OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/20392/Photos_Open_Office_3_New_Features Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2013, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:05:40 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Comment by Luminair http://www.osnews.com/thread?333857 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333857 openoffice is pretty ugly software. Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Luminair) Comments RE: Comment by Luminair http://www.osnews.com/thread?333864 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333864 It is, but at least it's free. Maybe SUN decided to give it away because few people wanted it. I'm sad OO.o 3.0 cannot save into .docx... Some of us now start receiving documents in .docx from collaborators, so it's nice to be able to view them, but it would be even nicer to save them as well! Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Liquidator) Comments RE: Comment by Luminair http://www.osnews.com/thread?333868 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333868 I like OOo but KOffice looks better to me. I was hoping that by now KOffice on win32 would be more stable and complete.Edited 2008-10-15 17:14 UTC Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (robojerk) Comments RE[2]: Comment by Luminair http://www.osnews.com/thread?333885 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333885
It is, but at least it's free. Maybe SUN decided to give it away because few people wanted it. I'm sad OO.o 3.0 cannot save into .docx... Some of us now start receiving documents in .docx from collaborators, so it's nice to be able to view them, but it would be even nicer to save them as well!


Their argument is that they didn't include exporting because it would make end users dependent on OOXML when they (developers/Sun/etc) are trying to move people to ODF.

Btw, why don't you ask these 'collaborators' to install the ODF plugin from the Sun website? Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaiwai) Comments RE[2]: Comment by Luminair http://www.osnews.com/thread?333889 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333889 What's stopping you from sending back a regular .doc? Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (FooBarWidget) Comments imcomplete mac support http://www.osnews.com/thread?333893 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333893 It doesn't fully support the Mac natively as we are still waiting for the PowerPC version. Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bhuot) Comments RE[3]: Comment by Luminair http://www.osnews.com/thread?333897 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333897 That would be awkward when these people are customers ;)

But the rationale behind not saving as docx actually makes sense.Edited 2008-10-15 20:48 UTC Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Liquidator) Comments not happy on Mac http://www.osnews.com/thread?333900 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333900 I must say... it looks HORRIBLE on Mac... The text and icons in the beginning page are so huge. The icons in OOo look so 1980s... Even the little things like the 100% on the bottom right overlapping with the stripes you click on to change the window size... And not to forget the fact that it's all stuck into 1 window.. Even MS Office Mac managed to use separate windows.. The preferences are still horrible and confusingly put..

Put me off. I mean even NeoOffice, which is based on OOo 2.x looks slightly better. And face it, with OSX, a big part is about the looks ;)

I guess this is the example where OOo trying to act and look like MS Office Win a little too much is biting it in the ass.

OOo, good work so far, but try and focus more on other points like those mentioned above, now that you have a good working base. Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (xushi) Comments RE: imcomplete mac support http://www.osnews.com/thread?333905 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333905
It doesn't fully support the Mac natively as we are still waiting for the PowerPC version.


Correction: It does fully support the Mac ala Cocoa. It just isn't a Universal Binary. Wed, 15 Oct 2008 22:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (tyrione) Comments RE: not happy on Mac http://www.osnews.com/thread?333906 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333906
I must say... it looks HORRIBLE on Mac... The text and icons in the beginning page are so huge. The icons in OOo look so 1980s... Even the little things like the 100% on the bottom right overlapping with the stripes you click on to change the window size... And not to forget the fact that it's all stuck into 1 window.. Even MS Office Mac managed to use separate windows.. The preferences are still horrible and confusingly put..

Put me off. I mean even NeoOffice, which is based on OOo 2.x looks slightly better. And face it, with OSX, a big part is about the looks ;)

I guess this is the example where OOo trying to act and look like MS Office Win a little too much is biting it in the ass.

OOo, good work so far, but try and focus more on other points like those mentioned above, now that you have a good working base.


Yes. The UI Designers with OS X experience and willing to donate some time and efforts for credits would immensely improve the first impression of the application suite. Wed, 15 Oct 2008 22:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (tyrione) Comments RE[2]: imcomplete mac support http://www.osnews.com/thread?333907 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333907 If you want to be that technical, I wasn't asking for a universal binary. I was asking for a PowerPC version, technically these are different. Seriously, would you release a Windows version without a Windows XP version? How can you say you natively support the Mac, without having a PowerPC version - even if it is Cocoa, it doesn't run at all on the PowerPC Macs unless you have a PowerPC version. If you think that people don't care then just label it an Intel Mac version. Unless someone bought a new Mac in the last 3 years or less, then they don't have an Intel Mac. Does OpenOffice.org only support 3 year old versions of Windows? Wed, 15 Oct 2008 22:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bhuot) Comments RE[3]: imcomplete mac support http://www.osnews.com/thread?333908 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333908 I should say 3 year old processor as my Linux PC is and it can run the latest version of OpenOffice.org. Wed, 15 Oct 2008 22:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bhuot) Comments RE: not happy on Mac http://www.osnews.com/thread?333909 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333909 I'm ok with the Mac version. I really like the fact that it's MDI. I really hate the way Photoshop and Flash spawn all those separate Windows. Wed, 15 Oct 2008 22:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pandronic) Comments RE[4]: Comment by Luminair http://www.osnews.com/thread?333912 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333912
That would be awkward when these people are customers ;)


Well, when I heard 'collaborators', I assumed they were work colleagues.

But the rationale behind not saving as docx actually makes sense.


True, hopefully Office 2007 will come out which will mean out of the box ODT/ODF support. Wed, 15 Oct 2008 22:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaiwai) Comments RE[5]: Comment by Luminair http://www.osnews.com/thread?333915 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333915
True, hopefully Office 2007 will come out which will mean out of the box ODT/ODF support.

Don't you mean MS-ODT/MS-ODF support?Edited 2008-10-15 23:21 UTC Wed, 15 Oct 2008 23:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (sbergman27) Comments RE: not happy on Mac http://www.osnews.com/thread?333922 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333922 I agree that the application could be made better on the mac but IMHO, I think its way better than NeoOffice (I had it on my mac before and hated it). It seems to have a better interface than NeoOffice (especially with graphs) despite not fully conforming to the apple standards (which I hope they will eventually do) and the new OOo 3 features are very useful to me. Wed, 15 Oct 2008 23:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (sultanqasim) Comments RE[5]: Comment by Luminair http://www.osnews.com/thread?333925 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333925
True, hopefully Office 2007 will come out which will mean out of the box ODT/ODF support.


You can of course get out of the box ODT/ODF support with OpenOffice right now.

I have been told that Office 2007 SP2 (which is apparently available now) also implements ODT/ODF support ... although I haven't heard any assesment of it in any report or review so far, so I cannot comment on how reliable or compliant it is. Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (lemur2) Comments RE[6]: Comment by Luminair http://www.osnews.com/thread?333926 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333926
"True, hopefully Office 2007 will come out which will mean out of the box ODT/ODF support.


Don't you mean MS-ODT/MS-ODF support? "

That is what I said already - having problems understanding English? Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaiwai) Comments RE[6]: Comment by Luminair http://www.osnews.com/thread?333927 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333927
"True, hopefully Office 2007 will come out which will mean out of the box ODT/ODF support.


You can of course get out of the box ODT/ODF support with OpenOffice right now. "

Of course, but *I SAID* that *OFFICE 2007* WILL GET IT SOON. Do you have problems understanding basic English? Dear god, what is it with people here having problem understanding basic English? Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kaiwai) Comments RE[6]: Comment by Luminair http://www.osnews.com/thread?333928 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333928 You heard that from me, I didn't have the time to reply back, and then forgot about it. SP2 isn't out yet, it'll be out in 2-3 months. I got confused with SP1, which has been out for awhile (and I never really get open office docs so it isn't a big thing for me)

ODF 1.1 and PDF 1.5 should be fully supported. IMO PDF support is a much bigger thing then ODF, since it seems to mean they are just giving up with pushing XPS as a serious format. Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (google_ninja) Comments RE[7]: Comment by Luminair http://www.osnews.com/thread?333931 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333931
ODF 1.1 and PDF 1.5 should be fully supported.

At the risk of putting Kaiwai's perception of my basic English skills in yet greater peril, it will be very interesting to see what the word "fully" will mean in this context.

IMO PDF support is a much bigger thing than ODF, since it seems to mean they are just giving up with pushing XPS as a serious format.

MS unable to foist a new format upon desktop users? I agree. That is interesting.Edited 2008-10-16 01:10 UTC Thu, 16 Oct 2008 01:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (sbergman27) Comments Numerical Analysis Data Acquisition Macros http://www.osnews.com/thread?333947 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333947 Something I truly loved with Borland Quattro Pro when I was an undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering was it's macro language to write data acquisition macros for large data sets.

We had an Axial Flow Fan @WSU [Washington State] that could never reproduce a proper turbulent flow curve [length of the tunnel needing to probably be a few hundred feet longer] but the tens of thousands of data points measuring flow rates across the thin-walled cylinder using Quattro Pro to record was a breeze.d

I haven't seen much of this for OpenOffice and I realize with MatLab I've got a crapload of options, not to mention Octave 3.0, but I'd like to see some rudimentary macro work in Numerical Analysis, not to mention the ability to leverage MatLab and Octave 3.0 within OpenOffice 3.

If I'm out-of-the-loop I'd love to hear from anyone whose worked in this area. Thu, 16 Oct 2008 04:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (tyrione) Comments RE[3]: imcomplete mac support http://www.osnews.com/thread?333952 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333952 The answer to the how you ask is that there arn't enough contributors for Mac PPC. OOo isn't a large company that can just employ a PPC engineer just like that. If nobody is volunteering their time to Mac PPC, then there is no Mac PPC release. Simple. Thu, 16 Oct 2008 06:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc) Comments RE[3]: Comment by Luminair http://www.osnews.com/thread?333953 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333953
Their argument is that they didn't include exporting because it would make end users dependent on OOXML when they (developers/Sun/etc) are trying to move people to ODF.


Politics, politics, darn politics...

Seeing OOS software playing this game to retain and expand their user-base is kinda sickening, but hey it works... maybe...Edited 2008-10-16 07:42 UTC Thu, 16 Oct 2008 07:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Panajev) Comments RE[3]: Comment by Luminair http://www.osnews.com/thread?333960 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333960 when you reformat files they often get f--ked up Thu, 16 Oct 2008 09:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Luminair) Comments RE[7]: Comment by Luminair http://www.osnews.com/thread?333965 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333965
IMO PDF support is a much bigger thing then ODF, since it seems to mean they are just giving up with pushing XPS as a serious format.


I haven't seen any signs of MS dropping XPS. Microsoft just couldn't earlier include the PDF-exporter with Office 2007, since Adobe didn't want them to.

However, it has been a downloadable plugin since the release. XPS has been downloadable plugin, too, but probably because of antitrust reasons.

Now that PDF is standarded by ISO, Microsoft can include the PDF-support in Office without Adobe's permission. Thu, 16 Oct 2008 10:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Jemm) Comments RE[8]: Comment by Luminair http://www.osnews.com/thread?333968 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333968 Really? I thought they didn't include it cause they wanted to flog their own horse, but after all they legal drama they just decided to give up and go with the other team.

Thanks for the info ;) Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (google_ninja) Comments RE: Comment by Luminair http://www.osnews.com/thread?333970 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333970 And you're ugly too! ;) Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (rramalho) Comments RE[2]: Comment by Luminair http://www.osnews.com/thread?333973 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333973 You can save in .doc, and send them back... Most of them won't even notice! ;) Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (rramalho) Comments RE[4]: imcomplete mac support http://www.osnews.com/thread?333994 http://www.osnews.com/thread?333994 I realize that and I am have no problem with that. But they shouldn't say they have Mac support when there is no PowerPC version. Why don't they jut say they have an Intel Mac version? Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bhuot) Comments