I eagerly searched the openoffice.org web site to find the list of changes in 2.1.
Mmm, this will tell me everything I need to know, I thought, and smiled saucily to myself. (Or something like that.)
http://development.openoffice.org/releases/2.1.0.html
Well...it's a little dry
. A little developer-oriented. Not that I mind that they seemed to have fixed a bunch of bugs. Love the bug-fixin'.
One very nice feature is the security in PDF. File > Export as PDF, name the file, and you get the new security tab.
Here's something a little more feature-oriented.
http://www.cheeplinux.com/product_info.php?products_id=413
"There are a number of important new features for users in this release. The presentations application, Impress, now supports multiple monitors, with the presenter choosing where to display the presentation. The Calc spreadsheet has an improved HTML export capability, using styles to better recreate in a browser the appearance of the original spreadsheet. The database application, Base, has a number of enhancements, including improved support for Microsoft's Access product. The popular Quickstarter is now available for GNU/Linux users as a GTK application. OpenOffice.org's impressive language support is enhanced with five more localisations.
Version 2.1 also provides new support for developers, extending version control to extensions, simplifying the management of packages for those developing extensions. And, for those wanting to take advantage of new features as they become available between releases, 2.1 includes 'an improved on-line notifier, which checks regularly and informs users if a new version is available (users may choose to disable this option at any time).'"
Regarding that HTML export for spreadsheets, I clearly need to do some research into that since I don't see the point yet. I exported a spreadsheet by choosing File > Export and chose the XHTML format. A browser didn't open the file that was exported. Changing the extension to .html gave me a blank file (with lots of markup under View > Source). And when I opened the .xhtml file in OpenOffice, I just got a bunch of markup.
By way of contrast, copying a spreadsheet into a Web document in Writer works pretty nicely.
Spreadsheet
Spreadsheet copied and pasted into a new Web document. (I added the borders, which weren't there when pasted, but then the original spreadsheet had no borders, so that's the correct way to paste it.)
So I'll gather up what I can about the point for the user of XHTML, or feel free to comment here, but so far I am unclear on the benefit.
Has anyone else found anything cool and new or different in 2.1? Or a more clear/detailed/UI-oriented guide to the changes?
PDF support has been enhanced. Look for security options
Posted by: Antonio Pulido | January 29, 2007 at 07:08 AM
Excellent! Thank you. (Was that in those lists and it just didn't seem obvious? Hmm.)
Posted by: Solveig Haugland | January 29, 2007 at 07:14 AM