Highlights:
*Review:*
By Edward Mendelson <mailto:[email protected]>
OpenOffice.org, now released in its long-awaited 3.0 version, is a free,
open-source replacement for Microsoft Office
<http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2052207,00.asp>---and the first
and only application suite that can be seriously considered to be a
substitute for the massive power and flexibility of Microsoft's suite.
OpenOffice.org used to look clunky and work slowly, but the 3.0 version,
which I tested in its final Release Candidate version (RC4), is sleek
and fast. It still retains the essential look and feel of Microsoft
Office 2003 <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,921806,00.asp> and
earlier versions, instead of imitating the new ribbon interface of
Office 2007, but that's a plus for many users who want as much
continuity as possible when switching to a new application.
[...]
Overall, I found performance to be impressively fast, on a par with that
of Microsoft Office but with some limitations. On a Vista system with
4GB of RAM and a fast dual-core processor, I had to wait a surprisingly
long time for the charting module to update a simple chart when I
changed a display option. But file loading and saving, in all parts of
the application, was almost instantaneous.
Short form:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2332502,00.asp
Full review:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2332504,00.asp
OO.o is at present unrated by readers. Please go there and rate it.
David Teague
Double Bass in Fifths Tuning
Emeritus Professor of Mathemathics and Computer Science, WCU
(a campus of the UNC system)
