OpenOffice 3.0 released, ready for download

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 13 October 2008 19:39

Opinion and Analysis

One of the key features of OpenOffice 3.0 is compatibility with Microsoft Office 2007 files, meaning you can open those .docx, .xlsx and .pptx files instead of needing to save them as Office 2003 .doc, .xls and .ppt files first.

Other new features include Mac OS X support without needing X11, which means the Mac version of OpenOffice “behaves like any other Aqua application”.

There's also ODF (OpenDocument Format) 1.2 support built in, a solver feature for “solving optimization problems where the optimum value of a particular spreadsheet cell has to be calculated based on constraints provided in other cells”, something that Office 2008 for Mac apparently lacks.

Also included are chart enhacements in the spreadsheet, an improved crop feature in Draw and Impress, a spreadsheet collaboration through workbook sharing feature, 1024 columns per calc sheet instead of 256, and the ability to display multiple Writer pages while editing.

There's also an improved notes feature in Writer, those previously mentioned “fresh” new icons, a new “Start Centre” from which you can go to any of OpenOffice's applications, native tables in the Impress application and enhanced XML support and updated XSLT based filters.

Minor updates are listed as follows: PDF/A support (the “archival” version of PDF files), a new chart component, some VBA support for many VBA macros, programmability enhancements, transformation of CSV data inside cells into columns within Calc, a language selector in the Writer toolbar, larger page sizes for Draw, enhanced PDF support, and multiple monitor support for Impress.

Miscellaneous Features are listed as:

    * Microsoft Vista Support
    * Columns and Rows in Spreadsheets Can Be Moved via Drag and Drop
    * Autosum button for cell ranges in Calc
    * Named ranges in Validity lists in Calc
    * Easy-To-Use Print Dialog in Calc
    * Playing a Sound File During a Full Slide Show in Impress
    * Custom Animation Paths in Impress
    * Support for Access 2007 ".accdb" Files
    * Improved Pivot Table Support
    * Autokerning Enabled by Default
    * "Queries within Queries" Feature for Base
    * Improved HTML Export for Spreadsheets
    * Block selection in Writer
    * Language auto detected in paragraphs in Writer
    * Preview in Navigator for all modules
    * Online update for OOo and extensions
    * Java installer under Linux

Version 3 is currently available in Danish, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian and Swedish, with other language versions still in 2.x mode.

All 3.0 versions are available for Windows and Linux, while Mac OS X gets 3.0 versions in Danish, English, German and Swedish.

More 3.0 support for lanugages and platforms is comng soon. The Windows version of OpenOffice 3.0 is only 142mb in size.

Download it now from the OpenOffice website!