TechIndia

With this release the basic components, which include word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, graphics, formula and database capabilities, can be supplemented by extensions downloaded from the OpenOffice.org extensions repository, allowing users in enterprises, offices, schools, as well as home the freedom to configure their suite their way.

“Our market has grown,” said Louis Suárez-Potts, Community Manager of OpenOffice.org. “As government after government, enterprise after enterprise adopt the Open Document Format (the ISO-approved format OpenOffice.org uses natively), 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.”

“OpenOffice.org 3.0 is more powerful than ever before and with support for MS Access 2007 .accdb files, improved support for VBA macros, and a new ability to read MS Office Open XML files, it’s even easier to make the change away from legacy MS Office software,” stated Florian Effenberger, Marketing Project Co-Lead of OpenOffice.org.

New core features include -

Writer (word processing) that features new slider control for zooming which allows multi-page display while editing, powerful new multilingual support, improved notes capabilities and the ability to edit wiki documents for the web, in addition to conventional office documents.

Calc (spreadsheet)with an increase in capacity of up to 1024 columns per sheet, new equation solver and new collaboration feature for multiple users.

Draw, the ability to cope with poster-size graphics - up to three square meters or 32.3 square feet.

Impress (presentation), a fully featured table designer inside a presentation.

A rapidly expanding number of additional features are available from different developers to add capabilities such as an Impress presenter console, support for business analytics, PDF import, creation of Hybrid PDF documents, and a new way of supporting additional languages.

Download OpenOffice.org 3.0 for free from here.