Open Office Navigation

OOBase Database | OOCalc Spreadsheet | OODraw Vector Graphics | OOImpress Presentation | OOWriter Word Processor Using Mail Merge

Latest news

27 Sep 2008: OpenOffice 3.0 release candidate 3 available. From what I can see so far it seems reasonably complete

12 Dec 2006: OpenOffice has had the facility to build extensions for some time but these are rather poorly advertised and so far there have been few contributions.

Links:

• OpenOffice
• OpenOffice Knowledge Base

Open Office Suite

I tried the original Star Office several years ago and was not at all impressed, so I stuck with Microsoft. However, I have recently seen some good reviews in PC Pro, where it is recommended for personal use, so I decided to try the latest version of OpenOffice. I am currently using version 2.2 and was very pleasantly surprised to see some of the features on offer (more detail available by selecting on the sidebar menu).

After using Open Office for over a year now, I took the plunge and removed Microsoft Office from my PC, which was admittedly quite an old version, but nevertheless did the tasks I required. I now use Open Office for all my personal tasks and having converted my data files to the new file formats, I would not consider moving back to Excel or Word. This is not to say that Open Office is perfect, far from it, but it does mean I have sufficient confidence in it for letter writing and maintaining my spreadsheet finances. On the other hand when you start looking at some of the other modules such as the drawing package, you will quickly realise there are better open source alternatives. The database is much improved within Open Office, although again I prefer to use mySQL and use Open Office to make the connections.

Major Components

Open Office comprises a number of closely linked applications that mirror the scope of Microsoft Office. It may not handle as slickly as its expensive cousin but nevertheless it gets the job done without too much fuss. As you would expect it relies heavily on open standards (except maybe for Java) and unexpectedly it provides several enhancements to Microsoft Office. Not bad for a freeware open source suite. The following is a list of the major components and don't forget to use the sidebar for some other snippets of information based on real usage.

Writer

This has a similar list of functions to those found in Microsoft Word. It can open most Word documents from older versions of Word and uses an XML format to save documents and templates. I have found this to provide all my, admittedly modest, word processing requirements.

Calc

Most of the time I just use Calc exactly the same way as I would Excel in Microsoft Office, in fact for the basic user there are only minor differences. Yes, it is true that Excel is highly responsive and has that polished feel about it. However, I have found that I can get my work done just as easily in Calc, so I don't notice any drop in productivity. What is a little surprising is the number of power features in Calc, such as the ability to pull in data from a database, cross tabulate and summarise data. Styles and formatting are also fairly easy to apply.

Impress

This does a similar job to Microsoft PowerPoint and does it very well. Some people would argue that there aren't enough presentation templates as standard but in fact there are many more on the OpenOffice web site. I use this whenever I receive or have to compose a set of presentation slides.

Base

This is the database module which performs a set of operations but doesn't do them with any great conviction. I can't really see this as replacing a personal database such as Microsoft Access, mainly because it doesn't seem to support building personal applications outside of Open Office (unless I have got this very wrong). It requires the Java Runtime Environment to work.

Draw

This is the Vector Drawing Package which I have used a little bit for drawing flowcharts. It seems to have similar facilities to Microsoft Publisher and CorelDraw, but recently I have been using Inkscape mainly because I was interested in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). I know OpenOffice is supposed to support SVG but the interface seems a bit cumbersome. Full support of SVG seems to be a very important omission because with Inkscape (for example) it is quite easy to convert your images to XAML which leads you straight into the new generation of graphical applications for desktop and the web based on WPF. Now there is a new SVG Import Filter for OpenOffice which has to be installed as an extension. However, even though there are problems with colour and transparency gradients it still does a remarkably good job. It would be nice to see this installed as standard.

Math

This is a component that allows you to create mathematical formulae and symbols within a Writer document. Personally, I don't have any call for this so I haven't bothered using it. However, what I might find useful is the capability to embed formulae and maths symbols in a web document.

Macro Recorder

There is also a macro recorder for automating tasks using Oobasic, but I have to admit to being biased against using macros, for the reason that I have seen far too many errors perpetuated and propogated using macros. If your task really needs automation then use a proper programming language or buy a package.

OpenOffice and Java

Use of Java in OpenOffice has been a little controversial, but it has to be said that there is no obligation to use Java unless you use the Base module or start using the Wizards or special features heavily. So you can have an installation that does not use the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) which in this case means that you won't be able to use Base and certain of the more exotic features. At the moment I have installed with the JRE because I was interested in Base and whether it made sense to integrate databases with Word and Calc.

Open XML Format

Beginning with version 2.0 OpenOffice.org uses the open standard OASIS OpenDocument XML format as the default file format. The OASIS OpenDocument format is a vendor and implementation independent file format, and thus guarantees freedom and independence. In addition to OpenOffice.org itself, the open source office suite KOffice as well as OpenOffice.org derivatives like the StarOffice software support the OASIS OpenDocument file format. The OASIS OpenDocument file format is also one of the file formats recommended by the European Commission.

XForms Support

This is supposed to be the future for on-line forms removing the need for special scripting (such as PHP). Already Mozilla are working on a plug-in extension to the Firefox browser that will support the major XForms features, but this seems to be going very slowly (is it going anywhere?). OpenOffice will now support the creation of forms based on the open W3C XForms standard. Meanwhile there are now some other competitors such as Microsoft with XAML, Mozilla also has XUL used for Gecko for Firefox and of course Adobe with MXML for its Flash Player. So who do you think will win - my money's on Microsoft!

Enhanced Database Front-end

OpenOffice 2 uses the HSQLDB database which stores its data either in memory or on disk using XML to store the database schemas. In order to use the database you have to install Sun's Java Runtime Environment (free download). Writer and Calc modules can then connect to the database to get data for addresses, mail-merge etc. The database supports forms for editing and inputting, but they seem very simplistic when compared to using, say a MySQL database backend with Delphi or C# NET front-end. If you wish you can use other databases such as MySQL to extract data for use in Writer and Calc