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OPENOFFICE.ORG NEWSLETTER Volume 05 - Issue 12 - 06/2008 Please send news clippings to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ######################################################################### Contents ######################################################################### 1. Announcements ================ * PDF import extension is now online * OpenOffice.org Annual Conference Update * OpenOffice 2.4.1 is released * Addition of Japanese language support to its Users' Community Forum 2. Success Stories ================== * OpenOffice.org being distributed to Portuguese schools * Polish retailer selling laptops with OpenOffice.org pre-installed * French hospital migrates to OpenOffice.org * Millions of copies of OpenOffice.org distributed by Asustek 3. Featured News ================ * Munich released template management software as Open Source * OpenOffice with OpenJDK * Link to get templates and dictionaries online 4. Tips & Tricks ================ * New article about the OpenOffice.org mail merge feature * Video showing the new PDF import feature for OpenOffice.org * Ten fantastic keyboard shortcuts in OpenOffice.org 5. ODF News =========== * ODFXSLTRunner - a new tool in the ODF Toolkit project * 'ODF has clearly won,' says Microsoft exec * Microsoft Invites to ODF Workshop in Redmond * [EMAIL PROTECTED] - How it works ######################################################################### Want to help OpenOffice.org? Find out hot to contribute or see our To Do List!! http://contributing.openoffice.org/index.html http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/To-Dos/index.html ######################################################################### Kudos to Erwin Tenhumberg! ########################## "Erwin the initiator and author of this newsletter has left Sun ! This is a big loss but we are trying to create this Newsletter in the same quality as you know from Erwin" http://blogs.sun.com/dancer/entry/leaving_sun_and_going_to Announcements ######################################################################### PDF import extension is now online ================================== "The PDF Import extension allows you to import and modify PDF documents in OpenOffice.org Draw and export it to the Open Document Format (ODF). We keep the layout of imported PDF document as close as possible to the original document. This version supports PDF documents up to version 1.4. Import of PDF documents with restricted permissions is not yet possible, this feature will be available in later versions. You can install this extension via the extension manager in the tools menu of OpenOffice.org. You need at least OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta or later to install this extension. You will find the extension at the OpenOffice.org extension repository. " http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/pdf_import_extension_is_now OpenOffice.org Annual Conference Update ======================================= "Potential speakers: there is still time to submit your proposals for a paper at OOoCon 2008. Following a replan by the organisers, you now have until 18th July to submit your proposal. See http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2008/cfp Finally, the organisers are now actively seeking sponsors for the conference. If your organisation, company, public administration, etc would like to show its support for OOo in a very public way, now is your opportunity. Please see http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2008/sponsors.html for further details." http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=announce&msgNo=363 OpenOffice 2.4.1 is released ============================ "Full details of the changes may be found in the release notes http://development.openoffice.org/releases/2.4.1rc2.html. For details of security vulnerabilities fixed, please see our security bulletin http://www.openoffice.org/security/bulletin.html. To our knowledge, none of these vulnerabilities has been exploited; however, in accordance with industry best practice, we recommend all users upgrade to 2.4.1." http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=announce&msgNo=364 Addition of Japanese language support to its Users' Community Forum =================================================================== "The OpenOffice.org® Community is pleased to announce the addition of Japanese language support to its Users' Community Forum. This web-based Community Forum brings experts and users together to provide support to users of OpenOffice.org, the free alternative to Microsoft Office. The Forum is free to users and is free of advertisements." http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=announce&msgNo=365 Success Stories ######################################################################### OpenOffice.org being distributed to Portuguese schools ====================================================== "I was just made aware of this Portuguese blog entry. CDs including OpenOffice.org will be distributed to Portuguese schools again." http://blogs.sun.com/dancer/entry/openoffice_org_being_distributed_to Polish retailer selling laptops with OpenOffice.org pre-installed ================================================================= "I just received a link to this Polish offer. A Polish store similar to Walmart is selling a laptop with Kubuntu and OpenOffice.org pre-installed. Cool! I guess this means even more OpenOffice.org and ODF users!" http://blogs.sun.com/dancer/entry/polish_walmart_selling_laptops_with French hospital migrates to OpenOffice.org ========================================== "According to this French article, the French hospital of Thiers is migrating its 150 desktops to OpenOffice.org in order to spend money on training instead of licenses." http://blogs.sun.com/dancer/entry/french_hospital_migrates_to_openoffice Millions of copies of OpenOffice.org distributed by Asustek =========================================================== "I just read this article, and found the following statement particularly interesting: "The company, which had previously estimated that it would sell 5 million Eee PCs this year, forecasts low-cost PC sales are set to hit 20-30 million units globally in 2009, Asustek's Chief Executive Jerry Shen told reporters." Considering that the Eee PCs ship with either OpenOffice.org, StarOffice or StarSuite, these are great news! Last month there were close to 7 Million downloads of OpenOffice.org (not counting Linux distros, magazine CDs, etc.), but having major hardware vendors like Asustek shipping Millions of laptops with OpenOffice.org pre-installed is definitely even more helpful from an OpenOffice.org market share and ODF adoption point of view." http://blogs.sun.com/dancer/entry/millions_of_copies_of_openoffice Acer laptop with OpenOffice.org pre-installed ============================================= Cool! The "Acer Aspire one" is yet another mainstream laptop that comes with OpenOffice.org pre-installed: "The Aspire one series comes preinstalled with Linpus™ Linux® Lite version or Windows XP® Home. Additional software such as OpenOffice 2.3, one Mail, Messenger, Acer eRecovery Management, Acer Launch Manager, Adobe® Reader®, McAfee® Internet Security Suite, Microsoft® Office Trial 2007 are also installed5." http://blogs.sun.com/dancer/entry/acer_laptop_with_openoffice_org Sharjah school adopts OpenOffice.org ==================================== "Sharjah-based SIA chose a number of freely available open-source programs - including OpenOffice and the Solaris 10 operating system - to run on top of its new thin clients and servers from Sun Microsystems, which it finished installing last year. ... SIA has installed sixteen thin clients in its student labs, with an option to increase to 70 clients in the future. The implementation includes two Sun servers running Solaris 10 and serving virtual instances of Windows XP to the thin clients via VMware." http://www.itp.net/news/520872-sharjah-school-dumps-high-cost-software-for-open-source-applications Featured News ######################################################################### Munich released template management software as Open Source =========================================================== "As can be read in this German article, the City of Munich just released their template management software for OpenOffice.org as Open Source under the European Union Public License (EUPL). It's great to see that government organizations start to embrace the open source development model!" http://blogs.sun.com/dancer/entry/munich_released_template_management_software OpenOffice.org with OpenJDK =========================== "OpenJDK is the open source variant of JDK. With the Child Workspace openjdk6b the adaptation for OpenJDK came into the DEV300 codeline. So builds can also be done with OpenJDK now. I checked the build on Windows, Linux 32-bit, Linux 64-bit, Solaris Sparc and Solaris Intel. So feel free to use it." http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/openoffice_with_openjdk Link to get templates and dictionaries online ============================================= "With one of the latest Developer snapshots (DEV300_m17) of OpenOffice.org we got new links for Dictionaries and Templates to the Extensions Website. Dictionaries provided as extensions will be able to use the online update mechanism so that an update of dictionaries will be much more easy in the future. Author will be able to update their dictionaries independent from the OpenOffice.org release schedule so that OpenOffice.org user will take advantage of new versions of dictionaries much faster than before. The integration of dictionaries with a license incompatible to the OpenOffice.org (can't be bundled with OpenOffice.org) will then also more easy." http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/link_to_get_templates_and ¡ Tips & Tricks ######################################################################### New article about the OpenOffice.org mail merge feature ======================================================= "The office where I am network administrator switched most users to OpenOffice.org (OOo) back at version 1.1, and has followed the upgrade process to the current version 2.3 (a few poor users who have to exchange documents outside the office with high fidelity are still clinging to their MS Office 97). Our receptionist does a lot of general secretarial duties, including lots of letters, envelopes, and labels that involve mail merge. Since this seems to be a sticking point for many people, I am putting everything I have learned from helping her and have gleaned from various sources on the Internet together in this tutorial." http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/mail_merge_openoffice_org Video showing the new PDF import feature for OpenOffice.org =========================================================== "I just created a short video in which I demo the new Sun PDF Import Extension (beta) for OpenOffice.org. Don't expect a perfect screencast! It's just a quick hack. It was more of an experiment! It was interesting for me to realize that I started to "stutter" and to have my brain "go blank" the more the longer I played with the screencast software. I'm sorry that I can't offer more / different video formats right now! Anyway, I think the video should still give a good impression of the new PDF import feature. Have fun!" http://blogs.sun.com/dancer/entry/video_showing_the_new_pdf Ten fantastic keyboard shortcuts in OpenOffice.org ================================================== "A lot of software users I meet seem to feel they are not using their software as efficiently as they could. If that includes you, then listen up. Here is my list of the ten, lesser-known, OpenOffice.org Writer keyboard shortcuts that will help you improve your productivity." http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/ten_fantastic_keyboard_shortcuts_openoffice_org ODF News ######################################################################### ODFXSLTRunner - a new tool in the ODF Toolkit project ===================================================== "I would like to announce the availability of a new tool called “odfxsltrunner” as part of the ODF Toolkit project. “odfxsltrunner” is a small Java command line tools that allows you to apply an XSLT stylesheet to an ODF document without extracting the streams like content.xml from the ODF package, and without having to update the ODF packages files with the result of the transformation. By default, “odfxsltrunner” takes a style sheet and an ODF document as input, applies the stylesheet to the content.xml, and either prints the result on standard output, or stores it in a new file which is a copy of the input file, but where the content.xml is replaced with the result of the transformation. “odfxsltrunner” has a couple of options that modify this behavior. The “-i” option for instance allows you to take a plain XML file as input. This is useful if you want to create a content.xml from scratch that shall be added to an existing template ODF file. The opposite is also possible. The “-o” option can be used to store the result of the transformation in a plain file rather than an ODF package file. This is useful if the result is let's say HTML. Some more options do exist, including of cause one that allows to use a different stream than content.xml as source of the transformation. A detailed explanation of all options can be found in the Wiki. This page also explains where to get “odfxsltrunner”, and how to build and run it." http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/odfxsltrunner_a_new_tool_in 'ODF has clearly won,' says Microsoft exec ========================================== "Stuart McKee, Microsoft's national technology officer, stated that "ODF has clearly won," acknowledging that the monopolist will start supporting ODF natively in Microsoft Office next year. He also sounded almost apologetic about not supporting ODF sooner, saying "We couldn't [implement ODF] during the release of Office 2007. We're looking forward and committed to doing more than translators." http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/06/20/odf-clearly-won-microsoft-exec Microsoft Invites to ODF Workshop in Redmond ============================================ "According to this invitation on the OASIS ODF TC mailing lists, Microsoft is inviting to an ODF Workshop in Redmond. Maybe this invitation has something to do with Microsoft's public "ODF has clearly won" statement at a recent event. Thus, if Microsoft has to support ODF in their products due to market demand, what ISV can still ignore supporting ODF? http://blogs.sun.com/dancer/entry/microsoft_invites_to_odf_workshop [EMAIL PROTECTED] - How it works ====================== "While demoing the ODF Wiki to OpenOffice.org and Sun Folks[..], I recognized different reactions of people, there were the ones who obviously use Wikis in their daily work and who immediately understood what I wanted to show, namely the possibility of an ODF based Wiki with rich editing capabilities (including graphics, formulas etc.), than there were the ones who seemed to be disappointed, as I just recombined already available stuff, and finally the ones, whose first thought was about how I did implement this. So, this posting is just for the people curious about how it works :-)" http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/odf_www_how_it_works Newsletter Archive ######################################################################### Past issues of the OpenOffice.org Newsletter can be found in the archive of the announce mailing list: http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/SummarizeList?listName=announce Contact Information (regarding this newsletter) ######################################################################### [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
