when will I be able to just download the components I want. I will never need math, nor draw (which is pretty awful). I just really want Writer, and not the rest of the 100+mb download.

Abi-Word.

:)

ahh, someone that also looks outside of the box and an excellent point!

i wish they would do that with cable t.v. too.

Here's the full release-
http://www.majorgeeks.co..._For_Windows_d3461.html

we get what we pay for.

also, keep in mind that hackers will take the path of least resistence.

for example, if it is free then it is likely riddle with all the security flaws/vulnerabilities that microsoft has discovered and corrected and generously provided to all it's office customers.

further, it is unclear if the freeware has an undisclosed time out. keep in mind, that the makers reserve every right to their freeware, including not disclosing a time out.

therefore, if anyone relies totally on the freeware and it times out, the users documents will be held as hostage into paying for a subscription.

perhaps, one last point is that it has taken a great deal of time and money to create the freeware.

simply, the freeware is not a tax deductable contribution towards the benefit of society.

so one has to ask how will the software makers/business ascertain a return for their costs and expense.

"simply, the freeware is not a tax deductable contribution towards the benefit of society."

Huh? In and of itself, the fact that it's freeware is a benefit to society... is it not?

As far as the rest, I think you went a little overboard.

What type of proprietary formats does OOo save documents in that would restrict the user from opening them in the extremely unlikely event that an open source project of this magnitude decides to change its license? I must have missed that...

Potential time-out? Flaws and vulnerabilities? The source code is available for anyone to peruse for the existence of the very same problems that you suggest it may be riddled with... and is probably done so by thousands of developers worldwide already.

Slight Problem with that... OpenOffice is released under an Open Source lisence:

From their website: It's hard to believe that high quality, easy to use software like OpenOffice.org 3 can really be free. But thanks to contributions of time and money, from individuals and companies (large and small), OpenOffice.org is free for you to use today.

----------------
Furthermore, the open-source licence used by OpenOffice.org 3 means this freedom can never be taken away.
----------------

The OpenOffice.org community are delighted if you find our software of use. Please help us by telling people about OpenOffice.org 3, and if you can, pass them on a copy. More people use OpenOffice.org 3 as a result of personal recommendation than any other route.

also, keep in mind that hackers will take the path of least resistence.

That was true in the early 80's. Welcome to the 21st century. Now they do it for maximum profit.

...the malware chases the market share.

well, the question is:

"why do we want as many users as possible utilizing the freeware, if there is nothing to gain by you and yours"

unless open office has been tested by microsoft, i wouldn't recommend or forward a copy of it to anyone.

in fact even if symantec tested the open office i still wouldn't trust it because symantec doesn't have all the data from microsoft for windows to do a thorough analysis.

wouldn't it be just wonderful to find out in the future that open office was covertly compromised and allowed computers to be accessed remotely by hackers.

however, it is not to say that i wouldn't suggest the freeware.

but i would also make my concerns known and include them with the suggestion.

You are of couse entitled to be suspicious of free software. After all, many free things have a catch.

OpenOffice.org is free to anyone. However support for it is available at a price, should your organization require it. This is how Sun Microsystems, which is the main sponsor of the project - and sells StarOffice, a paid-for version of a similar product - makes money from OpenOffice.org.

The price of a software is not an indication of the level of security, or other, risks. A lot of software is made freely available, even from Microsoft (thank you!).

unless open office has been tested by microsoft, i wouldn't recommend or forward a copy of it to anyone.

*laughing*

Okay, now many here consider me to be a MSFT fanboy, but even I can't read that without laughing.

wouldn't it be just wonderful to find out in the future that open office was covertly compromised and allowed computers to be accessed remotely by hackers.

No. In fact, that would be horrible. What the hell is wrong with you? Do you wish cancer on puppies as well?

First, I'd recommend that you stop using the term "Freeware" seeing as it's "Open Source Software".

Second.. OpenOffice is also free for Linux distros(Which is where I use it) and it hasn't come up as a security issue yet.

Microsoft isn't the only company who puts outs word publishing software for windows. Word Perfect is still a perfectly viable option, and you have to pay for it. So does that mean that Word Pefect and MS Word are on the same level in terms of security?

By your logic, MS is the only company capable of putting out software that is secure for the Windows platform... and all I have to say about that is: "ActiveX"

Seriously.... Really....

Wow your not kidding are you. I suggest you stick with pen and paper and hope the paper companies haven't embedded nano processor technology able to measure the pressure from a pen and report what your writing back to the Russian hackers.

hello heero,

well, i agree with you that there are other software for windows as well as open office.

but if we compare all the security updates provided for ms office to those provided by others for their software's, then there seems to be A considerable difference.

if Microsoft can find dozens of security and vulnerability holes within the software they engineered for use by the operating system they also engineered, then why don't the third party software have similar discoveries and updates as well.

it would be somewhat arrogant to believe that open office or third party versions of office are engineered perfectly on the first try and are free from vulnerabilities and security flaws.

however, don't get me wrong. i don't consider Microsoft as the inventor of word processors.

but they are the authority of their windows operating system and they are also the experts on the world wide attempts to undermine peoples PC by using a variety of methods, like open source software, freeware, phony-ware and Mal-ware.

at this time open office has not provided "any" guarantees other than it being free for use.

it seems reasonable to believe that due to the economics of any business or organization to put so much time and effort into making open source freeware there must also be an economic return, be it may an undisclosed one. - respectfully.

The financial return is done via support.

It's the same idea with Linux.

...and using OpenOffice on the linux side, I have received many updates for OpenOffice through my Update manager for it.

Not all companies are bent on creating something that's design to cripple a computer, or an OS. I'd say that a company like SUN has a lot to risk by creating a product that could harm a computer.

There are many other software companies that put out free software, and release it either Open Source, or as Freeware, and that put out security updates at a regular interval.

Web Browsers: Firefox, Opera for example.
Multimedia: GIMP, Audacity, Goldwave
Desktop: Google Desktop

However, there is one major difference between Word, and OpenOffice on the windows side that has been discussed in this thread, but that we haven't mentioned here.

MS Office is tied into the OS itself... So a critical security problem is of much bigger concern then a program that run on top the OS such as OpenOffice. On top of that, OpenOffice source code is open to the world... where thousands of minds can look at it, and help make it better. Nick pick it to be the best that it can be. While MS Office is only taken care by internal staff.

MS does Office for Mac as well, should the security updates on the Mac side be taken care by the Apple software guys? Because they know the Mac platform better then MS?

Are there software bugs in ever piece of software? Yes

Should companies do the best they can to fix them? Yes

Are reputable companies better off making the best piece of software they can in order to keep their image? Yes

Would it make sense for SUN to release a piece of software who's purpose is to attack their customer's computers? No.

I understand where your coming from DatabaseBen, and this is no way anything personal.. I just don't agree with where your coming from.

"unless open office has been tested by microsoft, i wouldn't recommend or forward a copy of it to anyone."

You're starting to sound like a Microsoft version of internetworld7. And it's open source, not freeware. Your points would be taken more seriously if you used the correct terms.

I can't believe that people are comparing Open office with MS office. Why? Open office is a free, yes I did say free office application. MS office you pay for, about £170 last time I looked, yes I know you can get it cheaper if you look around or buy the student version, but you are still looking at £70

I think open office is great and brings the basic office tools to people who don't want to pay high prices.

I use office 2007, the Ribbon is awful, I have no idea why MS did that.

Anyway Open office is good and for free you can not complain, if you want something better then buy it, simple as that.

Get used to the Ribbon, windows 7 is said to continue the Ribbon usage.

yes...biased indeed...why would any "free" software ask about proof? Oh for shame that commercial software does it...that's sarcasm just in case any are clueless.

that said...I commend another good effort to competition for Microsoft in the world of "microsoft is the only monopoly with competition" world. I'll still use my Office 2k3 and 2k7. The choice is ours.

Try for better less biased reporting next time. Much more professional.

Overall, I'm very happy with it. It does what it's supposed to do, it's quite fast, it's stable and it doesn't insinuate itself into the OS at every turn the way MS Office does. Best of all, not a ribbon in sight.

It may not please everyone but it pleases me (and my kids - I've managed to wean all but one off MS Office and after she saw Office 2007, I have a feeling she'll be next).

I say "job well done".

The ribbon is the best thing to ever happen to an office suite. All of those menu options in OpenOffice really need to be replaced with little pictures to make it easy to use. It's the one thing that makes OpenOffice vastly inferior to Microsoft Office.

If only the MS Office ribbon menus weren't still a jumbled mess wherein one still can't find the few commonly used features one would use (or would like to use) if only one could find them. Ribbon or menu, crappy organization (as well as buggy features) has always haunted MS Office!

Care to give us an example? I use Office 2007 every day and I don't have any problem finding basic commands.

I like the concept of this program. I can't see clear to make the switch since there is no equivalent to Outlook's calendar and scheduling capabilities. The lack of calendaring and task list aren't really discussed on the site. I wonder if the developers realize that this is a major stumbling block for some people who are considering their software? This isn't an issue of me being a loyal Microsoft fan. It's an issue of wanting to get my work done effectively with applications that can share information with each other. So for now, I'll keep Office running and will keep hoping that someone will create a truly viable alternative at a more affordable price than Microsoft charges.

Congratulation for OpenOffice.org team. Your is the best developer for me. I like OpenOffice.org not because compare Ms.Office. I adopt my work with your software. Why i hv to adopt like M$ behavior ???
Althought everybody complaint, for my daily work YOU ARE THE BEST

Congrat ...

Without Outline support this program is useless to me. I live in Outline. What sort of primitive program doesn't do outlines? These developers are obviously not writers. It would be great to see this program in a better state of development so that they can really up the anti on MS. So far I'm not seeing it. If nothing else, they're helping keep the price of Office within better reach, especially for students.

If you are a professional writer, hopefully you can afford to scrape together the $150 for Word. For those of use who only need to write letters, recipes and diaries, Openoffice will suit the job perfectly. I never used the outliner when I used to have Word. When I got a new computer without Word and put Openoffice on it, the transition for me was a piece of cake. It felt almost identical to me.

Anyone care to compare Writer to WordPerfect? Some of us are not Word users...

Besides the fact that it takes about a full day to open up, there is nothing worth talking about...

Wha?

You're running a 486? Opens almost instantly on my two boxes (AM2 6000+ / 4800+).

You're both full of sh*t.

It takes just under 10 seconds on first launch on my AMD 4400+, after which point, it does indeed load almost instantly...until you restart the PC.

Why didn't they review the database portion of the suite instead of trying to judge Calc as a database?

The database in Openoffice is basically a back end-only. There are no wizards like in Access. Unless you are a programmer, you won't be able to use it for anything. However, Access isn't included in the versions of Office that most people own anyway. And high-end programmer users have many good open source databases like mysql.

Not really. There is a database pakage since 2.x. (It is true that back in old version of OOo didn't have actual front-end for DB components.) There are wizard and reporting tools.

I'll update when all updates are incremental. Novell's version at least issues MSP patches for security issues instead of requiring users to download the whole thing again and supports ODF and OOXML. The OpenOffice developers don't "get it". Since ubiquitous package management isn't available on Windows, there should be a better way to update.

DISCLAIMER: I use Windows Vista and Office 2007, mostly by choice but also for practicality.

Some of the comments about OpenOffice.org are not accurate. For instance, you mention Writer does not have an Outline feature like Word but this is misleading. The primary task pane, called the Navigator, fulfills this function. Even better, it works in Calc, in Impress and Draw.

The database is fully functional, contrary to your comments. It can create stand-alone files which contains the data, forms, queries and reports. And all the OpenOffice.org applications have a form controls layer that can easily be tied to a specified database. Sun has issued a plug-in for an excellent report writer.

Personally, I'd the like OpenOffice.org team to add the following features:

* Split window in Writer.
* Connectors for shapes in Writer and in Calc.
* Anti-aliased graphic shapes and charts (Office has had it since its 2000 release).
* Colored worksheet tabs.
* Tight integration with Google Docs.

All these exist as issues in their issuezilla tracker and have been there for years.

* Colored worksheet tabs.

^^^ This!

Hi Lamarcheb -- thanks for writing. With due respect, I think we have two radically different definitions of "fulfills" -- I find Navigator simply horrendous for outlining. Unbelievably bad. Just godawful. Shall I continue? If anything in OOo fulfills my requirements for powerful outlining fu, it would be Impress, which makes a weird kind of sense I suppose. (And a friend showed me his clever use of Impress for exactly that purpose.) But let's not kid outselves -- Word's outlining capabilities are far better and more transparent. Office really isn't *all* bad, as you know...

With you on the colored worksheet tabs, though -- considered fussing about it in the Calc section but wasn't sure anyone but me was so fanatic re that sort of thing. From the comments I see I'm wrong. Glad to hear it!

I didn't realize writer didn't have a split window. (I often use a different word processor.) I did see that you can open a different window for a 2nd document, and as I've got dual monitors, no problem...but I don't think most people do. I haven't tried the Lotus stuff since IBM announced they are releasing it freebie.

I find Navigator simply horrendous for outlining. Unbelievably bad. Just godawful.

Come on, Angela...tell us how you *really* feel. ;)

Angela - LOL - its funny how people use something and get a complete different experience from it. I used Navigator successfully and I loved it.

Speaking of Word, finally with version 2007 the outlining feature got an upgrade. It hadn't changed since Word 2.x!

How I *feel*, PC_Tool? Well, after this:

>>No. In fact, that would be horrible. What the hell is wrong with you? Do you wish cancer on puppies as well?

Sick?

Good.

Maybe a bit harsh, but the intent was to show the complete lack of logic behind such statements.

Absurdity can be a useful argument in and of itself at times.

One would hope no-one would wish for such things. One would also hope people wouldn't be wishful that programs secretly let in hackers...

Lastly, the reply was intended for DB, not you. Forums acting up again?

"PowerPoint was an implement of torture"
How so? I love PowerPoint 2007. What makes it merit the "implement of torture" title?

EDIT: Just tried the new Impress. It is at most a minor improvement over PowerPoint 2003.
1. You can now draw tables (at last), but can't insert new row by pressing tab at the last cell.
2. It is still a resource hogger. Much more than MS Office.
3. It is still slower than MS Office.

Angela Gunn should try PowerPoint 2007 before calling it names.

^this^

I'd agree about earlier versions though.

Powerpoint is a mess, imho, and has been for several versions. In contrast, Impress now appears to be Best-In-Class for presentation software. Why? To name a few:

1. The developer who created the PPT "feature" wherein fonts are dynamically modified to fit each slide should be beaten soundly with a bumpy stick. The default behavior of PPT produces slides that look like ransom notes or children's scrawl. OOo behaves as expected, and maintains text styles across slides. (What a concept!)
2. I find that OOo Impress handles importing and exporting between Powerpoint 2000/2002XP/2003/2007 better than Powerpoint itself. Impress behavior is consistent, while objects and formats are modified in inconsistent ways upon import and re-export within Powerpoint -- or PPT sometimes just goes *poof* and crashes. When PPT simply will not open an older PPT file, Impress always will.
3. Powerpoint is long in the tooth, and it shows. The interface has become a hodgepodge of every unused and marginally-useful feature that's been collected over the years. The 2007 "ribbon" interface is an attention-grabbing kludge but doesn't really solve the problem. Anything that moves menu items and buttons wastes time and slows down usage. OOoImpress doesn't hide functions from me. Maybe some people appreciate an impromptu game of cat and mouse, but I have work to do.
4. Impress is *somewhat* slower than PPT unless resource tweaks are made (http://www.ghacks.net/20...18/speed-up-open-office/ ) but saying it's a comparative resource hog is nonsense. MSOffice hides its resource-gobbling through OS-based preloads and obfuscated dll's. It improves the user experience, so that's not a bad thing, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking the pie-horking sumo of PPT is somehow svelte.

BTW, If you're running OOo on Ubuntu or another Linux distro, check out the linux "preload" package (http://preload.sourceforge.net/ ). It provides a service similar to what MS has done with the MSOffice binaries, except that it learns individual usage patterns and speeds up the user experience of *all* applications, not just OpenOffice.

For importing PDF's, I went to Tools, Extension Manager, and add in the "PDF Import Extension. Although I did this back on RC2. I just loaded RC4(on a Windows box) and it's still working properly.

As to speed:
I found the move from 2.4.1 to 3RC1 to be faster. I'd expect a slight increase in the final release speed. Your mileage may vary.
During the install, it's possible to not install large portions of the suite, if speed is of the essence for you. If you install the quick starter, a right click on the OOo icon will let you choose which portion to open.

Nevermind. It's not worth commenting on.

Has OpenOffice continued its normal trend of every new version released gets slower, or has this one improved performance?

It's still pretty slow in my opinion. That's a shame because the Microsoft Office programs launch almost instantly.

MicroSoft Office programs were always very fast to launch.
Because Windows greatly increased the computer start-up delay by pre-loading them before it gave the user control.
Computers without MicroSoft Office had a faster start-up.

Is MicroSoft Office it any better now - or is it still "smoke and mirrors" to give that illusion ?

Wow. That's enough for me to think than my old Office 2000 is still faster, memory efficient and storage efficient. Reading DOCX files is not a problem either since there is a converter from the Microsoft itself.

While Ooo is getting more rich in features, it doesn't bother optimizing their code. The result is a slow and memory inefficient office suite with almost baked features. Worst is that it requires Java for one of its feature. Duh...

Fortunately, I got my Office 2000 early. It's more than enough for me, for now. So if Ooo keep being like this, I might just ignore it for good.

That illusion is what makes the difference though.

That's the reason why Microsoft have done it.

Most people don't spot the correlation between slow startup with fast program launch. One of a couple of reasons Microsoft Office is still the leader in many aspects.

It's also the entire reason OO.o now offers the same start-up functionality.

Thanks Banquo; good observation. I found it a bit slow too, but no so much so that it merited comment in the review; I also chose a slower machine for testing purposes (to simulate a more 'average' installation), so *too* much complaint re load times would have been disingenuous in my case. I wasn't sitting there tapping my foot waiting for load in any case.

Fair enough. Makes sense for them to do it.

So do OpenOffice programs. You need to keep in mind that OpenOffice isn't really designed for computers running Windows XP with 64MB RAM.

The install didn't repeatedly demand proofs that the user wasn't some stinking software pirate. Respect? What a concept.

???

It's FOSS. Seriously. What on Earth made you think there might possibly be DRM?

Are you honestly telling us you were expecting it (thus the sense of wonder when it didn't)?

Wasn't expecting it, of course. That would have been weird. Though I would be deeply amused (in a DRM-hating sort of way) by any install that DID say, in exactly those words, "Are you a stinking software pirate?" Hey, the cards would be on the table for once.

(And good to hear from you again, PC_Tool, but please don't mistake snark for wonder on an aside like the one quoted :-) . If you do, you're gonna end up in the GeoEye-1 news article from yesterday, get to the line about Google's military power, and be rather disturbed. BetaNews readers are smart folk, so the occasional sardonic aside is all in good fun...)

Me thinks you've just been Turkey Slapped Toolie! Oh dear, how embarrassing.
Perhaps buddy, this link may be of great use, though it refers to Gmail, it is pertinent to your posts.
http://www.betanews.com/...et_has_holes/1223409233

[Angela Gunn]: And something subtle and wonderful happened during the process: The install didn't repeatedly demand proofs that the user wasn't some stinking software pirate. Respect? What a concept.

Indeed! Also, with 1024 columns per Calc sheet and ODF 1.2, not to mention its range of cross-platform options, it's pretty fantastic. If you want the same with flair and tabs, check out IBM's Lotus Symphony suite.

"Other import functions behaved well, in particular the processing for Word 2007's persnickety .docx documents."

"This reviewer speaks as a user in limbo, fed up with spendy versions of Office (and, on the Mac, with all Microsoft software)"

"though this comes from a reviewer who's felt for some time that PowerPoint was an implement of torture."

Do you want to get a bit more biased?

void SoapBox ()

After reading and watching "non-biased" and biased news for the past few years, I have searched and searched but discovered something to be the ultimate truth in the universe:

EVERYONE IS BIASED.

The question is this: as a biased person, are you able to give an unbiased opinion?

I don't know if there is a clear answer to this question although I lean towards answering "no". Now, unbiased news is possible (AKA reporting facts without expanding on them or over-emphasizing facts that lean towards a particular point of view), but this article is clearly opinion from someone with pre-existing strong feelings about competing products so of course it is biased.

Angela Gunn states her bias in the article (as you point out), which I applaud her for. This makes it easier to read the opinion for what it is and understand where the writer is coming from. This is how opinions should be written, and I wish more news people would follow this example in the mainstream media when they "report" opinions about Presidential candidates, etc.

} // end SoapBox

As for OpenOffice, I really haven't given it a chance yet but that will probably change next week. I sorta tried out OpenOffice 1.0 a while back but the interface was so different from what I was used to that I just gave up on it. I liked the interface from older Microsoft Office programs so I will likely try this out.

I disagree, but anyway, there's no need to be as biased as this article is. Could have got someone else to write it at BetaNews towers.

Totally agree, I think all the bias in the article could be removed and it wouldn't affect the article one bit, ergo why put it in there other than to point out your bias? Epic fail.

Compile time error. Mismatched brackets.

Variable type omitted for [string]

Un-biased Epic Fail...or did it?? In my UNBIASED option I don't think it did...wait...what?

With all the things being called *epic* on BN the average standard must be fairly low...

Hi bourgeoisdude and thanks -- that's precisely why I put that info up top. (Though I'm not sure disliking the price of Office is a form of bias, other than the part where I buy my software with my own money and am biased about keeping it in my wallet!)

I also mentioned my own usage situation because it's part of the reason I wanted to do this review -- I'm *not* an OpenOffice convert, but I was open to the possibility of conversion. My best friend is a longtime OOo user; he's committed to it and honestly a review is only going to provide him with signposts in terrain he already knows. My other best friend is Microsoft to the bone, and couldn't care less about open source or price points for that matter. She's probably not the target for OOo 3.0 either.

So here I sit -- knowledgeable about the product and its history but by no means convinced that it's for me. (Especially re that outlining thing; I'll excuse myself in a minute from this post to ask what on earth the folks who think Navigator's pitiful little window is an acceptable outlining solution are thinking. Because, wow. Not even.) Readers can use my point-of-view information to evaluate my review and decide if it's the information they need to start pulling down that long, long download. Fair deal, wouldn't you say?

(And, off-topic, I'm totally with you re reporters in other venues following the disclosure model. I'd also like to see kids -- young kids, grade-school kids -- given better skills for evaluating bias in news and other forms of information, wouldn't you? Critical thinking skills are crucial, and they keep the tone of conversation in places like this civil and productive, as your comment is. Thanks again.)

I'm glad OOo's Draw has nice flowcharting tools, 'cause I'm gonna need them to diagram this part of the comments. Sounds like you're with me on that, cap737...