OpenOffice 3.0 released

OpenOffice 3.0 is officially available for download. The biggest thing (for me) is it has a full version for the Mac! (No X11 necessary.) Among other things, it supports Microsoft's OOXML document format, so you can open MS Office 2007 files. And the Mac version supports VBA script, which the current version of Mac MS Office doesn't even do. (Though I hear MS is restoring it for the next release.)

But the Mac version appears to be a little buggy. Hopefully those bugs will be fixed soon. Or we can wait for NeoOffice 3.0 to arrive.

OpenOffice 3.0 beta

OpenOffice 3.0 beta has been released.

The new OS X version eliminates the need to run OpenOffice through the X11 environment. Sun, which oversees OpenOffice, announced some time ago that native OS X support was high on its priority list and Mac users should be happy to hear the company is delivering on that promise.

Unfortunately the new OS X version was noticeably slower than NeoOffice, a Mac-specific OpenOffice offshoot, and most of the extensions I tried to install wouldn’t work. OpenOffice still has a way to go before it’s ready for everyday use on a Mac. For the time being NeoOffice remains the better choice for Mac OS X users, but at least OpenOffice is available now.

Wired

OpenOffice 2.3

OK, here's something cool included in the latest OpenOffice release (2.3): Extentions (aka "plug-ins").

Some cool sounding ones:

• OOoSVN -- version control via Subversion
  
• OpenOffice.org2GoogleDocs -- export docs to Google Docs
  
• Sun Weblog Publisher
  
• Writer's Tools

This release does work on the Mac, but only the ugly X11 version. If you want something more usable, wait for NeoOffice or the official Aqua port to catch up.

MS Word in "safe mode"

In the wake of at least one targeted attack that exploits a new flaw in Word, Microsoft is advising users to run the application in "safe mode." (News.com)

No word yet on why Microsoft Word, as shipped, defaults to "dangerous mode".

Update: Oh, and how about a plug for the ever-so-safe alternative, OpenOffice.

Google buys Writely (and its effect on OpenOffice)

Google has purchased Writely, an online word processor accessible through Windows and Mac using the Internet Explorer and Mozilla/Firefox browsers.

At first I thought this might be bad news for Google's partnership with Sun and the latter's free OpenOffice word processor (and the possibility that Google would help create an online version of OO) but maybe not.

Writely already supports importing and exporting OO documents (in addition to Microsoft Word documents) and I expect Google will continue this and more. Perhaps they could add seamless functionality to OO that allows one to load and save documents to a Writely workspace? And then edit these documents via OO or Writely? In any case I see this as a plus for OO and the move to have an open document standard replace the proprietary MS Word.