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Sneak peek at OpenOffice.org 3.0
downloadsquad.com — OpenOffice.org 2.4 may be just around the corner. But if you laugh at stable releases and always want to have your hands on the latest beta software, you can download an early beta version of OpenOffice.org 3.0 today. What does OpenOffice.org 3.0 have that version 2.3.1 is missing?
mklopez- 1239 diggs
- digg it
- ahz1, on 03/21/2008, -1/+112Why not Digg the original article instead? It has more screenshots and information.
http://www.oooninja.com/2008/03/openofficeorg-30-n ...- MrViklund, on 03/21/2008, -3/+2This one is ok too. But your had more nice screens.
- lynx44, on 03/21/2008, -1/+6Makes me realize how much Open Office is missing in terms of features. I've only used it casually at home, but I just assumed it already had a lot of these features, such as error bars. I never noticed the difference until now. Looks good though.
- mazza558, on 03/21/2008, -0/+19This looks like a massive improvement to 2.3/2.4... I think they only thing they really need to do now is update the icons used.
- killerofkiller, on 03/21/2008, -21/+3no ribbon.. no buy sorry OO but 2007 is amazing
- thecrazyd, on 03/21/2008, -1/+19The thing is, you don't need to buy it! Unlike Office 2007, it is free.
- killerofkiller, on 03/21/2008, -6/+1do you think i paid for 2007 Enterprise edition? lol
- killerofkiller, on 03/21/2008, -5/+1oh i was in a rush when i typed that comment.. i know OO is free but i rather use a pirated version of 2007
- Claverhouse, on 03/21/2008, -0/+5Microsoft is grateful for your support.
- thecrazyd, on 03/21/2008, -0/+2So... no buy for 2007 either?
- YourFuzzyGod, on 03/21/2008, -8/+11Plus you actually own the software, as opposed to Microsoft Office where you are just licensed to use it.
- kazamx, on 03/21/2008, -4/+10er... I don't think we really own it. We do have a very nice licence for it that lets us do pretty much anything with it though.
- CarzorStelatis, on 03/21/2008, -1/+5Yeah, you own it rather than license it because it's under the GNU General Public License... oh wait. You fail at copyright.
- feliks2, on 03/21/2008, -5/+7Wow, I didn't know people actually liked the ribbon. My condolances.
- 6minuteabs, on 03/21/2008, -0/+1It's actually an incredible productivity enhancer for people who use these apps regularly, particulary Excel. It took me about a week. Now when I use a PC that doesn't have it I am reminded how clunky the old menu system was.
- danz32, on 03/21/2008, -0/+3At first the Ribbon was a bit cumbersome, but once I got the hang of it, it became so much easier to be proficient. Yeah, its nice that Open Office is free; but I'll give Microsoft a lot credit for innovating (and taking a good amount of risk) with the interface redesign for Office 2007.
- thecrazyd, on 03/21/2008, -1/+19The thing is, you don't need to buy it! Unlike Office 2007, it is free.
- McWombo, on 03/22/2008, -0/+1Update the icons is all they need to do?
- killerofkiller, on 03/21/2008, -21/+3no ribbon.. no buy sorry OO but 2007 is amazing
- MrViklund, on 03/21/2008, -0/+45Office 2007 document support. Good. Very important.
- GregofJersey, on 03/21/2008, -7/+1Agreed! And it doesn't look ugly either.
- puelocesar, on 03/21/2008, -1/+9Hmm, this seem to be nice, new features, performance improvements, but what the hell with those artwork?
Openoffice should really follow Firefox3 steps and provide a decent desktop integration for all platforms it supports..- sumguy231, on 03/21/2008, -2/+2Artwork is always subject to change for Alpha releases, but I should point out that with the right build options it looks just fine in GNOME or KDE, with native icons and dialogs and everything. The Windows version looks integrated to me, it's only ugly because Windows is.
- CarzorStelatis, on 03/21/2008, -0/+4Firefox 3 looks lovely on Windows, so the only reason why OpenOffice doesn't is lack of effort.
- sumguy231, on 03/21/2008, -2/+2Artwork is always subject to change for Alpha releases, but I should point out that with the right build options it looks just fine in GNOME or KDE, with native icons and dialogs and everything. The Windows version looks integrated to me, it's only ugly because Windows is.
- JimV, on 03/21/2008, -7/+1I'm using OOO 2.4 right now in Kubuntu 8.04 beta...so I think maybe it's not right around hte corner?
- TimDigg, on 03/21/2008, -16/+3It better be flat out amazing...
right now I rank the office products in this order...
IBM Symphony
MS Office 2k
Open Office
just too many memory leaks for me and too many background process
for those who haven't checked out Symphony
http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/ ...- earlycj5, on 03/21/2008, -0/+7So Symphony (which is OOo gussied up by IBM) is that much better? What did they do to correct these issues that you have that OOo hasn't incorporated?
- TimDigg, on 03/21/2008, -6/+3I haven't tried the Open Office 3.0 beta YET so perhaps I should have tried that before I complained. But I remember using OOo and having a ton of problems with it. The loads times were too long for me and opening multiple docs would bog down my computer. Meanwhile I didn't have this problem with comparable office products.
For the record the last version I used was 2.2.0
- TimDigg, on 03/21/2008, -6/+3I haven't tried the Open Office 3.0 beta YET so perhaps I should have tried that before I complained. But I remember using OOo and having a ton of problems with it. The loads times were too long for me and opening multiple docs would bog down my computer. Meanwhile I didn't have this problem with comparable office products.
- TimDigg, on 03/21/2008, -5/+1Office 2k7*
- LastDitchHero, on 03/21/2008, -0/+4You think Symphony is better than Office 2K7 or OOo? I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
- TimDigg, on 03/21/2008, -4/+1Thats a fair question. Honestly I give Symphony the nod because its free. Which is probably an unfair criterion of comparison of office products.
So I'll give you that....- LastDitchHero, on 03/21/2008, -0/+3TimDigg, I read some of your other posts relating to OpenOffice saying last version you tried was 2.2. If you would have said you thought Office 2K7 was better than OOo or Symphony I would have agreed. OOo is also free. Now Symphony is based of older OOo code I also tried using Symphony just to show people that major companies make software for Linux but I hated the design, it loaded slower than OOo (granted it doesn't have a quick starter like OOo), it also just looked awful. Now I think Symphony is great for the company whose IT Manager wants to use some Open Source tech but is too scared to use OOo cause it isn't from IBM or Microsoft. Overall I am just amazed that you would rate Symphony over OOo and Office 2K7.
- TimDigg, on 03/21/2008, -4/+1Thats a fair question. Honestly I give Symphony the nod because its free. Which is probably an unfair criterion of comparison of office products.
- earlycj5, on 03/21/2008, -0/+7So Symphony (which is OOo gussied up by IBM) is that much better? What did they do to correct these issues that you have that OOo hasn't incorporated?
- TheSabre, on 03/21/2008, -1/+6Whew. I'm glad the splash screen and about dialog have been updated! I don't know what I'd do without them.
But seriously, it looks like a good improvement. It will be interesting to see how this beta matures over the next few months.- ahz1, on 03/21/2008, -1/+0It's not a beta. It's an alpha. Downloadsquad was incorrect when they paraphrased the original article.
- aoki4, on 03/21/2008, -24/+0open office is so bad cuz theres niot customer support
- bashveank, on 03/21/2008, -0/+26When was the last time you called up MS customer support for help with MS Office, just curious.
- thecrazyd, on 03/21/2008, -2/+12The Internet is your customer support team, and we can provide much better help then some Microsoft temps in India.
- ahz1, on 03/21/2008, -0/+7Free and paid support: http://support.openoffice.org
- Atomic1fire, on 03/21/2008, -0/+4Dugg because its proving aoki4 wrong
- pearcewg, on 03/21/2008, -3/+5I hope it is a major improvement over the previous version.
I used it for about 6 months, and finally had to let it go, and upgrade to Office 2007.
Office might be feature bloated, but it was faster on my machine, and easier to use. - LastDitchHero, on 03/21/2008, -1/+3I hope Base improves a lot and I would love to see them include maybe a special version of Thunderbird, or Evolution for OpenOffice
- diggtochina, on 03/21/2008, -0/+15I just hope its a lot faster..
- ahz1, on 03/21/2008, -0/+0The article this one is based on addresses that issue by linking here: http://katana.oooninja.com/w/openoffice.org/perfor ...
- krische, on 03/21/2008, -0/+7I like that they are going to have much better support for Mac OS X now.
- ultra_lime, on 03/21/2008, -3/+24I was hoping for overall icon GUI upgrade.
- HonestAbe, on 03/21/2008, -1/+9Seriously. If they just improved the look of the app, people would be much more forgiving of the many feature flaws. It's not rational, but it's human.
- estvir, on 03/21/2008, -1/+1I just can't use OO for any great amount of time after having Office 2007 for so many months. :/
- CarzorStelatis, on 03/22/2008, -1/+1The reason I use OO is _because_ of that ludicrous ribbon. The 'classic' interface used by MS Office 2003 and under, OOo, WordPerfect and every other WP package on the planet means that you can get to things easily, rather than having to wade through Fisher Price garbage.
- estvir, on 03/21/2008, -1/+1I just can't use OO for any great amount of time after having Office 2007 for so many months. :/
- HonestAbe, on 03/21/2008, -1/+9Seriously. If they just improved the look of the app, people would be much more forgiving of the many feature flaws. It's not rational, but it's human.
- axentrix, on 03/21/2008, -0/+12OO.org is missing one important thing, which is good support for advanced excel spreadsheets with macro's. I think that is a real dealbreaker for many companies.
- McSwankypants, on 03/21/2008, -0/+2At least in v2.4 they're FINALLY adding equation support for regression curves. Finally, the LAST reason I've had to boot into Windows is being resolved!
- spiritditch, on 03/21/2008, -10/+4Why are there toolbars? Where are the ribbons?!?!?
- qaelith2112, on 03/21/2008, -3/+7Very good for a small office on a tight budget or someone at home, but still too many missing features for it to be a viable replacement for MS Office in many offices. It surprises me that the number of rows and columns in Calc hasn't increased to at least match Office 2007. There are also quite a few other features that I use every day in Excel that weren't in OO 2.4 that are still not on the list for 3.0. Bottom line -- I'll happily install this on a family member's computer for writing letters and doing basic stuff, but I can't use it in lieu of MS Office unfortunately.
- hatboysam, on 03/21/2008, -9/+3Still needs grammar check
I like linux but I cant type anything seriously in Open Office, I have to use word because it has Grammar Check- diggrim, on 03/21/2008, -3/+2how many years did you survive without grammar check?
(I dugg you up, btw, because I feel the same. =) ) - ahz1, on 03/21/2008, -0/+4http://www.languagetool.org/ grammar checker extension for OOo
- mashw, on 03/21/2008, -0/+3I'm sensing some sarcasm, it's subtle but I think it's there.
- ahz1, on 03/21/2008, -0/+0Oh, now I see :)
- McWombo, on 03/22/2008, -0/+1I detect no sarcasm.
- diggrim, on 03/21/2008, -3/+2how many years did you survive without grammar check?
- trpnblies7, on 03/21/2008, -0/+3One thing I would love is for Calc to have the ability to merge individual rows of cells all at once. Excel can't do this either without a $30 plugin, and it seems as if it should just be a basic feature.
- Atomic1fire, on 03/21/2008, -0/+2That would be pretty good for a feature
Since OpenOffice allready has features that Microsoft Office would need third party software for
It would be another blow that open and free can be good
- Atomic1fire, on 03/21/2008, -0/+2That would be pretty good for a feature
- liquidmetalband, on 03/21/2008, -8/+2It sucks. ThinkFree.com ftw. It is an EXACT copy of Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint (exact) AND lets you save to your hard drive.
- mdraper, on 03/21/2008, -9/+4Yeah they seriously need to revise their icons' design, and the overall look and feel of the application. Features mean jack if they look like ass. And OpenOffice looks like ass. Dirty ass. Old ass. Ass you wouldn't want to tap.
- Avatar, on 03/21/2008, -0/+6Tabs, guys, tabs. Write definitely needs tabs among a host of other little goodies.
- ahz1, on 03/21/2008, -0/+3Download extension here http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Framework ...
- tiberone, on 03/21/2008, -3/+2Hopefully it can get the wordcheck dictionary loaded in under 20 minutes. No lie, right-clicking on a underlined word in OOo has taken over half an hour just to load the little suggestion box before. Average time is probably somewhere around 15 minutes for me.
- SSUK, on 03/21/2008, -0/+6It's as quick as Word for me. Your PC must blow or your install is botched.
- Petronski, on 03/21/2008, -0/+2Your "computer" might have a blown vacuum tube in the disc controller module.
- enterneo, on 03/21/2008, -0/+7revamp the THEME X-(
- charlesg, on 03/21/2008, -0/+3I just downloaded and installed this alpha. It still badly needs some interface upgrades, but the functionality is FANTASTIC. Calc is much better and I actually think that I can now use Base as a real front end for MySQL....
I am looking forward to the upcoming betas. - HonestAbe, on 03/21/2008, -3/+6Those are some pretty big changes.
1024 columns instead of 256? Woooow.
Seriously. These are the biggest changes you can list? I use OpenOffice regularly, and it really needs a lot of work before it catches up to Microsoft Office in terms of usability and usefulness. I was expecting a lot more than this. Some good thinkers could make an office suite that vastly outperforms MS Office, but it seems that no one is even trying. I wish I could code... - Kelmon, on 03/21/2008, -0/+1I note that Calc supports more columns now, but can anyone confirm how many rows it supports either in the current version or 3.0? Excel 2007's support beyond 64,000 rows is damned useful for me and I'd love to see that in OpenOffice as well, if it is not already there.
- ahz1, on 03/21/2008, -0/+2About 65,335 rows in OOo 2.x
Vote for this issue http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=30 ...- Kelmon, on 03/22/2008, -0/+2OK, that's good information. I'm not in agreement that the row/column limit should be abandoned since that will introduce compatibility issues the other way when sharing between Calc and Excel, but the row limit definitely needs to maintain parity with Excel to ensure that data exchanges can work fully with the new OpenXML file format that version 3 will support.
- CarzorStelatis, on 03/22/2008, -0/+2Have you seen the screenshots of the OOXML 'support'? I wouldn't be planning to use it for real documents if I were you.
- Kelmon, on 03/22/2008, -0/+2OK, that's good information. I'm not in agreement that the row/column limit should be abandoned since that will introduce compatibility issues the other way when sharing between Calc and Excel, but the row limit definitely needs to maintain parity with Excel to ensure that data exchanges can work fully with the new OpenXML file format that version 3 will support.
- ahz1, on 03/21/2008, -0/+2About 65,335 rows in OOo 2.x
- commentbot, on 03/21/2008, -1/+2Now, one important feature is missing: TABS. This new version will keep clogging my taskbar.
- sloppychris, on 03/21/2008, -1/+1There has been talk of a user interface redesign for 3.0. Considering it isn't released until September I'm sure there is still work being done.
- lalee, on 03/22/2008, -1/+2If OOo 3.0 STILL doesn't have Outline View in Writer that's similar to Outline View in MS-Word, they can suck my fat one.
Outline View is a missing feature that's been brought up for YEARS, and nobody has done anything about it. Navigation View IS NOT THE SAME, and is cumbersome at best. - WomensUnderwear, on 03/22/2008, -3/+1oo - laudable but lame
- acidandspatter, on 03/22/2008, -3/+1It still looks butt ugly compared to Office 2007 which imo is so much more functional and easier to use. The ribbon seems so natural.
- 1timeuser, on 03/22/2008, -1/+1abiword > OOo writer. That's right, I went there.
- CarzorStelatis, on 03/22/2008, -0/+1What does OpenOffice 3.0 have that 2.4 doesn't? Well lots more memory leaks and infinite loops from the look of the bug list :P
- Amiga500, on 03/23/2008, -4/+1Why is this posted in the Linsux section? Since the beginning, Open Office has always been available for Windows. I think misplacing it in this section further enforces the LIE that free, open source software can only be found on Linsux and Unix platforms.
- srg13, on 03/23/2008, -0/+2I swear your posts are getting more and more childish
- groverblue, on 04/02/2008, -0/+1"Official support for Mac—using the pretty Aqua interface"
Goodbye NeoOffice
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