Monday May 05, 2008 Malte about some of his work at Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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Monday May 05, 2008 Sun ODF Plugin 1.2 available now We have just released version 1.2 of our Sun ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office. There are many improvements to the filters, especially in Word, so it's really worth downloading it. Posted by Malte Timmermann ( May 05 2008, 05:19:58 PM CEST ) Permalink Comments [0]
Wednesday March 26, 2008 Document Freedom Day Today is Document Freedom Day! This is great. And because it is about open document standards, it's mainly about ... yes, the Open Document Format (ODF), as you can read at the Document Standards page.
Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Mar 26 2008, 03:03:55 PM CET ) Permalink Comments [0]
Thursday March 06, 2008 OpenOffice.org goes LGPL v3! OpenOffice.org will switch to LGPL v3 with the upcoming OOo 3.0 Beta. Beside that, we will also exchange the old Joint Copyright Assignment (JCA) with the Sun Microsystems Inc. Contributor Agreement (SCA), which has some advantages for contributors. This change is effective immediately. More details can be found here. Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Mar 06 2008, 08:02:10 PM CET ) Permalink Comments [0]
Thursday February 07, 2008 OpenOffice.org runs on OLPC! J David Eisenberg wrote an email to the OASIS OpenDocument Format (ODF) Adoption TC, confirming that OpenOffice.org can be used on the OLPC. So you can use all kind of documents on your OLPC, since OpenOffice.org has filters for many different formats! Needles to say that of course this includes ODF files, even in a stripped down (USB stick optimized) OOo installation, since ODF is OOo's default file format. BTW: Most likely you don't need the JRE - OpenOffice.org uses Java only for some of the seldom used Wizards. So if the JRE doesn't fit on your USB stick, just go without it. Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Feb 07 2008, 12:24:51 PM CET ) Permalink Comments [0]
Wednesday December 12, 2007 Sun ODF Plugin 1.1 now fully working with Microsoft Office 2007! I just learned from Brian Jones that Microsoft has fixed a bug with Office 2007 SP1, which hindered the Sun ODF Plugin to work with Word 2007. I gave SP1 a quick try, and - it's working now! If you are interested in the details, just look at my older ODF Plugin FAQ and Brian's comments. This is really great news, and I am sure Brian took care that this would really be fixed with SP1 - thanks for this! If you already have the Sun ODF Plugin (and Office 2007) installed, just install SP1 and that's it. If you haven't installed the ODF Plugin yet, you can find it here. Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Dec 12 2007, 03:35:29 PM CET ) Permalink Comments [8]
Wednesday December 05, 2007 OpenOffice.org 2.3.1 is there OpenOffice.org 2.3.1 is available for download now. In addition to many fixes it also contains a security fix, so you really should consider updating.
Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Dec 05 2007, 10:00:03 AM CET ) Permalink Comments [2]
Thursday October 04, 2007 OpenOffice.org Project and Community Just found this interesting blog entry from Jim Parkinson and wanted to share with you:
Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Oct 04 2007, 07:35:53 PM CEST ) Permalink Comments [0]
Tuesday October 02, 2007 Sun ODF Plugin 1.1 for Microsoft Office available now! The newest version of our ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office is available, you can find it here. We have fixed the installation problem that occurred on some systems, and have made many improvements to the filters. The biggest difference compared to 1.0 is that we have support for different languages now! It's still just one package to download and install, but the Plugin will detect the languages from your MS Office and your Windows installation. When support for that language is available, the Plugin UI within MS Office will use you current MS Office language, while the menus and dialogs in the system tray use the language from your operating system. If your language is not supported, the fall back is English. Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Oct 02 2007, 07:30:11 PM CEST ) Permalink Comments [25]
Thursday August 23, 2007 Some facts about the development of ODF I just stumbled over a quite new blog entry from my colleague Erwin - a really good one, I think! It clarifies some things about the development process of ODF. Read it, and I am sure after that you will also ask yourself why Microsoft started it's own XML document format, instead of simply participating in the development of ODF...
Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Aug 23 2007, 11:49:40 AM CEST ) Permalink Comments [0]
Thursday August 16, 2007 A Favorites Menu in StarOffice / OpenOffice.org I wonder if I am the only person missing such a feature. There are a few documents which I need quite regularly. Unfortunately they are sometimes not in the recent file list when I need them, and it's also nice to have some special bookmarks for them.
So why wait for it?! It's easy to extend or customize OpenOffice.org via macros and extensions, so I created a simple macro to get my favorites menu. If you are interested, you can find the macro in the OpenOffice.org Wiki. Simply copy&paste the macro text into the standard library from OpenOffice.org or StarOffice ( Tools / Macros / Organize Macros / StarOffice Basic => My Macros ) To have the menu automatically all the time, simply go to "Tools / Customize... / Events", and add "InsertFavoritesMenu" to "Start Application". On the bottom of the dialog, make sure to save the information with the application, not with the current document. This is not the optimal implementation, but it works for me and didn't take much time. Things to improve:
Any volunteers? ;) Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Aug 16 2007, 02:52:39 PM CEST ) Permalink Comments [11]
Friday July 27, 2007 China - first impressions I am here the 5th days now, so it's time for a blog with my first impressions about China/Beijing. Beijing itself is really big, and I didn't expect so much traffic,
and Smog. I always thought there would be more bicycles than cars. And it's really very warm here... The food is really great. I tried a lot of different things right now, and everything was very tasty. It's really different compared to Chines restaurants in Germany - not only the taste, but also the way you eat it. The people here eat everything(!) with chop sticks. With chop sticks, the most difficult things for me right now have been the loin ribs, and the Beijing duck.You don't simply eat the duck, you wrap that with some vegetable and sauce into small pancakes - of course only by using your chop sticks. And if you managed that, try to pick up that roll, which is not very stable, with your chop sticks... This week end, It's time to see Great Wall and Forbidden City... The company (Redflag Chinese 2000) does a really great job with organizing everything for me. Somebody is picking me up every morning, so I find my way. You might think it would be easy to use a taxi and simply drive on your own, but until now none of the taxi drivers knew how exactly to find the company. It's located in a new area in the south of Beijing. I am giving technical presentations or talks every day, so I think the developers understand a lot of things much better now. Too bad that a lot of information can't be found on the OpenOffice.org site, because it's only in the head of our developers... Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Jul 27 2007, 09:19:58 AM CEST ) Permalink Comments [2]
Monday July 23, 2007 Going China I just arrived in Beijing! I am here to work with Redflag Chinese 2000 for the next 2 weeks. We will talk about OpenOffice.org Architecture and different other things, and I'm really curious about working here for some time. It will be a completely new experience to work in a Chinese company. At least I am prepared that there might be many differences compared to working for Sun in Germany or in USA. And of course I am also happy that I have some time to visit different places, like the Chinese Wall or the Forbidden City...
Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Jul 23 2007, 09:32:25 AM CEST ) Permalink Comments [4]
Tuesday July 17, 2007 Sun ODF Plugin Installation Issue + Work Around We got the feedback that on some systems the converter doesn't start, and you get the following error message: "Word cannot open the converter textconverter". If you experience this problem, please copy the file "msvcr71.dll" from the Plugin directory into your windows system directory. In a standard installation of the Plugin, you can find the dll in "C:\Program Files\Sun\Sun ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office 1.0\program". Your system directory is typically c:\windows\system32. Alternatively you can enhance your PATH environment variable to include the Plugin program directory.
Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Jul 17 2007, 04:12:50 PM CEST ) Permalink Comments [0]
Wednesday July 04, 2007 Sun ODF Plugin 1.0 for Microsoft Office FAQ OK, the Sun ODF Plugin is now available, and people have some questions...
Q: What's the difference between this release and the "Technology Preview" version of the Plugin? A: There are 3 big differences between these versions:
Q: Why doesn't it support Office 2007? A: Well, basically, it does, but there is an issue in Word's 2007 Filter API handling. You can save to ODF, but when you try to open ODF, Word ignores the installed filters and tries to open with it's own filters. Of course Word can't, so you get an error message "The Office Open XML file <name> cannot be opened because there are problems with the content". This even happens if you explicitly select the ODF filter! I hope Microsoft will fix this issue with the next service pack. If not, we will work around this bug by doing the same kind of integration like in PowerPoint and Excel.
Q: Is it really free? A: Yes, it is! Of course, if you desire - Sun is also offering Support and Service contracts for this. It's a Sun product, and as such, we will actively support and maintain it for many years.
Q: What about localized versions? A: We are just working on a localized version. The plan is to have only one MUI (Multi User Interface) version, which will detect and use the language that you are using in MS Office.
Q: What's the difference between the Sun Plugin and the "OpenXML/ODF Translator" on SourceForge.net ? A: There are many..
Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Jul 04 2007, 12:24:58 PM CEST ) Permalink Comments [22]
Tuesday June 12, 2007 OpenOffice.org 2.2.1 released! OpenOffice.org 2.2.1 is available now, containing some bug fixes, including some for security issues. Please find the details in the Release Notes, and download the latest and greatest version here. Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Jun 12 2007, 05:41:03 PM CEST ) Permalink Comments [0]
Thursday May 24, 2007 Sun and Redflag Chinese 2000 to Collaborate on OpenOffice.org Projects
This is really great news!
Posted by Malte Timmermann ( May 24 2007, 11:40:09 AM CEST ) Permalink Comments [2]
Monday May 14, 2007 Locking yourself into OfficeOpenXML and Office 2007 made easy I just stumbled over this really funny and interesting blog entry: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-6183476.html
So when the 30 days trial period ends, you have two "choices": Buy Office 2007 for being able to access your own documents, or find some tool for converting your documents from OOXML to some really open document format, like ODF. Finding some tool sounds reasonable, but AFAIK there is no final version of any such tool available right now, so you might loose some formatting or even some data! I especially enjoyed the sentence “Choice is an optional extra, only available after purchase” :) ODF is supported by different open source and closed source products, for example Sun StarOffice, OpenOffice.org, IBM Notes 8, KOffice, Google Docs & Spreadsheets and many more. No risk to get locked into software by one particular vendor!
Posted by Malte Timmermann ( May 14 2007, 04:44:51 PM CEST ) Permalink Comments [0]
Thursday May 03, 2007 OpenOffice.org port for Mac OS X Sun is now officially joining the porting efforts for OpenOffice.org on Mac/Aqua. This is really great news! Some of our StarOffice/OpenOffice.org developers here in Hamburg already helped on the port in the past. They answered many how-to questions on the mailing lists, and they also helped with code contributions so that the Mac porting project could make faster progress. But now some of our team are joining these porting efforts full time! More details can be found on GullFOSS, the group blog from our team.
Posted by Malte Timmermann ( May 03 2007, 10:54:13 AM CEST ) Permalink Comments [0]
Tuesday February 20, 2007 Sun ODF Plug-in for Microsoft Word now available! Finally, Sun's ODF Plug-in for Microsoft Word has arrived! If you give it a try, you will see that
it's different compared to other MS Word ODF Plug-ins. So go and check this out – there are more important differences to explore. If you have any comments on the Plug-in, please send us your feedback.
Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Feb 20 2007, 02:49:59 PM CET ) Permalink Comments [0]
Thursday February 08, 2007 Sun's OpenDocument Format (ODF) Plug-in Application for Microsoft Office You might already have seen our announcement on this yesterday. This is really great, because it eases the migration path for using the OASIS OpenDocument Format for your documents. A lot of people want to use ODF, but were not able to do so for different reasons. The main reason is that other applications are based on the office suite they currently use, or only have support for that office suite. This is especially a problem with Assistive Technology. With this new converter, you have the choice! Migrate to ODF, and to an ODF office suite like StarOffice or OpenOffice.org, or as a first step, only migrate your documents. Migrating your document is the first important step to get rid of some vendor lock in, because it's an open ISO standard, and many applications support it, including open source software as well as commercial products. A very good description of the plug-in can be found in Simon's blog. Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Feb 08 2007, 05:50:33 PM CET ) Permalink Comments [0]
Wednesday January 24, 2007 An ODF Toolkit! OpenOffice.org has announced a new project: The OpenOffice.org ODF Toolkit Project. This is really cool. It will enable people to concentrate on their specific tasks like (automatic) ODF document creation and manipulation, without the need to know anything about the ODF format specification, XML syntax or about the package structure. Some more information can also be found in Sun's OpenOffice.org Engineering blog “GullFOSS”.
Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Jan 24 2007, 05:25:09 PM CET ) Permalink Comments [0]
Friday December 01, 2006 The OpenDocument Format (ODF) is now ISO Standard! Since yesterday, ISO 26300 is listed as an international published Cool! Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Dec 01 2006, 12:07:06 PM CET ) Permalink Comments [0]
Monday September 25, 2006 GullFOSS There is a new blog that might be interesting for you: It is the group blog from Sun's StarOffice/OpenOffice.org Team, so I am sure this will be an interesting blog for people with interest in OpenOffice.org and/or in the OpenDocument format... Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Sep 25 2006, 07:06:50 PM CEST ) Permalink Comments [0]
Friday September 22, 2006 Back from OOo Conference OK, to be honest, I am back for a week now, but I was to lazy to write a blog entry ;) The OOo Conference in Lyon was really great! A lot of people to get known, a lot of things to learn, a lot of interesting discussions, a lot of.... A real highlight was the reception in the town hall. All OOo conference participants have been invited to this. A really nice place, as you can see on this photo, and the mayor talked about how great OpenOffice.org is :) If you are interested in some of the presentations, you can find a lot of the videos and slide shows on http://ooocon-kiberpipa.kiberpipa.org/media. Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Sep 22 2006, 03:10:42 PM CEST ) Permalink
Thursday July 13, 2006 OpenDocument Format is a truly open standard Seems some people where unsure if ODF is really free, or if they would run into licensing and patent problems when implementing ODF in their applications. The Software Freedom Law Center has researched the issue and has now published an opinion assuring developers that there are no legal barriers to using ODF. Read the full story here: Posted by Malte Timmermann ( Jul 13 2006, 01:27:49 PM CEST ) Permalink Comments [0]
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