Openoffice.org 2.01 - is it for me? (Update)
Openoffice.org 2.0 (shortform Ooo2.0), a MS-Office compatible suite application, was released in November 2005.
Main differences from 1.1.X:
(1) Addition of an Access-like database - Base
(2) New document format - eXtensible Markup Language - based Open Document Format (1.1.X format is java-ziped XML but 2 formats are different)
Is it for me? Answer is: it depends.
It is yes if:
(1) you are satisfied that it is now not only "workable" (after 1.1.1 in late 2003) but "good enough" for general purpose;
(2) you need to repair MS-Office word/excel files - it can be a surprisingly effective last-resort means to save your corrupted MS files!
(3) you never have a legitimate copy of MS-Office and decide to stop your piracy but with a limited budget.
It is no if:
(1) you have a lot of Visual Basic for Application macros in Word/Excel - compatibility on macro application level is still limited - this can be critical for some accounting and finance personnels;
(2) you need or are required to use Outlook for integrated email, schedule management - Ooo simply does not have an Outlook counterpart
-although there is an open-source effort "Sunbird" calender/scheduler from the Mozilla Foundations to work with Firefox browser and Thunderbird email client, this is still a long way to go - "long" means at least 1 or 2 years for the application to become matured for beta.
I confess that I have used it for few years ever since 1.0 and install on every PC I need to frequently access. I have used it to save a few Simplified Chinese Word files corrupted during edition in SC Word, TC Word and Eng Word among some corporate users.
*******************************************************************
Note: after this has been posted soon, an update 2.01 is released to fix minor bugs and add some features:
(a) Extended bullet and numbering
(b) Ability to disable or hide particular application settings
(c) Improved mail merge
I can think of 1 more reason to use: export document to PDF file format - convenient for distribution.
Main differences from 1.1.X:
(1) Addition of an Access-like database - Base
(2) New document format - eXtensible Markup Language - based Open Document Format (1.1.X format is java-ziped XML but 2 formats are different)
Is it for me? Answer is: it depends.
It is yes if:
(1) you are satisfied that it is now not only "workable" (after 1.1.1 in late 2003) but "good enough" for general purpose;
(2) you need to repair MS-Office word/excel files - it can be a surprisingly effective last-resort means to save your corrupted MS files!
(3) you never have a legitimate copy of MS-Office and decide to stop your piracy but with a limited budget.
It is no if:
(1) you have a lot of Visual Basic for Application macros in Word/Excel - compatibility on macro application level is still limited - this can be critical for some accounting and finance personnels;
(2) you need or are required to use Outlook for integrated email, schedule management - Ooo simply does not have an Outlook counterpart
-although there is an open-source effort "Sunbird" calender/scheduler from the Mozilla Foundations to work with Firefox browser and Thunderbird email client, this is still a long way to go - "long" means at least 1 or 2 years for the application to become matured for beta.
I confess that I have used it for few years ever since 1.0 and install on every PC I need to frequently access. I have used it to save a few Simplified Chinese Word files corrupted during edition in SC Word, TC Word and Eng Word among some corporate users.
*******************************************************************
Note: after this has been posted soon, an update 2.01 is released to fix minor bugs and add some features:
(a) Extended bullet and numbering
(b) Ability to disable or hide particular application settings
(c) Improved mail merge
I can think of 1 more reason to use: export document to PDF file format - convenient for distribution.
posted by 路人CL @ Tuesday, December 13, 2005
1 Comments:
At 1:30 PM, December 17, 2005 ,
秀慧 said...
Thank for sharing your professional opinions as well as your opinions on misc anything. It certainly will help some IT idiots like me.
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