OpenOffice.org 3.0: What to Expect?

[Cyrus_the_virus]

Around 3 month ago OpenOffice.org released its 2.4 boasting quite an impressive arsenal of advancements. However if you thought 2.4 was major release, then you have seen nothing! Come September, OpenOffice.org will release it’s 3.0 version! That must be quite a big jump! The upcoming 3.0 version is widely regarded as an important milestone in the project’s development. Here are some of the advancements I am most excited about:

Writer

With version 3.0 Writer comes with a plethora of interesting advancements. You will have the option of different views, either single page, multiple pages side by side, and book view. A zoom slider has been added on the bottom right corner of the screen, which is admitingly something we saw in Office 2007 first, but definitely a welcomed feature.




Slick new notes feature that lets you add colored notes and comments on the margins instead of the old inefficient notes method, which I never used!

Changing language spell check is now easily available in the menu, very handy for multi-language documents. Someone like me needs such flexibility with English/Arabic documents I alway have.


Mac OS X Support

Remember once a friend was complaining about Arabic integration in MS Office on his Mac (or lack of it), so I suggested OpenOffice.org. Little did I know that there were other packages that we needed to install (X11 and whatnot). We had to jump through a lot of hoops to get it working. With OpenOffice.org 3.0 this is not an issue anymore, OpenOffice will natively support Mac OSX!

Microsoft Office 2007 Import Filters

I used so simply loath recieving a document ending with x (docx, pptx, xlsx)! What a retarded extention, it sends shivers down your spine. Well not anymore, with OpenOffice 3.0 you can directly import them and start editing away! Although, up to now the importation is not perfect, but we know who to blame over there (read thousands among thousands of ambigous documentation)


New Theme in Calc

Now we get a much more polished glass theme and translucency! Here is a comparison between the old and new:





Presenter Different Screens

This always seemed logical to me, am not sure if is available in Office or not, but it’s great to see in OpenOffice 3.0. Basically in presenter you get to see a different screen than what’s on the projector. You get preview of the next slide, elapsed time, notes and comments.

Native Tables in Impress

Tables has been OpenOffices’s Achilles heal when compared to Microsoft Powerpoint. One had to resort to clumsy drawing of the tables! Not anymore!




Import PDF

Although still not implemented in the beta version I installed, this feature is expected to be up and running in the final release come September.

Conclusion

OpenOffice 3.0 is a major milestone for the project, there are tons of other new features. I also noticed a great improvement in speed, which has always a bane in previous OpenOffice.org versions.

If you can’t wait until September, why don’t you download the beta version and try it out, so far it has been very much stable for me. You can download OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta here.

If you are installing it on Ubuntu (or any Deb distro for that matter) you just need to do the following:

1-Extract the archive

tar xzf ~/Desktop/OOo_3.0.0beta_20080429_LinuxIntel_install_en-US_deb.tar.gz -C ~/Desktop/

2-Install the packages in the DEBS subdirectory

sudo dpkg -i ~/Desktop/BEA300_m2_native_packed-2_en-US.9301/DEBS/*.deb

3-It won’t install on your regular menu, instead you have to manually launch or create your own shortcuts

/opt/openoffice.org3/program/soffice

Thanks to the oooninja blog and the official OpenOffice.org websites for providing some of the pictures


Soruce

[FilledVoid]

I'm definitely looking forward to OpenOffice 3.0 Maybe Ill try the Beta version out .

[Pat]

Impressive stuff..Looking forward to it

[Sumeet_naik]

One more of ppl looking forward for dis..

[Garbage]

Seems cool...

When Beta will out ??

[IronManForever]

Perhaps now I can convince my dad to shift to this from MS Office??

[NucleusKore]

Very Impressive, looking forward to it.

[din]

@Garbage

From The source

download OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta here.

Started downloading .. will give it a try.

.

[gxsaurav]

I tried Openoffice 3 beta in my office when I got my own workstation. I was far from impressed, not only it is damn slow even on my C2D E8200 with 3 GB RAM, digging through all those menus is very cumborsum after using Office 2007. I asked for Office 2007 just for me & got the students edition, openoffice is so less featured & hard to use.

Just the UI of Office 2007 is enough to make the switch to it & leave Openoffice

[Pat]

^^ Dude dont start your trolls here. There was no need to bring in discussion about Office 2007.

[sourav123]

^^Why don't you take a rest instead of trying to start another flame war? Who has asked for a comparison with MS Office. And if you are happy with MS Office, good for you. If someone do not want to pay or finds OOo good, then good for him/her. There is enough room for both MS Office and OOo.

[din]

@gx_saurav

Why starting an unwanted flamewar as this thread is going smooth ? This has nothing to do on comparison.

Oh wait, a you already tried it, please post a comparison !! - not with MS Office, but with older version of OO. That will be something useful to other members. Please do it.

Offtopic : UI cool.. hmm, I heard this somewhere else, also remembering someone was making fun of someone telling this

[FilledVoid]

I tried Openoffice 3 beta in my office when I got my own workstation. I was far from impressed, not only it is damn slow even on my C2D E8200 with 3 GB RAM, digging through all those menus is very cumborsum after using Office 2007. I asked for Office 2007 just for me & got the students edition, openoffice is so less featured & hard to use.

Just the UI of Office 2007 is enough to make the switch to it & leave Openoffice

Don't you ever learn?

[Garbage]

Originally Posted by din

@Garbage

From The source

download OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta here.

Started downloading .. will give it a try.

.

Thanks !!

lol @ Filled-void

[Hitboxx]

Ooh yeah, nice improvements, looking forward to it!

@gx_saurav, give it a rest will ya?

[CadCrazy]

Originally Posted by FilledVoid

Don't you ever learn?

Lol

[Cool G5]

@Din - Thanks for the link

Downloading....

[Sumeet_naik]

Thx for link. Will download soon..

[kumarmohit]

Seriously are they gonna make the most important change in it! Get rid of the java sh!t and write it in a decent language like completely in C or C++. This Java version is ridiculously slow. Use C++ code only and make the damn thing work fast!

[chandru.in]

^^ FYI Openoffice is mostly written in C++. Only the Base needs Java as it uses JDBC to connect and act as GUI front-end for several DB servers. In fact default install of Ubuntu comes with Openoffice but not Java (Hardy doesn't even have GIJ by default).

See point 3 & 4 here. http://contributing.openoffice.org/programming.html

It is basically C++ almost completely. But developers can extend it using any language they want. Try grabbing Openoffice vannila code and see for yourself. This proves a point. Just because something is written in C++ doesn't make it fast.

Just to clear the misconception about Java's performance, Java (esp 6+) is not that slow. Calling it sh!t, is a bit too harsh. Compare any similarly architected app written in any "non-native" language and u'll see Java is not slower (in fact mostly faster) than others.

[goobimama]

Good to see Open Office natively supporting Mac OS X. Although I think NeoOffice has that area covered for now (NeoOffice is open source port of Open Office)

[MetalheadGautham]

Originally Posted by chandru.in

^^ FYI Openoffice is mostly written in C++. Only the Base needs Java as it uses JDBC to connect and act as GUI front-end for several DB servers. In fact default install of Ubuntu comes with Openoffice but not Java (Hardy doesn't even have GIJ by default).

See point 3 & 4 here. http://contributing.openoffice.org/programming.html

It is basically C++ almost completely. But developers can extend it using any language they want. Try grabbing Openoffice vannila code and see for yourself. This proves a point. Just because something is written in C++ doesn't make it fast.

Just to clear the misconception about Java's performance, Java (esp 6+) is not that slow. Calling it sh!t, is a bit too harsh. Compare any similarly architected app written in any "non-native" language and u'll see Java is not slower (in fact mostly faster) than others.

+1, but I agree that compared to KOffice and M$ Office, OpenOffice IS a bit slower. I think trying to shift to QT4.4 for programming the interface may help speed things up a bit. But for that, first I need goobimama to confirm that old stable OpenOffice.org on Macintosh works slower than similar version NeoOffice on macintosh.

Originally Posted by goobimama

Good to see Open Office natively supporting Mac OS X. Although I think NeoOffice has that area covered for now (NeoOffice is open source port of Open Office)

Well, the issue with NeoOffice is that you guys get everything somewhat later than us. Its hard to keep up with development from mainstream release and keep porting bud updates and patches into NeoOffice fast enough. So an official support now means that you get to enjoy the latest features at the same time as us.

So say a goodbye and a gratitude filled THANKYOU to NeoOffice and move to OpenOffice.

[goobimama]

But for that, first I need goobimama to confirm that old stable OpenOffice.org on Macintosh works slower than similar version NeoOffice on macintosh.

No idea dude. And I don't want to try as well. I'm pretty much all set with iWork.

[MetalheadGautham]

Originally Posted by goobimama

No idea dude. And I don't want to try as well. I'm pretty much all set with iWork.

any OTHER mac user here who can do it then ?

[goobimama]

The old OpenOffice requires one to install X11 and all that. Not recommended unless you have to.

[kumarmohit]

Well move to QT or move to whatever, just make the thing run fast! and instead of trying ti add features in the software and making it bloatware like MS Office, they really need to focus on keeping the code optimization.

I seriously pray that someone does a Sun again. Just like Sun purchased and open sourced StarOffice, someone please please please buy the Ashampoo Office and open source it. In the meanwhile let us wait and watch how OOo 3.x perform.

[MetalheadGautham]

Originally Posted by goobimama

The old OpenOffice requires one to install X11 and all that. Not recommended unless you have to.

Says who ? I practically LIVE on X11 and I think its one of the best things thats ever happened to computing.

[Faun]

see this before...good news, some cool features

[goobimama]

Not saying X11 by itself is crap or anything of the sort. Just that it is completely non-native on the Mac and Mac users generally prefer a native app (heck, even a Carbon or Java app is looked down upon). I haven't tested it, but when I saw it at the Apple store, I sure didn't want to.

A quick google image search brings me to this:

[cooldudie3]

Finally it will support natively and not X11ish. I had problems with X11 and the whole app froze completely. Also X11 does not look good!
Also will Impress have more themes? It lacks a lot of themes, compared to powerpoint.