OpenOffice.org

From ChekMate Security Group

1 Background information
2 Summary what OpenOffice.org offers
3 See also
4 External Links

Background information

StarDivision, the original author of the StarOffice suite of software, was founded in Germany in the mid-1980s. It was acquired by Sun Microsystems during the summer of 1999 and StarOffice 5.2 was released in June of 2000. Future versions of StarOffice software, beginning with 6.0, have been built using the OpenOffice.org source, APIs, file formats, and reference implementation.

The OpenOffice.org source code initially includes the technology which Sun Microsystems has been developing for the future versions of StarOffice(TM) software. The source is written in C++ and delivers language-neutral and scriptable functionality, including Java(TM) APIs. This source technology introduces the next-stage architecture, allowing use of the suite as separate applications or as embedded components in other applications. Numerous other features are also present including XML-based file formats and other resources.

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Summary what OpenOffice.org offers

Enhanced file format support

PDF (Portable Document Format) export
Support for mailing a document as PDF.
DocBook/XML import/export.
XHTML export.
Support for Macromedia Flash (SWF) export.
Support for mobile device formats like AportisDoc (Palm), Pocket Word and Pocket Excel.
Example xslt based filter for Office 2003 XML documents

Accessibility

Support for full keyboard navigation and control
Support for tracking system colour scheme and theme settings
Support for accessibility in the help system and documents
Initial support for Assistive Technologies via Java accessibility APIs

Internationalization CTL, vertical and bidirectional writing

Support for vertical writing within text documents, text frames and graphic objects
Support for vertical writing in spreadsheet cells (the direction is individualy selectable)
Support for input, display and editing of scripts using Complex Text Layout (CTL)
Support for RTL layout and text in the OpenOffice.org GUI
Support for BiDi-writing in OpenOffice.org documents
Support for using either Arabic or Hindi numerals
The RTL vs. LTR default text direction is automaticly selected based on locale

Other Internationalization enhancements

Support for various 8-bit Arabic and Hebrew text encodings / code pages.
Support for the KOI8_U encoding.
New CTL options tab in language options dialog.
Rescue mode support for BiDi/CTL with X11 fonts.
Sequence Input Checking (SIC) for languages like Thai and Hindi.
Initial glyph fallback support.

MS Office compatibility enhancements All components

More accurate import and export of graphics objects
Import and export of CJK and CTL documents
Enhancements to overall stability and accuracy of conversion

Word

Forms conversion within Word documents
Improved import of text document layout

Excel

Support for Data Validation
Import/export of graphical details of charts

PowerPoint

Even better one-to-one layout of text frames
Improvements to import of WordArt objects

Writer

Enhanced footnote support.
Improved hyperlink support for TOCs.
Improved keyboard handling in toolboxes.
Plain text files are now imported using a non-proportional font.
Configurable font for HTML and BASIC source code.
Support for drawing objects in headers and footers

Draw/Impress

Alternative language support for spell check on text drawing object.
New command line option -start to start the presentation automatically after the document is loaded.

Spreadsheet:

Import and export of areas in charts in Excel files that are formatted with bitmaps, textures or hatchings.
The sum button inserts a sum function or a subtotal function, depending on context.
Support for Excel 95 (and older) form controls

Database:

Table control via keyboard navigation in table designer.
Added ability to switch off brackets for bibliography fields.
New database type in data source administration dialog - MySQL.
Ability to add labels to field names in the report wizard.
A data source can now use any character set known to OpenOffice.org.
UI support for user installed database drivers.
Database Report Wizard

Writing Aids

Autodetection of newly installed languages for spellchecker, thesaurus and hyphenator.
Integrated support for spell checking English (US and UK) and Italian
Integrated support for hyphenation of Danish, English (UK and US), German and Russian
Initial support for spell checking Hindi
Spell checking uses n-gram scoring for suggestions

Programing and Automation

Macro Recorder
Crash reporter for collecting crash dump and error information
Integrated Python-UNO bridge allowing creation of UNO components in Python
A new java to native UNO bridge with up to 10 times better performance.
Detection of a misconfigured Java installation.
OpenOffice.org ActiveX Control (Windows only).
Additional property pages for OpenOffice.org file types in Windows Explorer.

Other Enhancements

Windows 98 users need not download unicows.dll
The splash screen now has a progress bar.
Improved online help content.
Improved configurability of dialogs and toolbars.
Improved URL autocompletion in hyperlink dialog.
The context menu now contains 'Open Hyperlink' if opened on a URL.
Locking of user installations against accesses from multiple machines with shared directories.
Command line tools and an API for importing configuration data into the backend.
Document windows are now always created in a cascade to avoid new window completely overlapping the old one.
Support for registering add-ons and accessing add-ons via an auto-generated menu.
New FTP file access component.
The registration dialog will now display instead of addressbook data source selection on first run.
Support for recovering slightly damaged OpenOffice.org files.
New ppd file for generic postscript printing with type42 font support.
Support for copy/paste of bitmap graphics on Unix.