What I'd like to see happen is a feature that I found very useful when I used WordPerfect. That was a "tabbed" window that had multiple documents that could be opened within it. (Saved having to hunt through the taskbar tabs if you have more than about 3 documents open at the same time.)

Posted by David Bird on October 22, 2007 at 11:46 PM CEST #

I wish we could have a sheet type "graph" in CALC, such as in MS Excel. It's too annoying to resize the graphs depending on monitor's resolution....

Posted by Fra on October 23, 2007 at 02:04 PM CEST #

Fra, that's issue 5736. Yes, it would be useful, but there is no schedule yet for adding it.

Posted by Niklas Nebel on October 23, 2007 at 04:50 PM CEST #

There are good features.
Hope 2.4 will be also available as an x64 native Windows application.

Posted by Guti on October 25, 2007 at 10:26 PM CEST #

I love this software.You guys are doing a fantastic job with it.
I am a handicapped person with limited income & can not afford most Microsoft software.
This software is as good or better than any I've used from microsoft.
Thank You,
C.D.Evans,Jr.

Posted by C.D.Evans,Jr. on October 27, 2007 at 05:57 AM CEST #

I will be very pleased to connect spreadsheet documents with a jdbc driver like the odbc driver for ms excel documents...
It is for me a very interesting feature for integration of several tools already developed for ms excel via jdbc-odbc bridge !

Posted by NewBeewan on October 27, 2007 at 03:07 PM CEST #

Totally agree with Virgilio. There must be an option to the = for entering formulas. I bet he uses spanish keyboard too.

Posted by Cristian Duran on October 28, 2007 at 12:24 AM CEST #

Anybody that uses Compare Documents in Writer will know how useful it is to find the small differences in seemingly identical documents.

The same thing works in Calc too and even better then Writer showing changes in Tables.

It would be good if both applications show the changes in a consistant way.

-> Also Calc should be able to produce a PDF or printout that highlights the changes, as Writer does. As it is, you can only see the changes from within Calc.

Posted by Ferry Toth on October 29, 2007 at 04:12 PM CET #

I completely agree with David Bird about the Tab feature. The Tab function is the reason why Firefox is popular, OOO should do the same asap. Users who never experienced it with WP will love it.

Another point: anyone knows why since version 2.0 I need to press the ALT key twice to get to the main menu with the keyboard in Impress? Quite annoying in my opinion.

Concerning Calc: I completely agree with Christian Duran and Virgilio Silva about the “+” and “=” issue and with Fra about the Graph window issue. I love OOO but there are a number of small problems in Calc that would be extremely easy to fix and should be put on a fast track in your development process. I hope this post will be read by the people making decisions, it is my contribution to OOO. I still haven't switched to Calc from good old QuattroPro 2000 and here is why:

1) Reset cursor position at beginning of a bloc when using cut/paste bloc:

Let's say I select cells A1 to A10 (using shift arrows, going downward). Then I select “Cut”. If then I press “Paste” the bloc is pasted in cells A10 to A20. Logically the block should be pasted where it was initially since I did not move the cursor (as in Excel and QP). The cursor position should automatically reset to the beginning of the bloc.

2) Default printing options:

When I select a bloc and then select “print”, the default print range should be to print my selection, not the entire document.
Similarly, if I look at Sheet2 and select “print”, the default print range should be to print what is on Sheet2. (If I have 2000 data points hidden in Sheet1, the program will empty my printer.)

3) Indication of current page number:

Bottom left of the screen, the current Sheet number is indicated twice, redundant information. On the other hand, the current page number is not written as in Writer and Impress. You should indicate the current page number (where cursor is). There is no way to know the current page number in “view normal” mode, one needs to switch to “view page break preview” mode.

4) Inconsistency between “Page Break preview” and “Print range” page numbers.

Let's say I have 2000 data points in Sheet1 and 2000 in Sheet2. The “Page 1” written on top of Sheet2 in “Page Break preview” does not correspond to page 1 in the “print range” option of the “Print” function. The two should match.

5) More rows and columns

My Quattro Pro program has been offering me in each Sheet columns down to ZZZ and rows down to 1 000 000 since the version 2000. For 2008, is would be really nice if Calc could catch up!

6) Complex numbers automatic detection.

Let's say I enter 2 in cell A1 and 3 in cell A2 and I write =A1+A2 in cell A3, the sum appears which is 5. Now let's say I change the number in cell A2 to a complex number, for example =complex(2;3;j). Then in cell A3 I have ERROR. I need to manually change cell A3 to write =IMSUM(A1;A2). How about a simple filter so that the program automatically detects complex numbers and uses the appropriate function so that the user does not have to manually enter imsum, improd, imsqrt, etc. by hand? All the complex functions have a real number equivalent. The program should know how to differentiate the two, not the user, just like a TI scientific calculator. There are A LOT of engineering students out there who could potentially become OOO enthusiasts.

7) Change data ranges in graphs

Congratulations on the new graph function in Calc. It needs one thing: the ability to change rapidly the selected data ranges using only the keyboard after the graph is completed. The process to change the data used for a curve (for example after a graph is done, view data in column C instead of column B) is too slow. It is much less efficient than good old Lotus and Quattro Pro. Simply adding a few keyboard shortcuts will solve the problem. Again, think about engineering people doing data analysis.

This is my contribution. Good luck with the OOO project!

Posted by Joe on October 30, 2007 at 11:58 AM CET #

Note: This is not the best place to discuss Calc features - the mailing lists should be used instead.

The possibility to start formulas with "+" or "-" instead of "=" is already available in recent SRC680 developer snapshot builds, and will be in version 2.4.

Spreadsheet documents are available (read-only) as sdbc databases.

In addition to page headers, you can define "rows to repeat" in the "print ranges" dialog.

For printing, the default was changed to "print only selected sheets" for 2.3. We plan to change the print dialog in the future, see http://specs.openoffice.org/appwide/printing/Print_Dialog.odt .

For the other ideas you should submit enhancement issues or vote for existing ones.

Posted by Niklas Nebel on October 30, 2007 at 02:13 PM CET #

Hi Nicklas,
Thank you for your explanation, I look forward to 2.4 and I hope the current page will be read by a lot of people. Concerning your comment that this is not the best place to post issues on Calc, here is perhaps the most important suggestion of all:

On the OOO main website, you need to put a direct link smack on top of the main page to the functions “report bugs”, “propose new features” and “vote on proposed enhancements”. I look at your main page and I don't even see a link to the forum. I click on Participate and there is still no link to suggestions. The strength of OOO is that it is a democratic process and you need to exploit this much more. Most users, including me, do not have time to dig deep into your website to figure out where to go. Please forward the message.

Concerning the new feature on top of this page: it is nice to have new functions, but before OOO becomes really a professional tool that I can recommend to my boss you need to take care in priority of all the basic, small problems remaining as noted on this page that would be easy to fix. Here are some more:

Issue 1:
The problem reported by Boyd Fletcher above is a major one: when you resize with the mouse a group of objects in Impress, the text does not resize and font size does not change.

Issue 2:
As reported by Higel Garland above, the engineering and scientific format display in Calc have some problems: too many digits, etc.

Issue 3:
In OOWriter we need a “view draft” option that is standard on any other word processor to work on the text on screen with all the print formats but without the annoying header/footer margins on the screen.

Issue 4:
If I have a OOWriter document containing formulas made with OOMath, I have absolutely no way to export to MSWord. The only thing to do is: Export document as PDF, open with Acrobat, select one by one the equations and paste them back as figures in Writer.
You need a function to automatically convert the equations to figures (pdf, tiff, ...) in Writer for easy exporting to Word. And a function to export the OOMath equations individually in pdf files and other formats.

Issue 5:
Here is a bug: When you make a Writer document containing many Sections and Endnotes, and you select the option “Put Endnotes at the end of section”, the option does not export to MSWord and notes go at the end of the document.

Other suggestion:
When I submit a paper to Physical Review or other science journal (http://prola.aps.org) I still need MSWord format, hence issues 4-5 above. All scientific journals (springer, aip, aps, IEEE, etc) do not accept ODF format for submission. That would be a great place for lobbying efforts for the ODF format and would allow OOO to gain a lot of prestige.

Long live the OOO project :-)

Posted by Joe on October 31, 2007 at 04:47 AM CET #

I would like to see a split screen so that the user can edit at one part of a document while seeing another portion of the same document.

Posted by hwtan on October 31, 2007 at 08:23 AM CET #

For completeness' sake: Engineering notation is issue 5930 ( http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=5930 ), also on the list of high-voted issues at http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Calc_Usability_Activities .

Posted by Niklas Nebel on October 31, 2007 at 12:34 PM CET #

More columns in Calc, please. At least, about a thousand. This is precious in making some cross in many sets of data (i.d.: social research or similar). This is one of the most important remaining advanrtages of actual Excel or Quattro.

Posted by Alfiero Falorni on November 05, 2007 at 06:26 PM CET #

For me, a very big improvement would be single-press north-south centering -- in a cell, a table row, a page, or anywhere else. (Note: east-west centering is already just fine.) At present, north-south centering involves setting it up via a procedure -- you can view it as vertical centering in OO Writer Help. What you cannot do is to instantly zap a piece of text into nicely even north-south format in any new location you please. Instead you must stop your editing work, and get into formatting. For me, this single problem relegates OO to the shelf while I simply do the whole darned project in Word -- again. Even Word 2000 had no trouble with this function, seven years ago, so I am hoping it is something that has simply been overlooked in OO.

Posted by Carson on November 09, 2007 at 05:09 PM CET #

What about some template layouts (for slides, tables, pages, ...) which are actually usable without getting eye-cancer? Adding more and more features will only get you so far.

Posted by John Doe on November 11, 2007 at 10:06 PM CET #

Why "Print File Directly"?
Why not just have "Print to *Printer Name*"?

Does "Print File Directly" mean that it will only print what is saved?
What if I haven't saved my file?

Saying "Print to *Printer Name*" is shorter, and easier to understand (everyone understands what "Print" does when they press the "Print" button)

Posted by Tim on November 12, 2007 at 10:32 AM CET #

Having been a ms word user i have accumalated a number of files over time in this format. Most make heavy use of drawing features so i was interested to see how good the import/ translation (what ever term you use) was to see if i could eventually migrate over to this open format with these existing docs which are on going work to this day.
I found a number of deficiencies in this translation (sizing / placement of arrows) to name one and wondered if this translation process was under continual improvement or if it was deemed to be good enough. I would be keen to learn how the knowledge of the doc format file was gained (some form of reverse engineering) as i could not see ms rolling over to help. Who holds this knowledge and can the potential users like myself link up with these developers in order to further this process in some small way?

Posted by Paul on November 13, 2007 at 03:48 AM CET #

While this is really a fabulous system, there is one area I have to keep switching back to MS Office. Which is unfortunate and annoying in that in about every other way open office works better and more reliably. The one time I have to use MS office is in document review. It is not unusual for me to have to use the record changes feature and also the notes feature. These do not work as nicely as MS office. I wonder if it would be possible for this to be in 2.4, but at one point would it be possible for the notes to show up as balloons when printed like with MS office?

Posted by Ray Stevens on November 14, 2007 at 05:22 PM CET #

Please stop to request features or enhancements using this report. GullFoss is just a medium to give normal users an overview about the current work of Sun's OpenOffice.org developers. The official way to request features or enhancements is to use the issue tracker accessible here: http://qa.openoffice.org/issue_handling/pre_submission.html.
We are busy on bug fixes for the upcoming OpenOffice.org 2.4 release and therefore have no time to translate your requests into official issue tracker tasks.

Posted by 192.9.112.196 on November 19, 2007 at 11:12 AM CET #