free with every $500 MS Office purchase. Oh, wait...
        • buddyfarr, on 01/29/2008, -0/+0thank you ashmon for the laugh of the day!! :)
      • SuperWinner, on 01/29/2008, -0/+3I forgot to mention, lightning plug in does integrated calendar function with iCal support. (common calendar format, even compatible with Outlook) And with further plugins you can connect Thunderbird to a variety of non-microsoft groupware solutions.
  • radius7, on 01/28/2008, -3/+22btw, wht is Tara Reid ????
  • zerodaysoon, on 01/28/2008, -0/+80"PDF files can be imported into Draw and edited with all their layout intact. Yum."

    indeed... :-)
    • Evildudetx, on 01/28/2008, -23/+1I'll wait for the inevitable Adobe lawsuit......
      • mooninite, on 01/28/2008, -0/+44Lawsuit for what? PDF is an open format. *sigh*
    • gr00vy, on 01/28/2008, -0/+15You entirely miss Adobe's business model here. They have opened up PDF to things like Java and Quartz. There goal is to be the number one, kickass best PDF generator, editor, and composer out there. They open up the standard to all comers, and it is up to them to match them spec to spec, bug to bug. It has worked brilliantly to this point, patents not required.

      This is good for Adobe, the more people that experience and want to edit PDF files, the more that they will grow and need either Acrobat Pro, or the design products, and if you don't maybe someone upstream or downstream of your document does. This is all good.
  • wonderchemist, on 01/28/2008, -3/+20Tara Reid? Did OO get a bad skin job?
  • pjpark, on 01/28/2008, -27/+1Will it blend?
    • AdmiralKarelia, on 01/29/2008, -1/+4In case you haven't gotten the memo, "Will it blend?" has ceased being funny. Completely.
      • utahnkid, on 01/29/2008, -1/+4Yeah well asking if someone "got the memo" is ALMOST just as cool..
  • mCanada, on 01/28/2008, -6/+44"Unfortunately in current betas, when this feature is enabled, OpenOffice smells vaguely of pee." -best tech comment ever lololol
    • desistere, on 01/28/2008, -3/+22Laugh out loud out loud out loud?
    • Klowner, on 01/28/2008, -1/+9Lethargic Overweight Leprechauns Obnoxiously Licking Oversized Lollypops indeed.
    • zongamin, on 01/29/2008, -3/+2I like how just just copied and pasted a bit from the article.
  • mannaran, on 01/28/2008, -0/+13In international standards voting OOXML got only one vote from a nordic country.. that too withdrawn later on..!! No need to support that..!!
  • loudintl, on 01/28/2008, -5/+3If this version is less buggy than the last, I'll gladly go back to it. I don't need new features to convince me.
    • bulkhater, on 01/28/2008, -1/+11Since it's (In my experience) more stable than Office, I can only imagine what you think of the MS Suite. What do you use instead?
      • gandhii, on 01/28/2008, -0/+5Maybe he's using the mac version.. That one is really really lousy.
      • ZPWeeks, on 01/29/2008, -0/+3I never have stability issues with Office 2007. OOo rarely crashed on me either - but it had less than desirable rendering for MS DOC files and such. More primitive spellchecking, reviewing features, spreadsheet support....
        I love the idea of OOo. I think they need to start over, though, dump all of the StarOffice code and the Java, and create a clean, streamlined product that aims to create an awesome office suite, not to imitate/follow MS Office.
        Office 2007 brought *new features* to market that I make use of daily (I use a lot more in office than simple word processing). I'd love to see OOo do the same thing, and I'm starting to see hints of it with version 3 (PDF import and such)
  • TnTBass, on 01/28/2008, -2/+62 * Email
    * Calendaring with meeting invites and free/busy publishing
    * Task management
    * Server connectivity to CalDAV servers, Google Calendar and Sun Calendar Server, as well as the obligatory iCal support. Alas, no mention of Zimbra.
    * Specifically touted by OpenOffice developers as an ‘Outlook replacement’

    Shall I be the one to say it?

    Thank You!
    • ri59, on 01/29/2008, -0/+4I know I'm not alone when I'd like to see the ability to resample images in document when saving (as MSOffice does). It saves an extra step of opening a separate program to down-sample the images.

      But I still love OO.o and use it every day.
    • ZPWeeks, on 01/29/2008, -0/+7I can has Exchange?
    • mabhatter, on 01/29/2008, -0/+8why would we want Email in OpenOffice? There are plenty of other more than good email solutions out there. Open standards to connect are better than trying to write yet another email/calender program. Mozilla and others are working on that, no need to duplicate effort.
      • brownspank, on 01/29/2008, -0/+1I'm guessing it's a module that you can skip when installing the suite. Some will want it, some won't, but it's good to have the option available.
      • TnTBass, on 01/29/2008, -0/+1Simply for this point:
        If you want an MS Office replacement, replace the main components of MS Office. Outlook is key, as Outlook is the one program every MS Office user uses (provided they run Exchange, which they most likely do).

        Towards your point of having other good email solutions out there: Since they are open source, it's not exactly duplicating work, its more along the lines of including a what Mozilla has started with added features that will allow a connection to exchange, and allow use as a calendar agent.

        My question is: why would you not want this? From where I sit (as a network administrator in an entirely M$ environment), it's much easier to replace an exchange email agent with an exchange email agent. If I can replace Outlook with an Open Source alternative that works just as well as Outlook, I can potentially make the switch and handle the extra user training that would be required. If I have to get people to entirely change their process around using email (not to mention calendar), that's a whole lot more work I simply do not have the time for.
  • mooseontheloose, on 01/28/2008, -41/+2who gives a crap, everyone's just going to "acquire" Office anyway
    • macoafi, on 01/28/2008, -0/+21See, now, my "who gives a crap" is more along the lines of "LaTeX is better than word processing anyway."

      I don't have Microsoft Office. There's no Linux-native version, and it's not FOSS, so what reason have I to "acquire" it?
      • mooseontheloose, on 01/28/2008, -29/+7corollary to my statement: nobody gives a crap about linux users either
        • CapeNadir, on 01/28/2008, -23/+5Seconded. Studies show 100% of linux users are stuck up sons of bitches.
        • mossblaser, on 01/28/2008, -1/+23Real life shows that without linux you wouldn't be sending these messages, you wouldn't have google'd anything today, you wouldn't be using DNS and your ISP probably wouldn't be doing its job. Basically, without linux you'd be screwed.
          • LocalDocal, on 01/28/2008, -11/+0Reality called. It said that if Linux did not exist, then something else would be used. Yes, amazingly enough, the Internet did not suddenly came into existence one day entirely because an OS named 'Linux' was created.
          • ratsg, on 01/28/2008, -0/+3Or *BSD or Unix...
          • buu700, on 08/26/2008, -0/+3@LocalDocal
            You do realize that there is no OS called 'Linux,' nor was there ever?
        • buu700, on 08/26/2008, -0/+1Comment removed by user.
      • AirRaven, on 01/28/2008, -4/+3What's so inherently "wrong" with non-F/LOSS software?
        As far as I can tell, it's no different in principle to, say, McDonalds selling you a Big Mac fully cooked and prepared for a price as opposed to them simply giving you the recipe sheet for free and leaving you to bugger off and make it at home.
        They both have their respective strengths and weaknesses.
        • theaceoffire, on 01/28/2008, -1/+4Well hang on there... Hasn't McDonald's tried to kill all other burger places? Imagine if they had won.
          That is the danger of non F/LOSS software, in my mind.
        • bieber, on 01/28/2008, -0/+6Very much not, I'm afraid. In your analogy, a cooked burger is something that came out of the program: in this case, an office document. Rather, all programs are like recipes to computers, and the difference is that Microsoft sells you a recipe in the form of a black box that accepts ingredients and returns a completed meal, giving you exactly the customization options they've deemed you worthy of having, and which will perform only for you.

          Open Office, on the other hand, is a real recipe written on a piece of paper that you're free to alter to suit your diet and share with your friends, if they decide that it's a recipe that they'd also like.

          See the difference now?
        • Atomic1fire, on 01/28/2008, -0/+6nah
          office is like burger king
          they sell you a burger
          openoffice however gives you the burger for free and tells you the recipe and tells you that you can change the recipe and distribute that if its tastier to you
    • TnTBass, on 01/28/2008, -2/+9by "'acquire' Office" I assume you mean download OpenOffice?

      We're you talking about M$ Office?
      Perhaps you are going to stealthily invade my office and acquire it... if so, I have a project coming due, can you please acquire it faster? Please bring a truck because I have lots of paper documents, and a few filing cabinets.

      /ends subtle hint that M$ is not the only software entity out there and to assume it is makes you look like an ass.
    • jm4847, on 01/28/2008, -4/+0You're right lol
    • gandhii, on 01/28/2008, -0/+6Given a choice... I chose Open office.. much more stable, consistent, useful and easier to use.
    • LastDitchHero, on 01/29/2008, -0/+5I choose NOT to get sued. Plus when you own a business do you want to have cracked copies of software so when some angry employee leaves they happen to squeal on you. Microsoft may turn a blind eye to college students and individuals but no one will shed crocodile tears when your business gets sued out of existence for using bootleg software.
  • andr3y, on 01/28/2008, -21/+6still bloatware?
  • whiteknives, on 01/28/2008, -0/+27The Tara Reid function:
    "Unfortunately in current betas, when this feature is enabled, OpenOffice smells vaguely of pee."
  • aahpandasrun, on 01/28/2008, -14/+2For a major release like 3.0, that's a surprisingly sparse amount of additions or changes.
    • LocalDocal, on 01/28/2008, -4/+0And apparently, 'outline' view is still not available.
  • aaronshaf, on 01/28/2008, -1/+15Mirror?
  • Kyan, on 01/28/2008, -15/+2Buried, b/c the OOo paged linked from the article says the product is in ALPHA, not beta.
    • m0shen, on 01/28/2008, -0/+3RTFA
      "So that’s it for OpenOffice 3. Betas are arriving in the next few months, and the final should be done by September."
  • abid8740, on 01/28/2008, -5/+10http://duggmirror.com
  • lovekudu, on 01/28/2008, -0/+8Damnit, after I was Dugg for a week ago, I moved my blog to a dedicated server with a hundred megabit uplink.

    Seems that's still not enough. Wordpress is up, load average is low, but it seems my incoming bandwidth isn't good enough.
    • stainsby, on 01/28/2008, -1/+5Its alright, we'll come back later ... unless we see something else sparkly in the meantime.
    • jeffiel, on 01/28/2008, -0/+10Disable your web server's keepalives. Keepalies are hogging all your httpd connections, without doing any work. That's why load is low, but connections fail.
      • lovekudu, on 01/28/2008, -0/+1Thanks - we've disabled keepalives, but we still have the same issue. WP cache, and a PHP accelerator are running too. Grateful if you can suggest anything more...
    • lanlocked, on 01/28/2008, -0/+3In addition to disabling keepalives, make sure you have enough MySQL connections available. By default, MySQL only allows 100 connections which wordpress will eat up fairly quickly. I have older dual Xeon(32 bit) machines that can handle over 1000 connections easily. You can do this by adding the following line to your /etc/my.cnf :
      max_connections=1000
      or however many you like.
    • SEJeff, on 01/28/2008, -0/+2Install wp-cache... it will do WONDERS for your wordpress blog
    • lovekudu, on 01/29/2008, -0/+5We're back online. Problem was MaxClients in Apache.
  • Evildudetx, on 01/28/2008, -17/+1Nice post, but until there is a released product, it is just vaporware........
    • flyingmeteor, on 01/28/2008, -1/+12Here's the thing, when an Open Source project says they'll have feature x, it will be there.
    • smrekar, on 01/28/2008, -0/+6not when you have 2 previous versions. That is like calling the next version of windows or OS x vaporware.
  • Nivardus, on 01/28/2008, -9/+2Haha, I sure love feature creep! Can't wait!
    • Darkhacker, on 01/29/2008, -0/+2I don't think you understand what the definition of feature creep is. Usually it means that software is including features that only a small minority of users will actually use and shipping it to everyone. All of the things stated for the 3.0 release were a pretty big ***** deal and things that have been asked for since version 1.
      • Nivardus, on 01/29/2008, -1/+1Yes,but still...
        http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52 ...
        • Darkhacker, on 01/29/2008, -0/+1Big whoop. You enabled every single toolbar. Nobody expects all of those things to appear at once. That's not feature creep. Most of the toolbars do have a practical application. You can make almost any application look bloated or ugly if you go around adding toolbars and buttons.
  • TeacherOfHeroes, on 01/28/2008, -3/+6Given how common it is to see openoffice bundled with linux distros, where's the native GTK version?
    • sirhomer, on 01/28/2008, -1/+8Do you know how much of a challenge that would be? It could would be a damn near rewrite. It already uses GTK+ and Tango icons to some extent, however, thanks to the openoffice-gnome project.
      • TeacherOfHeroes, on 01/28/2008, -0/+4Apparently its not too much effort to create a native aqua interface, how would a GTK interface be any more challenging?

        Besides, I would assume that they'd still be able to keep all their non-display related code, and probably the main viewing area as well. Just GTK for the toolbars, menus, dialogues, etc...
    • jimmyjones1000, on 01/28/2008, -2/+1I'd assume that will be there by default, but it's nothing new so they don't mention it.
    • lovekudu, on 01/28/2008, -1/+3I don't really care if it uses GTK or not, as long as it looks like all my other GTK apps - which, as sirhomer says, it does right now.
  • gplpark92, on 01/28/2008, -1/+2someone should port it to Maemo OS2008
  • DaleoftheUK, on 01/28/2008, -0/+5Bye bye neo office? (basically the same but this looks to finally fit mac).
  • SSCrow, on 01/28/2008, -2/+10I do hope they have improved their interface.
    The organization and grouping of functions was terrble in OO.o 2
  • dood, on 01/28/2008, -1/+6Have they addressed focus issues? I was just paging through a .doc file that contained tables and every time the cursor ended up in a table focus shifted to a new popup table "toolbox". Infuriating.
  • niallabrown, on 01/28/2008, -0/+11That also sounds amazing. I cant wait to have editable PDF's and a proper native Mac version!
    • Macskeeball, on 01/29/2008, -0/+1For a proper native Mac version, you can use NeoOffice.
  • sirhomer, on 01/28/2008, -9/+2OOo 3 should support themes. That would give it a real edge over other productivity suites.
    • ricodued, on 01/28/2008, -0/+7Yyyeaahhh. No. I use and maintain Lotus Notes in a corporate environment and it supports themes.

      Let me tell you that themes are a pain in the ass and offer absolutely no productivity "edge" as you state.
  • dirken, on 01/28/2008, -2/+1is there an alternative link?
  • reparsed, on 01/28/2008, -2/+5Will it still fit on a CD? /sarcasm
  • luchid, on 01/28/2008, -0/+5Dugg for:

    "We managed to find this conference presentation lurking in the shadows before running away in fear of mid 90’s web design. Here’s the best bits:"

    I love OO, but they need a new web designer.
    • Uriptical, on 01/29/2008, -0/+6They need interface designers full stop.
  • phytonix, on 01/28/2008, -6/+1And the latest built for Aqua is 20070630. Half a year ago. How efficient.
  • buddamus, on 01/28/2008, -7/+3I was told I had to use MS Office for my college work, Sucks ass
    • ricree, on 01/29/2008, -1/+8How serious about it is your school? They might just mean that you need to do your work in a full featured word processor (as opposed to something like wordpad).
    • AdmiralKarelia, on 01/29/2008, -1/+11Use something like OpenOffice for one paper, and see if the professor can even tell the difference.
    • buddamus, on 01/29/2008, -6/+3full featured word processor, like umm open office
      • ricree, on 01/29/2008, -0/+2That was my point. The "Word" requirement might just be a generic requirement that could be filled by a number of programs including open office.
    • jololli, on 01/29/2008, -1/+6Start thinking for yourself please.
    • mabhatter, on 01/29/2008, -1/+4depends on what they want. Lots of schools pay extortion tax for MS at home so students can get it cheap (and not be pirates), so they don't like "whiners" wanting to be different for different's sake. Some want detailed Word-only features and formating that can't be duplicated, other's just want to put all their files in .doc because it's "standard".
      • AdmiralKarelia, on 01/30/2008, -0/+1What's the last real word processor that couldn't save as a .doc? With MS Office having such a domination on the market (due mostly to ignorance; this college being case-in-point), pretty much every WP has the option of saving as a .doc.
    • zongamin, on 01/29/2008, -0/+3Its more likely that you have asked you send documents in .doc format.
  • MadOgre, on 01/28/2008, -4/+6I am really looking forward to the new version of OO. I've been using it for many years now, I way of soothing my guilt of pirating MS Office for so long. Turns out, I like it better than MS Office now. The version 3 now should really blow my kilt up.
  • AlphaInsidious, on 01/28/2008, -0/+1Quick question, does the current or will the new OO support tablet integration?
    • technoredneck, on 01/29/2008, -0/+1Looks doubtful, unfortunately.
  • MindTrigger, on 01/28/2008, -13/+11and....
    60% more clunky bloat.

    Sorry people, I've tried to use OO several times over the past few years, and it just sucks compared to MS Office. I hope they keep working on it, because once it's on par, I will switch.

    You may digg me down for speaking the truth now.
    • mochouinard, on 01/28/2008, -0/+5There is an difference of saying the truth and telling it opinion based on type of usage.
      I personally only find multi language dictionary very annoying to use and install. Also the plug in for Text to Columns should be bundled with open office.
      And I agree with someone about having an outlook replacement. Thunderbird + Sunbird does a very good job, but it still has alot to do.
    • Sairgem, on 01/29/2008, -5/+8Disable Java in OO (somewhere in the options). And I dugg you down not for "speaking the truth", but for being a cocky douche.
  • ssj2119, on 01/28/2008, -4/+6Open Office 3 has PDF import, native Aqua UI, and Tara Reid... and still an ugly ass logo

    I wont put it in my dock, I just wont
    • SnowCrashv5, on 01/29/2008, -0/+2Doesn't mesh well with your black turtle neck, beret, and cafe latte non-fat breve mochachino?
  • LastDitchHero, on 01/29/2008, -0/+3I really hope they improve Base. When I switched over to Linux I missed some of the features of Access for creating quick databases. Some of the features in Access for the forms just blow away Base. I am still crossing my fingers. As already mentioned Calc needs some more polish when it comes to graphs and Pivot tables.
    • lovekudu, on 01/29/2008, -0/+1Graphs and pivot tables are also on the way, see the presentation linked to from the article
  • murlox, on 01/29/2008, -1/+5WTF, they're still using those ugly icons (as the default), and I bet the Linux version is still going to sport the lame gray window (unless you have GNOME or KDE installed?).
  • PRlME, on 01/29/2008, -3/+3MS Office still has a faster workflow....if this is all the improvement its not worth it even if it is free
    • LastDitchHero, on 01/29/2008, -2/+4Too many people are trained with MS Office. If you learn OpenOffice you'll find it is the same. And OpenOffice compared to a $60 dollar copy of MS Works? Don't even make me laugh. If you were to talk about some of the more advanced features of MS Office I might give you a digg but your just talking out your arse.
  • drag, on 01/29/2008, -1/+20""I was told I had to use MS Office for my college work, Sucks ass""

    Ignore them. Seriously. Use whatever is most usefull, most comfortable for you in the environment you prefer. Your paying for College, they are working for you.

    Most likely they just don't want to deal with badly formated reports and such and that can happen with mistakes between different types of document conversion. How you deal with that is that when your finished with your report you just go down to the library and make sure your stuff looks good on the version of Office they are using.

    This is something you should do anyways, unless your absolutely sure everybody and their mom is going to be running the same exact version of MS Office as you are. If there is some special need for Office because of VB scripts, crappy third party apps, or other silliness, then you might still have to use MS Office. There are good reasons why you may have it... but all the good reasons are fairly unlikely to occure.

    Making you go out and spend money on a specific version of OS so you can buy a specific version of word proccessing software 'just because' is no good.

    ""Sorry people, I've tried to use OO several times over the past few years, and it just sucks compared to MS Office. I hope they keep working on it, because once it's on par, I will switch.""

    It's a Office productivity suite. You make spreedsheets, design reports, hook up to databases, write macros, work a word proccessor. The majority of people would be just as well served with just a program the equivelent of Wordpad and something that will do basic spreadsheets. Suffice it to say OpenOffice.org and MS Office capabilities far surpass the needs of most people.

    The sucky part happens is when companies have their 'knowledge worker' environment based around MS Office. There are a lot of things that MS Office can do that will not translate well to OpenOffice.org. It's not that OO.org is less capable.. it is in some respects and is more capable in others, but that it just would take a lot of money and time to migrate from one to the other. ..And, more importantly, any sort of change pisses off most people at their jobs.

    The problem is that Office Suites are designed for efficient communication and manipulation of data. So the major rub with sticking with MS Office vs OO.org is that when you are using MS Office your going to end up using all Microsoft proprietary formats and your information will be trapped in these incompatable and closed systems.

    So anybody you wish to communicate with will also be required to purchase and use the same closed proprietary software and if they choose to use those formats then anybody they communicate with will be forced to use MS Office also. Now OO.org folks have worked very hard at getting MS compatability, but it's not going to be perfect.

    In contrast, when you use OO.org to make documents and for communication with other people they do not need to purchase any software. They can download OO.org for free and give free copies to friends and families without commiting a felony offense. This is something that is not possible with MS Office. Also by choosing to use OO.org and using open documents those other people can use a whole host of other programs that may be (in fact very likely) superior to OO.org in many ways. Stuff like Abiword, Gnumeric, Koffice suite (which is very nice and can even edit HD video frames), and others.

    Of course, quality matters. So hopefull OO.org 3 will be able to convince you and lots of other people to switch over so I don't have to deal with this MS Office format ***** anymore.
    • srg13, on 01/29/2008, -0/+4"Most likely they just don't want to deal with badly formated reports and such and that can happen with mistakes between different types of document conversion. How you deal with that is that when your finished with your report you just go down to the library and make sure your stuff looks good on the version of Office they are using."

      This is exactly why I submit my assignments in PDF... I can be absolutely sure that it will look the same on any viewer.

      I suppose I'm lucky that they mark the printed copy, and just slap the 'electronic copy' into some website that checks it for plagiarism...
      • marx2k, on 01/30/2008, -0/+2It'd be nice if employers accepted my resume in PDF format. REALLY nice, actually
    • sk11, on 01/29/2008, -0/+2You need to write that up into a blog article.
    • canadalolz, on 01/29/2008, -3/+2please learn the difference between "your" and "you're"
  • Toupee, on 01/29/2008, -0/+5I really hope OOo 3 has a tabbed interface like IBM Lotus Symphony.
  • EricJD, on 01/29/2008, -1/+7The icon is still butt ugly.
  • ScottyWZ, on 01/29/2008, -1/+6On Linux, native Gnome/KDE icons should be used. They've done it in Firefox 3; why not in OOo?
    • Darkhacker, on 01/29/2008, -0/+3I don't know what distro you are using, but in Ubuntu there are "openoffice.org-gnome" and "openoffice.org-kde" packages which do all this.
  • jackhatedance, on 01/29/2008, -0/+2... Google Doc, calendar, ...
    I would love to use it just as a Google office client.
    • Pixelpaws, on 01/29/2008, -0/+2I'd rather like to see something like that as well, though preferably done by Google itself. They've already developed Google Gears; why not apply it to more of their own products?
  • hamobu, on 01/29/2008, -0/+3I would like Calc spreadsheet to be able to use millions or rows and columns. That is one feature that I actually needed countless many times.
  • lump1, on 01/29/2008, -1/+11New lipstick on an old dog. I'm not impressed. Or rather, I'm all for keeping OOo alive for now, while we still need it, but there should be a parallel effort to restart the whole project from scratch. The whole codebase is so old and tangled that it's impossible now to make OOo feel quick and responsive, not even with a brand new computer.

    OOo's model should be Mozilla or KDE, who, when their realized the limitations of their old code, decided to do a complete rewrite of the internals. Mozilla did this after dumping the old Navigator code, and KDE is in the process of doing it now, with KDE4. But OOo needs this refresh more than either of the others.

    Instead of adding more freatures, how about instead trying to rewrite the framework so as to make it easier to add new features in the future?
    • lovekudu, on 01/29/2008, -0/+2That's not a bad idea. Even using XUL, Firefox style, to allow a consistent UI across platforms.
    • resonator, on 01/29/2008, -0/+1It might even mean they will get more developers writing for them.
    • srg13, on 01/29/2008, -0/+2"Or rather, I'm all for keeping OOo alive for now, while we still need it, but there should be a parallel effort to restart the whole project from scratch."

      Exactly - they really need to either do a massive overhaul of the code, or just start again. Or maybe we just need to start a separate office project...
    • oobuntu, on 01/29/2008, -0/+2What you are asking for is called KOffice2
      It is coming shortly.
    • derubermensch, on 01/29/2008, -0/+1I agree. The fact that you need a JRE for certain accessbility features and something else most people won't care about (taken from the OO.o Windows installer tooltip) is ridiculous.
    • ricegf, on 01/30/2008, -1/+0Never, ever, ever start "a complete rewrite of the internals". Ever. EVER.

      First, you won't make the same mistakes, you'll just make new ones (see Perl 6). Second, when you're done, you'll have invested a metric ton of effort to recreate a similar feature set. Microsoft Office eventually defeated Borland's office suite in the marketplace precisely because Borland rewrote their entire suite in C++ - making it late to market, slower than the previous version, and behind the feature curve relative to Microsoft, who stuck with the same old C code for pretty much ever and just pasted on feature after feature after... until they convince PHB's they were the most "feature complete" option.

      Instead, start a new effort using whatever you believe is salvagable from OOo (or just start from scratch, if you're really determined to create a thing of beauty), and win community acceptance by your superior efforts. See KOffice 2 for an example of how this can be done.

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