Open Office Suite 3 Now Available

[robert99]

Free Open Office Suite 3 improvements:

The OpenOffice.org Community is today announcing the general
availability of OpenOffice.org Version 3. Right from the opening screen,
OpenOffice.org 3 has a fresh new look, with a new start screen, new
splash screen, new icons, and a host of usability improvements.

The Writer word processor has a cool new slider control for zooming,
allows multi-page display while editing, has powerful new multilingual
support, and boasts improved notes capabilities. As well as conventional
office documents, Writer can now edit wiki documents for the web.

The Calc spreadsheet has been given another increase in capacity - now
up to 1024 columns per sheet. It also has a powerful new equation
solver, and a great new collaboration feature for multiple users.

Draw can now cope with poster-size graphics (up to 3sq metres), and
Impress supports multiple monitors for presentations. Chart now produces
much more clean looking graphics by default, and has a range of
additional features requested by power users.

The popular built-in PDF export facility has been further enhanced with
PDF/A support and a range of new user-selectable options.

OpenOffice.org 3 is now also available for the first time as a full Mac
OS X application, bringing the power of the world's leading open-source
office suite to a whole new group of users. And it's even easier than
ever to persuade MS-Office users to upgrade to OpenOffice.org, with new
support for MS-Access 2007 'accdb' files, improved support for VBA
macros, and a new ability to read MS-Office Open XML files (Microsoft
Office 2007 and Office 2008 documents)

OpenOffice.org's support for extensions is really coming of age with
OpenOffice.org 3. A rapidly expanding number of additional features are
available from different developers to add great features such as an
Impress presenter console, support for business analytics, PDF import,
and a whole new way of supporting additional languages.

Tell your friends that 2008 is 'The Year of 3'; - the year we released
OpenOffice.org 3; the year we make OpenOffice.org available on all 3
major computing platforms (MS-Windows, GNU/Linux, and Mac OS X); and the year to realise the 3 key benefits of OpenOffice.org: it's great
software; it's easy to use; and it's free.

Links

Official Press Release: http://www.prweb.com/releases/OOo/3/prweb1459364.htm
Download: http://download.openoffice.org
Guide to new features: http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/3.0
Technical release notes:
http://development.openoffice.org/releases/3.0.0.html
Availability of localised versions and ports:
http://download.openoffice.org/other.html

[raybo]

I noticed nothing mentioned about macro improvements in Calc with the new version. I tried to use OO but macro recording capabilities, compared to Excel, are extremely limited, like sheet changes, cell/range selections, etc., these are not recordable in OO. I use macros for almost everything that is repeated, importing files, sorting, printing, switching views, toggling from one area to another, race selection, etc., I'd be lost without these functions. They could be programmed probably but I'm not a programmer.

BTW, the links you posted don't work for me.

[robert99]

I noticed nothing mentioned about macro improvements in Calc with the new version. I tried to use OO but macro recording capabilities, compared to Excel, are extremely limited, like sheet changes, cell/range selections, etc., these are not recordable in OO. I use macros for almost everything that is repeated, importing files, sorting, printing, switching views, toggling from one area to another, race selection, etc., I'd be lost without these functions. They could be programmed probably but I'm not a programmer.

BTW, the links you posted don't work for me.

raybo,

Macro recording records everything you type/click etc so I don't know what you mean by "extremely limited". You have to turn recording on before you select any range etc - is that the problem?
The links work OK for me from the PA page using IE7.

[raybo]

raybo,

Macro recording records everything you type/click etc so I don't know what you mean by "extremely limited". You have to turn recording on before you select any range etc - is that the problem?
The links work OK for me from the PA page using IE7.

I'm well aware of how recording a macro works. I have OO 2.4 and recorded macros don't include opening sheets, selecting cells, opening other workbooks, etc.. Just thought maybe 3.0 included more functionality.

The following is from the OO help files:

Limitations of the macro recorder

The following actions are not recorded:






Opening of windows is not recorded.
Actions carried out in another window than where the recorder was started are not recorded.
Window switching is not recorded.
Actions that are not related to the document contents are not recorded. For example, changes made in the Options dialog, macro organizer, customizing.
Selections are recorded only if they are done by using the keyboard (cursor traveling), but not when the mouse is used.
The macro recorder works only in Calc and Writer.
In Excel everything you do with the keyboard or mouse is recorded. You can open other programs even, not DOS programs, unfortunately, wish it would because I use DOS based Infotran to parse comma-delimited data files.

[JustRalph]

Robert, Thanks for the link............ looks pretty damn good........I have always been fond of this Office Alternative,,,,,,,, but it keeps getting better and better.......... :ThmbUp:

[dutchboy]

I just read on CNET a review that Open Office still cannot save documents in the new microsoft office format. Assume they are referring to the ms office 2007.

Not that it matters but a couple of weeks ago I read that all government offices in the state of Maine may be switching to Linux and Open Office.

Seems that things are becoming more confusing. Friday I received an excel file at work that could not be opened since it had been saved in the new format used for publishing on a website or shared drive. Also files created using office 2007 cannot be opened in ms 2003 if they have more rows or columns that 2003 can handle. The extra rows and columns disappear.

[LottaKash]

raybo,

Macro recording records everything you type/click etc so I don't know what you mean by "extremely limited". You have to turn recording on before you select any range etc - is that the problem?
The links work OK for me from the PA page using IE7.

Robert99.....A question please...I have the older version of OO v.2.x...I don't use it much as of yet, but I will do so shortly.......

The question is, do you think it better to uninstall the older version of OO and/or will the newer version install over the old or uninstall the older version automatically......?

Also is there a way to create paper forms from within OO ?.......Thanx ahead..

Oh and more importantly, thanks for the heads-up on this.....:jump:

best,

[raybo]

I just read on CNET a review that Open Office still cannot save documents in the new microsoft office format. Assume they are referring to the ms office 2007.

Not that it matters but a couple of weeks ago I read that all government offices in the state of Maine may be switching to Linux and Open Office.

Seems that things are becoming more confusing. Friday I received an excel file at work that could not be opened since it had been saved in the new format used for publishing on a website or shared drive. Also files created using office 2007 cannot be opened in ms 2003 if they have more rows or columns that 2003 can handle. The extra rows and columns disappear.

I have Excel 2007 and you are correct in assuming that files saved in the 2007 format having more columns than previous versions will not include the extra columns, previous versions cannot add columns to the maximum column limitation, so the extras are not included.

Also, I am not surprised that webpage formats saved in 2007 can't be opened by previous versions. I don't remember if previous versions had a different suffix or not, but that's probably the reason.

If I know I'm going to share a spreadsheet with users having previous versions of Excel, I design the spreadsheet so that the column and row limitations in previous versions are met then I "save as" "Excel 97-2003 Workbook". I am presently working on a spreadsheet for another member here that is running Excel 2002, so I save mine in the 97-2003 format before sending.

[robert99]

Robert99.....A question please...I have the older version of OO v.2.x...I don't use it much as of yet, but I will do so shortly.......

The question is, do you think it better to uninstall the older version of OO and/or will the newer version install over the old or uninstall the older version automatically......?

Also is there a way to create paper forms from within OO ?.......Thanx ahead..

Oh and more importantly, thanks for the heads-up on this.....:jump:

best,

LK,

The new version will install over the top and import all your settings from version 2 - user choice, and will do it automatically if selected. You can also keep version 2 as well if you want. Only keep if you have done something complex in V2 that you want to keep going on - otherwise go to V3.

By paper forms do you mean standard templates? - there are default ones in OO and there are several specialist ones you can add in from the free extensions library.

[LottaKash]

LK,

The new version will install over the top and import all your settings from version 2 - user choice, and will do it automatically if selected. You can also keep version 2 as well if you want. Only keep if you have done something complex in V2 that you want to keep going on - otherwise go to V3.

By paper forms do you mean standard templates? - there are default ones in OO and there are several specialist ones you can add in from the free extensions library.

Thx Robert, I chose to uninstall 2.0 then load up on 3.0...great program...I will definitely look for the add ins from the extensions libe....THX again.......

best,