Open Office latest Version is launched

The modified new version, version 3.2, of the much popular Office suite, Open Office, is available for download. The IT population welcomed the new announcement with much enthusiasm. The download volume shows the popularity of the Open Office. It is much popular because Open source software uses it to a large extent and can be used by common man. In 10 years time, there were 30 millions of download of Open Office. More than 10 millions of downloads were done from the main site of openoffice.org

This Office suite contains the most relevant software for office computers. Word processor (Writer), Spreadsheet (calc), Presentation software (Impress), Graphics tool (Draw), Formula and Database utilities are some of the software included in the Office Suite. Open Office is sometimes known as a replacement for Microsoft Open Source. The new version of Open Office has many special features. The loading speed compared to the older version, Open document format (ODF 1.2) support, Open-type font support based on post-script are some of the new features. The new Windows version gets loaded at a rate which is at least 30% faster than the older version.

The new version supports all the proprietary file formats of Microsoft Office 2007. The new file formats of Microsoft Office like Word document (.docx, .docm), Word template (.dotx, .dotm), Excel document (.xlsx, .xlsm), Excel template (.xltx, .xltm), and power point document (.pptx, .ptpm), power point template (.potx, .potm) can be opened in Open Office. There are even provisions to open password-protected .docx, .xslx files. The encryption support for Word 97/2000/XP versions is also a novelty.

In the older versions, the ALT key cannot be used to create keyboard shortcuts. This is rectified in the new version. Key combinations like SHIFT+ALT, CTRL+ALT, SHIFT+CTRL+ALT are also possible in the new version. The ‘Notes’ which was available only in Writer and Calc is made available in Impress and Draw under the name of ‘Comments’. This will rule out the confusion which may arise with the ‘Speaker Notes’ feature in Impress. Media Wiki Filter will not get installed with Open Office any more. This is made a part of Wiki Publisher Extension. Some visual changes are made in the Item Image, Check Mark features of the Menu List. The dialog box of Windows 7/ KDE 4 is used to select files in the new version.

The other special feature of the new version is the Graphite font support which can lead to more compatibility between Open Office and languages like Malayalam and Tamil. This makes use of the chart which describes the structure of the letters in these fonts, the position and arrangement of the lines in the letters etc. Two chart forms, Filled Net chart and Bubble chart, are included in Calc in the new version. The new features in Calc include facilities to display information in the hidden cells, rotate data labels, to select chart elements and auto-fill in cells.

According to Open Office Org Marketing Project Lead, their aim is to convert Open Office Org to Office Suite of 2010. The version 3.2 is just a phase for them to reach the final goal. The Open Office versions for Windows, Linux and Mac are now available for download. To go to Open Office 3.2 download page, Click Here.