LinuxWorld
LinuxWorld Conference and Expo August 4-7, 2008 Call for papers open until Feb. 22

OpenOffice.org update arrives

OpenOffice.org 2.4, the latest version of the free productivity application suite, was released Thursday and is now available for download for a number of operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

Related links

No results were found for your search.

Your query is too restrictive.
You might want to try: data center

An open source project backed by Sun, OpenOffice.org is widely regarded as the leading competitor to Microsoft Office. It is also the most prominent software to support Open Document Format (ODF), a set of open standards that challenges Microsoft's proprietary Office file formats.

This release is mostly an incremental upgrade, however, and isn't likely to do much to heat up the competition in the productivity applications market. It incorporates mostly minor new features and bug fixes for each of the applications in the suite, including Writer, Calc, the Base personal database, and the Impress presentation software.

The real sparks won't start flying until the next major milestone for OpenOffice.org, Version 3.0, scheduled to ship in September. That version is expected to bring long-awaited support for Microsoft's Office 2007 file formats, which will make it easier for current Office users to migrate to the alternative suite. In addition, it will bring support for ODF 1.2 and user interface improvements, among other features.

A version of OpenOffice.org ships with most desktop Linux distributions, and current Linux users may wish to wait for their distribution maintainer to offer a version of the 2.4 upgrade that has been specially tweaked for their flavor of Linux. Windows and Mac OS X users can download installers from the OpenOffice.org distribution site.


React: Give us your thoughts on the issues here.
Use this form to start a public discussion with other Linux World users on this article.
Log In | Register for an account (Why you should)

Note: Register to have your user name appear; otherwise your comment will show up as "Anonymous."

*Anonymous comments will only appear once they are approved by the moderator.

Newsletter sign-up

Sign up for one of Network World's newsletters compliments of Linux World

Linux & Open Source News Alert
Web Applications Alert
Video & Podcast Alert
Security: Threat  Alert
Virtualization Alert

Email Address: