Office Archive

"OpenOffice.org 2.1 is recommend for all users, as it represents a significant improvement over all previous versions. Among other things: multiple monitor support for Impress; improved Calc HTML export; enhanced Access support for Base; even more languages; automatic notification of updates."

Microsoft has hit back at critics, including IBM, which voted against approving the company's Office OpenXML format as an Ecma standard, claiming it is nothing more than a vendor-dictated specification that documents proprietary products via XML. Ecma International announced the approval of the new standard Dec. 6 following a meeting of its general assembly and said it will begin the fast track process for adoption of the Office OpenXML formats as an ISO international standard in January 2007.

While the capabilities of operating systems have improved over the last years, the improvements have largely focused on under the hood changes. New functionality is reaching the user via additional applications which allow her to write a DVD, connect to her mp3 player, download streaming video locally and other tasks which were not present before. But the graphical interface of the computer itself is keeping the same concepts introduced with its appearance. One could argue that the graphical environment of computers is exactly the same for the last 10 years and only cosmetic changes take place in newer versions of operating systems. Moving away from the desktop metaphor is harder than it seems. Even alternative operating systems have embraced the concept instead of exploring new ideas. This article describes a solution which attempts to free the user from the files/folder concept.

If you don't like the mandatory antipiracy checks that Microsoft now enforces for Windows, brace yourself. The Microsoft Office productivity and collaboration suite is about to get a similar program. The company's Office Genuine Advantage program will require mandatory validation of Office software starting October 27, the software vendor quietly disclosed today.

The KOffice team is proud to announce the 1.6.0 release of its office suite. This release is mostly a feature release of Krita and Kexi, but also contains major enhancements to the OpenDocument and MathML support of KFormula and new scripting functionality. This version also contains a vastly improved version of KPlato, our project planning application.

The OpenOffice.org team has released OpenOffice.org 2.0.4. This release is mainly a bugfix release. You can download it form the OpenOffice.org website, and if you want to know if your pet bug has been fixed, have fun digging through the changelog.

This article gives a visual walkthrough of some of the new features included in the latest version of Vim. "These are not the only new features. There are scores of others like Remote file explorer which allows one to directly edit a file residing in a remote location, better POSIX compatibility, Vim's own internal grep and so on which I have not covered here because this article is after all a visual walk through of the new features in Vim 7.0. It takes real genius and stellar coding skills to create and maintain such a versatile editor and Bram Moolenaar has proved yet again that he has the necessary ingredients to qualify him for the post."

Version control systems are commonly used by programmers, but their benefits can easily be exploited by regular users as well. Learn how to install, configure (step-by-step) and use Subversion at home to improve control over your own set of documents.

"The OpenDocument Format is an emerging file format standard for electronic office documents. Representing a triumph of common sense over the methods conceived before the rise of the Internet, ODF's goals are both exciting and controversial. Early adopters of the format include state and municipal governments in some near and far-flung places, and this makes the format's progress a thing to watch. Yet innovation theory tells us there are some hurdles we all must overcome before ODF becomes a regular topic of conversation at the ballpark. Those in the know, however, recognize that we're in about the second inning of a barn-burner. So, grab a hot dog and a beer, and settle in for a classic."

OpenOffice.org has hit back at claims that the alternative office applications suite is riddled with security holes. Researchers at the French Ministry of Defense say that OpenOffice is subject to security weaknesses that make it at least as susceptible to computer viruses as the commercial, more widely used, Microsoft Office.

ExtremeTech has an review of Zoho Office Suite, an online office suite. The interfaces are nice to work with, but inconsistent, and some basic features are missing, such as undo for the spreadsheet. But Zoho's spreadsheet still beats Google Spreadsheets, which have no charting and no multiple document capability. Though Zoho is closer to Web 2.0 dictums, ThinkFree Online delivers a richer feature set, and 1GB of free online storage. Of course, in terms of feature sets, all of the webware still has a lot of caching up to do with Microsoft's venerable installed standbys.

Microsoft is giving in to the unrelenting pressure to be more open, particularly with regard to its Office Open XML file format and interoperability with the Open Document Format alternative. The company will announce July 6 that it has set up an open-source project to create a series of tools that allow translation between the OpenXML format and the ODF format, and which will be developed with partners. The Open XML Translator project, as it is known, will be posted on SourceForge, the open-source software development Web site.

OpenOffice.org 2.0.3 has been released. It contains performance improvements, improved compatibility with Microsoft Office formats, support for Intel MAcs, and much more. Release notes, download page.

Microsoft now allows people to try out the next Office--without the hassle of installing beta software or replacing their current version. It runs through an IE window and it requires a Citrix ActiveX plugin in order to give you access to the actual machine that runs Office on the backend.