The third major release of OpenOffice.org’s free software suite comes as the group celebrates its eighth birthday.
OpenOffice.org released the third version of its free office software over the weekend – it can be downloaded free here.
New features in the word processing software ‘Writer’ include multilingual support, better zoom tools for editing, and the ability to edit web-based wiki documents. The spreadsheet, called ‘Calc’ now supports 1024 columns per sheet and a collaboration mode for multiple users, as well as a new equation solver. Graphics program ‘Draw’ can now manage images up to three square meters in size, while presentation software ‘Impress’ now has a table designer.
The 3.0 suite also supports Microsoft’s Office Open XML files for the first time. Supporters of both the Microsoft format and the Open Document Format (ODF) used by OpenOffice.org have been battling it out at the International Organisation for Standardisation recently, with Microsoft's version being named as a recognised international standard.
"As government after government, enterprise after enterprise adopt the Open Document Format, they frequently adopt OpenOffice.org and love it. With 3.0, the application is more interoperable with MS Office, more capable, more extensible. It frees the desktop from vendor lock-in," claimed Louis Suárez-Potts, community manager of OpenOffice.org.
The free software is sometimes seen as going head-to-head against Google’s web-based Docs, but OpenOffice.org stressed the differences between web and desktop-based applications – a view echoing Microsoft’s own Steve Ballmer earlier this month, when he discussed that firm’s soon-to-be-launched web-friendly office suite.
"OpenOffice.org 3.0 shows that despite the growth of web applications, when it comes to serious work, desktop-based software reigns supreme for the speed of use and sheer range of features offered," said John McCreesh, OpenOffice.org marketing project lead.
The launch will be celebrated at a party tonight in Paris, which also marks the group’s eighth birthday.
Email to a friend
Print this page
OpenOffice 3.0 comes with new features and performance enhancements.
Sun Microsystems released version 3.0 of its free and open source (FOSS) office suite Openoffice.org on Monday. It has been reported that the new version comes with a number of performance enhancements and new features. Openoffice.org 3.0 now claims to work out of the box in  Mac OS X as a native  Aqua application.

News sources report the official download servers of OpenOffice.org crashed soon after the release due to heavy downloads. Downloads are however available from a number of mirror sites.



Openoffice.org 3.0 suite includes  spreadsheet,  word processor,  equation editor,  presentation tool,  relational database and  vector drawing software. Full interoperability is available for  Microsoft Office 98/XP formats, but offers read only support for  OOXML file formats. This version supports the new  ODF 1.2 document format. The software is available for many platforms including  Linux,  Microsoft Windows and Mac, as well as in multiple languages.

Users report OpenOffice.org 3.0 has introduced a new graphical and text-based hybrid equation editor, a  mail merge wizard, improved label templates and better interface for outlining. Solver, a spreadsheet add-on for  combinatorial optimization problems is included in this version.

Other enhancements highlighted by enthusiasts include collaborative options that allow multiple users to edit documents at the same time and improved drawing and charting tools. OpenOffice.org 3.0 can now display multiple pages during editing and workbooks up to 1024 columns in each spreadsheet.

The download size of OpenOffice.org 3.0 is 163 MB for Mac and requires OS X Tiger or later and an Intel Mac. The installer for Windows is about 145 MB in size. 

"As government after government, enterprise after enterprise adopt the Open Document Format, they frequently adopt OpenOffice.org and love it. With 3.0, the application is more interoperable with MS Office, more capable, more extensible. It frees the desktop from vendor lock-in," claimed Louis Suárez-Potts, community manager of OpenOffice.org.