Topic: OpenOffice.org 3.1 released

[georgecloner]

The OpenOffice.org Community is pleased to announce the general
availability of OpenOffice.org 3.1, a significant upgrade to the world's
leading open-source office productivity suite. Since OpenOffice.org 3.0
was launched last October, over 60 million downloads have been recorded
from the OpenOffice.org website alone. Released in more than 90 languages
and available as a free download on all major computing platforms,
OpenOffice.org 3.1 looks set to break these records.

Thanks to all community members who have helped make this release
possible. Users of previous versions of OpenOffice.org were asked to vote
for their 'most desired' new features, and this wish list helped shape the
new release. The new release also includes a feedback mechanism where
users can opt-in to supply feedback automatically to the developers about
how they use OpenOffice.org.

The biggest single change (half a million lines of code!) and the most
visible is the major revamp of OpenOffice.org on-screen graphics. Techies
call it anti-aliasing - users just appreciate how much crisper graphics
are on screen. The improved look extends to other subtle changes, such as:
how images display when they are being dragged, how selections of text are
highlighted, and even adding the ability to overline text.

New core features include:

Writer (word processing)
 * Improvements to comments: reply feature now supports 'conversations'
 * Further grammar checker integration
 * Outline levels within paragraphs for complex documents

Calc (spreadsheet)
 * Hot hints for formulae, with new and improved formulae available
 * Improved sorting
 * More performance bottlenecks removed
 * The zoom slider added to the status bar
 * Rename sheets with a double-click

Chart (graphics engine)
 * Flexible positioning of axes for scientific and educational users
 * Flexible handling of "missing" data points

Impress (presentation)
 * Font size buttons

Base (database)
 * SQL syntax highlighting
 * Easier deployment of macro applications

Internationalization and Localization
 * Improved support for bidirectional scripts
 * New locale support

Behind the scenes, OpenOffice.org also now has a more capable file locking
mechanism, enabling users to share files safely in a multi-user,
multi-platform environment.

The guide to new features is available here:
http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/3.1/index.html

Download OpenOffice.org 3.1 here: http://download.openoffice.org/

Read our Press Release:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/OOo/31/prweb2388264.htm

[abuadal]

It is wonderful tool, i have personally used it.. it has alot of features... but one thing missing is its support for MS Office 2007 file extension.. like docx, pptx and xlsx..
Hope OpenOffice org will be working on it and bring up all the stuff in next version...