It has been a long time coming, but OpenOffice version 3 has officially been released to public beta. The current stable version of OpenOffice is pretty good, but as a Mac user, I have been waiting for a native Mac version of OpenOffice. I am currently running NeoOffice for the Mac, which is good but it is a bit of a tangent.

Aside from the native Mac support (no more running X11), OO3 is going to support the OpenDocument Format (ODF) 1.2 standard as well as be able to open Office 2007 documents (however, InfoWorld is reporting problems with opening Office 2007 docs). Also, according to the OpenOffice site:

The most immediately visible change to OpenOffice.org 3.0 is the new “Start Centre”, new fresh-looking icons, and a new zoom control in the status bar. A closer look shows that 3.0 has a myriad of new features. Notable Calc improvements include a new solver component; support for spreadsheet collaboration through workbook sharing; and an increase to 1024 columns per sheet. Writer has an improved notes feature and displays of multiple pages while editing. There are numerous Chart enhancements, and an improved crop feature in Draw and Impress.

I downloaded the version for Mac OS X (a 168 MB download) and installed it. I got a nice little start screen (as they said I would). The interface also looks more professional than does NeoOffice at this time. The app does seem a bit heavy at times, however.

I will, of course, be exploring it further.

This video I made for those who are (or thinking about) writing a book in OpenOffice Writer. It’s also for those who have done the same thing in Microsoft Word but don’t exactly know how to perform the same function in OO. With this video, now you know.