OpenOffice Gets Them Talking

While Microsoft keeps releasing press blurbs about the upcoming beta of Office 2010, I can’t really see any outstanding new feature that will be included. For most people I know who live and die by the Microsoft suite, the features that are truly needed were fully fleshed out about the time of Office XP. Now, Microsoft has run out of important changes, and must rely on froufrou like the much vaunted (but only by Microsoft representatives) ribbon interface. It’s true that there are many who like this look, but it remains that it is just a look, and not a feature that helps to get work done more effectively.

On the other hand, OpenOffice, and its glamorous sister, OxygenOffice Professional, has room to grow, and seems to be growing in ways that make it a much closer work-alike to Microsoft Office (for those that want it) and a very easy, but powerful, solution to getting things done for those whose main object is work completion.

The buzz is out about the upcoming 3.2 release, with bits and pieces about it in places like gHacks -

OpenOffice 3.2 Beta has been released yesterday which gives users and developers a preview of the final OpenOffice 3.2 release which is slated for a December release. A list of changes and additions to this version of the Open Source Microsoft Office alternative has been posted at the official website. The list format is hard to read but contains many links pointing to documentation containing details about each feature. The feature list is divided into chapters for specific components like charts, database access or spreadsheets of the Office suite. Some of the most notable additions and changes in OpenOffice 3.2 Beta are listed below.

• The Bubble Chart is available as new chart type now
• Keyboard shortcut configuration dialog now supports “ALT” modifier
• Removed the password length limitation in ODF document password creation dialog
• Menu items display changed
• Support for PS-OpenType fonts
• Impress and Draw now support comments (formerly known as sticky notes) to support collaboration
• More filter criteria in “Standard Filter” dialog
• Use System Credentials for Web Site Authentication
• “Notes” feature renamed to “Comments”
• Encryption support for “Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP” filter.

Users who are interested in testing OpenOffice 3.2 Beta can head over to the official OpenOffice website to download the beta version. The beta is available for all supported operating systems and languages. The list of changes and additions implemented in OpenOffice 3.2 are available at the release notes page.

and slashdot.

‘The last developer milestone ( DEV300m60) of OpenOffice.org has been released. The next version of OpenOffice.org 3.2 has more than 42 features and 167 enhancements . The final version is expected to be available at the end of November 2009. Many companies have contributed to this version like RedHat, RedFlag, and IBM, making OpenOffice more stable and useful. I couldn’t stop myself from seeing new features and enjoying them. So I downloaded the DEV300m60 version. After playing with it for many days I could say that OpenOffice developers have done very good work in it. Well done!”

As the slashdot article states, there are almost 200 top-line changes in Open Office 3.2 and the project will be released ‘fully baked’ at the end of November. Though I am excited about the changes, and will download it the very first day it is available, I won’t be using the beta.

This has nothing to do with the lack of solidity of an OpenOffice beta, because they are usually quite good, with any problems being fully recoverable. No, I simply don’t like the lengthy removal and re-install process, and think that, since the good people at OpenOffice don’t have the need to make a big deal of changes, in the manner of Microsoft, the design should be to do upgrades, with a strict list of [file] replacements, and so the in-place upgrade could proceed very smoothly. Unfortunately, it has not happened yet.

A carefully done, fully thought out upgrade process could make OpenOffice a really big winner.  In the mean time, I’ll wait, and keep checking in on the site, looking at the changes, and anticipating the goodness to come.

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Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. William Faulkner

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