• OpenOffice.org 2.0

    OpenOffice.org 2.0

    Milind Bandekar, Oct 23, 2005 1010 hrs IST

    OpenOffice.org 2.0 looks like it is going to open the windows and throw Microsoft Office out.

    Excellent alternative to MS office suite, open source, flexible, high interoperability

    No email client/organizer bundled together for MS outlook users, No skin/theme support

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In over two decades Microsoft Office has grown and now has more than 90 percent of its user base. Dozens of word processors have evolved in this time and yet none of them were successful in making a mark or even taking over this user base captured by Office's Word. However, relatively and recently, OpenOffice has been a good competitor to Office in this established market. And now with their new final release, it looks like OpenOffice 2.0 is going to really open the windows and throw MS Office out...

The Suite
Sharing a code base with Sun's older StarOffice, OpenOffice has been in development for more than five years, and the latest version of this office suite, 2.0, is now available. OpenOffice 2.0 is a suite that provides functionality similar to that of MS Office but its open source. It's an entire office suite that comprises of a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, database and some other applications. OpenOffice is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open source project, offering an obvious economic benefit for use for any individual or an organization over commercial solutions. Let's take a closer look at its key components such as Writer (Word), Calc (Excel) and Impress (PowerPoint) which happen to be the most widely and frequently used applications by most of the users. It also features Base as an alternative to Access along with two additional applications - Draw and Math.



What's New?
In addition to a complete overhaul to the user interface and the new database module, many more features have been introduced in OpenOffice 2.0, such as multi-pane view, new custom shapes (compatible with Microsoft AutoShapes), more slide transitions and animation effects, enhanced PDF export, new enhanced database front-end, mail merge wizard, enhanced word count feature, support for nested tables, digital signatures support, XForms support, WordPerfect filters, 65536 rows in Calc, enhanced PivotTable support, native installers, native desktop integration, floating toolbars and of course the open standards XML file format. The pre-release versions of 2.0 were very, very heavy inspite of the installer being less than 1/4th the size of that of Office, but the 2.0 final release has been tuned up to be fast and snappy!

Writer
OpenOffice's Writer is pretty much a replica of MS Word. It has everything you would expect from a modern, fully equipped word processor. It is simple enough for a quick memo and powerful enough to create complete books with diagrams and indexes, etc. The predefined wizards for creating standard documents such as letters, faxes, agendas, minutes and mail merges make your tasks more easier and efficient. You are of course free to create your own templates for quick use. Styles and formatting puts the power of style sheets into the hands of every user. The built-in spell checker rectifies the spelling mistakes on the fly and provides an auto-correct option within the right click menu by a few words suggestion taken up directly from the integrated dictionary. Adding custom words to this dictionary is also made easily possible. It also offers an auto-complete like feature that suggests common words and phrases to complete what you are typing with its strong word sense detection. Auto Format takes care of the formatting as you write, leaving you free to concentrate on your message rather than the layout. Text frames and linking gives you the power to tackle desktop publishing tasks for newsletters, flyers, etc and are laid out exactly the way you want them to be.



You can also generate a table of contents or indexing terms for your long complex documents by bibliographical references, illustrations, tables, and other objects. Writer also offers direct connection to your default email software for quick composition. The best part of this open source application is its support for all popular formats. It can of course read all your old/new Microsoft Word documents, or save your work in Microsoft Word format for sending to people who are Office users. You can make your documents go online with its HTML export to the web feature, or publish them in PDF format to preserve the layout for print. Writer has no less capability than Word, and is definitely the best open source solution made available for users.

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Discussion Board
(47) Comments
G. R. Kulkarni
,Mumbai, on Aug 22, 2007 11:05 AM
My typescript of the book Managerial Acounting for Hospitals is nearly ready typed in Word 2003. I wish to convert the typescript ready to publish in PageMaker.
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raguram
,nagercoil, on Mar 15, 2007 03:02 PM
i need ms aceess in my nokia6681 mobile
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yohou
,marseille, on Jan 18, 2007 01:48 AM
yeah
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manuel
,portugal, on Jan 15, 2007 12:50 AM
OpenOffice 2.0 ? o melhor software free
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RR Gouri
,surat, on Dec 04, 2006 04:39 PM
vry fine
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ganesh
,vijayawada, on Oct 25, 2006 04:41 PM
good
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Tushar V Keer
,Mumbai, on Sep 18, 2006 08:27 AM
I wood like to use obov program
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hy;bi; n
, ul yy, on Sep 06, 2006 04:14 AM
hgv hh hhch
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C Ananda Rao
,Tirupati, on Apr 04, 2006 02:21 PM
i am not a programmer. but i am quite familiar with ms office. if the open office wants to take the wind out of ms office, the way to go is imitation. just put in everything that ms office has. that will really wean away people from ms office. i use both products, but what i miss in open office is many of the functionalities in the corresponding suites in ms office. i am aware that this might take a lot of coding, but this is my humble opinion. also open source guys should try and take the geekness out of their systems. for instance, it is really a big hassle to get a usb pen drive to be recognized by linux systems, unless you are willing to do a lot of hand work. not like in ms windows where as soon as you plug in the pen drive it is accessible from the explorer.
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rahul
,kilkata, on Feb 18, 2006 12:25 PM
great
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Ronak
,Delhi, on Oct 23, 2005 09:58 PM
openoffice is GOD. i have been using openoffice since it was launched and i never looked back at microsoft office evcer after that. micorsoft office can go to hell and bill gates can die with a heart attack by looking at open office.
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anonymouse
,mumbai, on Nov 03, 2005 03:22 AM
right, openoffice is a great product, but ronak u should get your act straight, have you seen the amount of charity money bill gates gives out every where around the world, have you seen any by Scott Mcnealy or other bigwigs in the anti-microsoft world
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asdf
,asdf, on Nov 17, 2005 07:39 AM
it's just that they don't take money from ppl to give a tiny of it back...
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Anonymous
,se mich, on Nov 07, 2005 01:04 PM
I use draw where i used to use pagemaker for doing layout. it has really cool features like multisheet posters and the like.. As a matter of fact, i have to do one of those right now. see ya!
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Prophet Mohammu
,Seventh heaven, on Nov 03, 2005 10:46 PM
well open office is good surely when u compare the price u pay for MSO and the price u pay for it (hey come on it's not all free after all). however one nice thing i still find absent in open office is the support for printer fonts. that's missing. its usage is a blessing when u r using a DMP. if it is there and i am unable to find it, kindly tell me.
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Karthik
,Birmingham, on Oct 30, 2005 02:41 PM
OO.org 2 seems to be excellent even if we dont consider the fact that it is not free. The only hurdle for it is not itself but the people who have become so much become entangled into the mess of MS and simply dont realise that there are other OS es and software that are better which is why MS has become the defacto standard. Opensource products are now proving to be much better and there is a very good alternative for most applications we can think of.
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Osama Bin Laden
,NEW YORK, on Oct 29, 2005 12:31 PM
you give me money and i give you office.
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Sai rama chandh
,Visakhapatnam, on Oct 27, 2005 04:29 PM
This software is alternate to MS office, and very flexibility, and very easy to work on it.
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Ashley Roberts
,Wyoming, on Oct 23, 2005 09:35 PM
Thanks a lot to this author. I now have a free office suite which is going to save a lot of my money from installing it on my entire home network. I wish there was a similar open source Antivirus as well. I pay a lot on AntiVirus subscriptions every month. Please help me.
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Gareth
,Liverpool, UK, on Oct 24, 2005 01:59 AM
A free virus checker can be found here; http://www.clamav.net/ Windows versions is here; http://www.clamwin.com/ Mac Version is here; http://www.clamxav.com/ Hope that helps! There are cross open source equilvants for everything except a nice file extractor! I can dream!
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Mark
,Waterford, NY, on Oct 24, 2005 05:59 AM
You could try Grisoft AVG Antivirus. It's not open source, but it's FREE! Enjoy! http://free.grisoft.com
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James Blair
,Omaha, NE, on Oct 24, 2005 07:47 AM
Avast releases Avast Home edition free for non-commerical home use. See www.avast.com
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Mark
,Kochi, on Oct 24, 2005 09:07 AM
You can try AVG (grisoft.com) or AVAST (avast.com). The latter comes with a free one year license on registration.
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badvt
,chennai, on Oct 24, 2005 10:28 AM
Bitdefender has a free antivirus (look in downloads > free products).
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saty
,Mumbai, on Oct 24, 2005 12:50 PM
hi! u can check out AVG Free Edition/Avast Home Edition. Excellent free alternatives to Symantec/Mcafee etc.
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Tom
,Belchertown, on Oct 27, 2005 06:19 AM
for a file extractor try http://sourceforge.net/projects/sevenzip/
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badvt
,Chennai, on Oct 23, 2005 07:43 PM
In earlier versions of draw, one could draw arcs and sectors - can anybody tell me how it can be done with OO 2.0? Has this option been removed?
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Mitch 74
,moving, on Oct 24, 2005 07:38 PM
to make a curve and arcs: draw a line, insert inflexion point, convert to curve... and then it's a Bézier curve. Now then, what do you mean by 'sector'? If you just want to fill a self-designed space, use 'close Bézier space'.
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badvt
,Chennai, on Oct 26, 2005 01:14 PM
Thanks Mitch 74. In case you observe the options in earlier versions, OO 1.1.x, you would see many options for drawing perfect "pie, sectors" etc. Only by seeing it for yourself, you will understand what I mean by "perfect."
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Anonymous
,Cambs, on Oct 27, 2005 12:21 AM
The "ellipses and arcs" tools have been removed from the default Draw toolbars (in the name of simplicity?). However, the functionality has not been removed. If you select Tools->Customize->Toolbars, select the Drawing toolbar, hit "Add", In the "Add Command" dialog, select Drawing in the left pane, then select the *second* Ellipse option in the middle pane (this is the ellipse toolbar, rather than the draw-ellipse command) and hit "Add" to add it to the toolbar.
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Sameer
,Ahmedabad, on Oct 26, 2005 09:19 AM
It's simply great to work with OpenOffice2.0 - Most important advantage being its cross-platform compatibility.
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ROMAN B. CONSUL
,CEBU CITY, on Oct 25, 2005 10:04 PM
I LIKE THE FEATURES OF THIS NEW VERSION OF OPEN OFFICE2.0...AND I WILL TRY IT RIGHT AWAY TO MY PC TO COMPARE IT TO THE MS OFFICE...BECAUSE I THINK IT IS MORE EASY AND MORE FRIENDLY TO USE....IT IS BETTER TO USE IT TO AVOID THE MONOPOLY OF MICROSOFT CORPORATION OVER THE OFFICE WORKS...SOFTWARE....IT'S ABOUT TIME TO TRY A NEW AND BETTER ONE....
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pankaj
,mumbai, on Oct 25, 2005 08:40 PM
actually i had posted a comment on your download page for open office that it was unfortunate that it is not compatible with the mac, since your review sugested that its compatible with windows only. however on checking the website of open office i found out that it is compatible with most of OS. request you to please update your information.
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essem
,canberra, on Oct 25, 2005 08:53 AM
Does this support VBA?
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SherSingh
,Punjab, on Oct 25, 2005 12:54 PM
O tusi kyaa keh rahe ho ?
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James
,chennai, on Oct 24, 2005 10:15 PM
Am no evangelist for MSOFT, but just look at what Mr.Gates has achieved in a life time. He has made his fair share of mistakes.But we need to admire him for his contribution towards making computers friendlier. If MSOFT had not shown the way, open source would not have known what to build, perhaps? Now, dont bash me guys. I love open source myself :) but I dont hate gates.
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Mitch 74
,moving, on Oct 24, 2005 07:30 PM
About OOo not delivering a completely compatible layout to MS documents... Have you ever tried opening an Office 2000 complex document with Office 2003? Well then, MSO can't do it perfectly every time - OOo just does the same... But it still opens it and saves it when MSO it self crashes upon opening or closing a file! That, in itself, compensates those very slight discrepancies that even the 'genuine' MS software introduces.
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ramesh pai
,Goa, on Oct 24, 2005 05:46 PM
very good. excellent
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saty
,Mumbai, on Oct 24, 2005 12:48 PM
I think this version of OO would help it gain a significant portion of market share from MS office.Its a blessing for users looking for an alternative to MSOffice.And i hope they continue the good work.Long Live Open Source.
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vikram
,belgaum, on Oct 23, 2005 07:58 PM
where can i get the free download of this software
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raj
,mumbai, on Oct 23, 2005 09:28 PM
dude if you notice there are 3 more pages after this one. and the last one has the download link.
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Abhijeet
,Mumbai, on Oct 23, 2005 10:01 PM
you can either download it from their last page or from openoffice.org website. MORON!
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Mohini
,Bangalore, on Oct 24, 2005 12:09 PM
I'm surprised, U guys actually use computers?....for what?
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HAWT CHIKA
,AMSTERDAMMMMM, on Oct 23, 2005 10:32 PM
ORGY ORGY ORGY, OPEN ORGY!!!
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James
,New York, on Oct 23, 2005 10:12 PM
Attack of rivals, Sun spanks Microsoft harder!! HEEEHAW i like this.
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Jacques
,Scotland, on Oct 23, 2005 09:53 PM
AMEN!
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Ram Sharma
,Bhopal, on Oct 23, 2005 09:39 PM
Very nice. Screenshots looks interesting. I am going to download it right now.
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