“I’ve long been an admirer of OpenOffice.org, the free, open-source office suite that’s a serious alternative to pricey products such as Microsoft Office. It strikes me as a no-brainer to at least try it when you’re in the market for an updated productivity suite, because it costs you nothing but your time,” Dwight Silverman blogs for The Houston Chronicle.
“I’m amazed when I run across people who are hesitant to give it a try, even when they’re just as hesitant to shell out big bucks for Microsoft’s product,” Silverman writes.
“To be clear: If you are considering buying a commercial office suite, don’t do it until you have given OpenOffice.org a shot. That’s particularly true of the new version, which was released today. OpenOffice.org 3.0 is a significant upgrade and, again, is completely free,” Silverman reports.
“The final version of OpenOffice.org 3.0 is available at the main OpenOffice.org site. The are versions for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Unix users,” Silverman reports. “This is a particularly interesting release for Macintosh users. In the past, running OpenOffice.org on the Mac required use of a Unix shell called X11. This is the first version of the suite that runs natively on the Mac.”
“Version 3.0 can open dozens of document types, including the newer OpenXML formats used by Office 2007 in Windows and Office 2008 on the Mac, such as .docx from Word. However, while OpenOffice.org 3.0 can read these formats, it can’t write to them. Instead, it can save to the previous Office formats, such as the older Word’s .doc. This makes it a great choice for opening Office 2007/2007 documents that may be sent to you, even if you don’t have Microsoft’s newer suite,” Silverman reports.
“However, Mac users should note that OpenOffice.org 3.0 won’t open or write documents generated by Apple’s iWork Suite. It’s one of the few common formats not supported here,” Silverman reports.
Full article here.
More info and download links for OpenOffice.org 3.0 here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “RadDoc” for the heads up.]