Bitstream @ Sun: Musings on the bitstream

The brand new version of OpenOffice 3.0 is official since today. I have been running beta versions of Staroffice 9 - which is the Sun version based on this code with some extras - since a few months and it rocks. I use it all the time, even when presenting. Since 3.0 now runs native on Mac, I dropped NeoOffice and iWork.

Besides Mac support, there is Open Doc Format 1.2 support, compatibility with MS Office 2007 file formats (and MS Office 2008 on Mac) and full PDF pizzas. There is even limited VBA support for people claiming they cannot move due to Excel macros they have... And I have never, ever seen a file I could not open, or that someone else could not read from me. Full features here. But the server looks swamped at the moment...

An incredible and unique feature of OpenOffice is the fact that you can use extensions that people write, including Sun. There is a presenter console that gives you a nice presenter display in a dual monitor setup (like Keynote), a pdf importer that allows you to edit pdf files and much more. See all extensions here.

 Oh and did I mention OpenOffice comes with a database ? Check it out today !