OpenOffice.org 2.3 includes upgrades to its word processor, spreadsheet, presentations, and database software.
The Charting component has undergone a complete revamp, adding a range of new features as well as simplifying and streamlining chart formulation. This component is used throughout OpenOffice.org.
Writer, OpenOffice.org’s word processor, has been boosted with the addition of intelligence to handle multi-lingual documents better. Wiki users will love the addition of a new MediaWiki (Wikipedia) export filter. Mail merge has some additional usability features.
A number of general productivity improvements have been made to Calc, OpenOffice.org’s spreadsheet. These include changes to printing, functions, menus, dialogs and toolbars.
Performance improvements have been made to Impress, OpenOffice.org’s application for creating presentations. The ‘move along curve’ animation feature has been re-introduced, giving ‘cartoon-like’ abilities to presentations.
OpenOffice.org’s database application, Base, continues to evolve, with additional features for expert users such as keyboard shortcuts, and a Report Builder (available as an extension).
OpenOffice.org Draw, the drawing and diagramming module, has been enhanced to provide improved exporting to HTML/web by adding support for exporting the images to portable network graphics (PNG) format. Accessibility improvements have also been made by providing alternate text for image maps and layer titles and descriptions.
General improvements to the entire suite include a persistent stylist filter, re-ordering of the PDF export dialogues, new shortcut keys, easier keyboard customisation, previewing of web pages in a browser, a number of enhancements for extensions and a higher default macro security level. In addition support for numerous languages and locales have added.
