September 30th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
In a nod to the growing importance of OpenOffice.org, Vertex42, “The Guide to Excel in Everything,” has released an OpenDocument version of its Debt Reduction Calculator spreadsheet:
“Download a free credit card Debt Reduction Calculator and Debt Snowball Payment Schedule worksheet for Microsoft® Excel® and OpenOffice.org. This spreadsheet allows you to choose different debt reduction strategies, including the debt snowball effect (paying the lowest balance first) and highest interest first. Just choose the strategy from a dropdown box after you enter your creditor information into the worksheet.”
This particular spreadsheet is very relevant today as economic troubles continue to spread, but a search for “OpenOffice” on Vertex’s site reveals many available OpenOffice-compatible files for download, indicating the site’s commitment to ODF and recognition of its large userbase.
Posted in Free Culture, ODF, OpenOffice.org | 1 Comment »
September 26th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Ubuntu’s implementing another clever idea in the form of its Ubuntu Wanted Project.
The idea is to build a web collaboration space for users to submit ideas for improvements and new features that developers could then implement for Ubuntu:
“What do we need to get innovative stuff implemented?
- A great idea
- The manpower
- The infrastructure and toolset
(1) is now more or less successfully covered by Ubuntu Brainstorm. Concerning (3), some good infrastructures exists around here, such as Launchpad, and development toolsets are good but not yet optimal IMO (I’ll keep that for later). (2) is much more tricky.”
There’s been a discussion at OpenOffice.org of the need for something similar, as lots of people have good ideas for extensions, and lots of developers capable of making extensions are looking for popular user demands to satisfy. Maybe it’s time to build an “OpenOffice.org Brainstorm” site!
Posted in Extensions, Free Culture, GNU/Linux, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on The Ubuntu Wanted Project
September 25th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Seneca College in Toronto, Canada has announced its intention to get involved in OpenOffice development through the Education Project.
Seneca employee Fardad has launched an entire blog on Seneca’s OOo experiment:
“I had the pleasure of meeting Eric Bachard. He is the leader of the Education Project in OOo. He also has been doing core development for Mac OS X for more than 4 years. He also did mentoring for Google Summer of Code twice and he is a professor of Applied Physics at UTBM France.”
It’s great to see the Education Project continue to prosper (and reach out to a new continent), as this is an important vector for future OOo adoption.
Posted in Free Culture, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on OpenOffice in Education: Seneca College
September 17th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Kazunari Hirano points out that OpenOffice.org 3.0 is officially delivered with support for 69 languages, while 7 more languages are available thanks to the work of community members from linux.cz, bringing the total to 76 languages.
That makes OpenOffice the most multi-lingual office suite available (I count 38 for our competitor), a fitting but not surprising achievement for an open source project with contributors from every continent and users in every country of the world.
Posted in Free Culture, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on OpenOffice.org 3.0 in 76 Languages
September 15th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
A few weeks ago Lifehacker posted a screenshot tour of OpenOffice.org 3.0 RC1: “Let’s take a look at the notable features so you can decide if it’s worth taking another look at OpenOffice.org as an alternative to Microsoft Office.”
It’s especially important for the OpenOffice project to receive attention from publications like Lifehacker, that are not specifically targeted at open source geeks. The major problem for OOo to overcome now is to cross the chasm from early adopters to early mainstream users, and this is always a challenge for software programs of all kinds, open source or proprietary.
Lifehacker fits the category of a smart audience that wants new tools to simplify their lives, but who are not necessarily aware of the latest open source releases. A perfect media outlet to spread word of OOo to new users.
Lifehacker mentions the major new features, Mac support, greater focus on extensions, etc, and seems positive on the program. And, with over 62,000 views of the article, it’s definitely getting the word out!
Posted in Free Culture, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on Lifehacker on OpenOffice 3.0
September 12th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Cedric Bosdonnat introduces the new version of COOoder, an OOo extension that automatically highlights programming code in OpenOffice documents. The new version brings a handful of new features to the extension.
Combining text editor functionality into a word processor sounds like it could be an awkward hybrid, but Cedric suggests its primary use is to place code snippets into word processing documents in a more readable format, and that sounds like it could be useful for a lot of programming teachers, among others.
Posted in Extensions, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on COOoder Extension: Syntax Highlighting in OpenOffice.org
September 5th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Alan C. Baird has developed Screenwrite(R), an OpenOffice.org template for formatting screenplays, which is distributed for free on the OpenOffice extensions site.
Unlike most of the extensions on the site (which are actually extensions), this is just a formatted template you download and add to your OOo installation. I’m not sure whey it’s distributed here, but it’s pretty cool and quite useful for film folks, anyway.
For very detailed instructions on finding and installing OpenOffice templates, check out HowtoForge’s article, “Using and Customizing Templates in OpenOffice.org.”
Posted in Extensions, Free Culture, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on Screenwriter “Extension” for OpenOffice
September 4th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Enschede, the 13th-largest city in the Netherlands, will cancel its annual subscription licenses of Microsoft Office and Windows to save money and better serve its 155,000 inhabitants, the Open Source Observatory announces:
“The city council was contacted by Microsoft a few months ago to renew the licence contract for MS Office and MS Windows, for which the city pays some 450,000 euro per year. According to Hans Koenders, IT-policy adviser for the city council, renewing the contract would enable the city council to migrate to the latest version of Office and Windows. “That is not very compelling, for we are not planning an overhaul of our desktop software.”
“The city’s licence ran out on Monday. However, not renewing still gives the city administration the right to continue to use its current version of Microsoft Office (2003) on all of its 2,000 desktop PCs, for the next three years.
“The city council wants to use this period to test OpenOffice… [and] to slowly increase the amount of Open Source software, reasoning that this will strengthen local IT service providers. “It is possible that migrating to Open Source ends up not being cheaper than using proprietary software. However, it is likely that this way we will be paying a local company, instead of sending our money overseas.”
Enschede is entering this project with the wisdom collected from many previous migrations, and with a deep understanding of the obvious and hidden benefits it can expect to accrue from the adoption of OpenOffice and other FOSS applications. Furthermore, paying 225 euros per year per PC, I am sure they will save money right from the start with this change. (That monopoly license cost, just for renting software, is obscene!)
Congratulations and good luck to them!
Posted in Free Culture, GNU/Linux, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on Dutch City of Enschede Piloting OpenOffice.org
August 29th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Smashing Apps publishes “19 Most Essential Open Source Applications That You Probably Want To Know.”
As the site’s audience is largely graphic design professionals, this should help promote open source programs to a new cadre of possible users.
The majority of applications in this collection are web apps, but a few desktop programs make the list, including OpenOffice.org and Mozilla Seamonkey. (Not Firefox, though. They must feel that everyone already knows it.)
Posted in Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on Smashing Apps’ 19 Most-Essential Open Source Applications
August 28th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Mail merge has been a pain for some friends of mine using OpenOffice.org within their university administrative department, so I’ve been on the hunt for ways to make it easier. Solveig covers OpenOffice 2.x mail merge in an article from 2006 (which I’ve mentioned before), but they still have a few problems with editing the results of the merge before printing labels.
A new extension, Fast Mail Merge, was created to simplify some aspects of creating a mail merge, but I can’t really test it out since it’s not available for OOo 3.0 on Mac OS X (Linux and Windows versions are available). Nonetheless, this extension should prove useful to many OOo users out there.
Posted in Extensions, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | 1 Comment »
