OpenOffice have just released a beta version of the upcoming OpenOffice 3.

Whilst they claim that the new beta is not ready for production usage, I’ve been playing around with it for a few hours and it seems fairly solid.

As a result I’ve decided to both spread the word and go through some of the new features that Sun have added to their open source alternative to Microsoft Office.

What’s New

Initially I thought that things looked fairly similar to OpenOffice 2, but on digging around I’ve found that there have been quite a few improvements and changes.

Some of these changes are under the hood, but there are some nice additions that have been noticeably absent from OpenOffice’s previous versions.

Multiple Page Editing

This is something that’s been available in MS Office for quite a while and with increased usage of widescreen and higher resolution LCD monitors, there is often more space available in which you can view and edit your documents.

This multi-page feature has been well put together and allows you to either view your document in spreads (as you would view a book), or automatically fitting to the size of the screen. As you increase and decrease the zoom level the pages automatically adjust to an optimal display.

New Zoom Slider

Another item that was conspicuously absent for a while has been a user friendly zoom function. In previous versions of OpenOffice you needed to either use the menus or click a “zoom” icon which presented a pop up dialogue asking you to select from a variety of zoom percentages.

The new beta version offers a simple zoom slider which allows you to quickly adjust the document to the zoom level desired. It looks as though it functions very smoothly and also seems to mark certain zoom levels so that you can return to them accurately.

I haven’t worked out how to set zoom level markers, or what ensures that a marker will be made, but I’m sure that it will become clear with time.

Vastly Improved Notes Function

Another area that had poor functionality (and therefore was rarely used by us), is the notes function. OpenOffice seemed to have followed Microsoft in this regard and the functionality seems very similar to that of MS Office 2007.

With ease, through either a menu item or a shortcut key, you can quickly add a note to an area of the document on which you are working. This note will be saved along with your name so that collaborators can see notes or comments made relating to a particular area of the document, and also quickly see who created those notes.

Open Office - New Start Centre

Whilst the user interface has not really changed, they have incorporated some new look icons. I feel that the UI for OpenOffice needs some amount of an overhaul to make it look a little more polished and to keep it in line with that of its competitors. The new icons are nice, but don’t make a huge impact.

In addition to this they have created a new “Start Centre” which allows quick access for creating or opening documents. I generally find that I don’t use ’start centres’ in the various applications that I use, as I’m quicker with shortcut keys. However I can see that this would appeal to some people.

Even more features

I’m not going to go through everything that’s in the new beta (as there is quite a lot). You can read a full feature list over on the OpenOffice website, but I will list a few other items here.

Mac support without the need for X11.

Microsoft Office 2007 import support - this is crucial and a hugely welcome addition!

Open Document Format 1.2 support.

Multiple new features to their spreadsheet, presentation, database and other office applications.

I haven’t had the chance to test out many of these features, and whilst opening an Office 2007 .docx file seemed to work for me, there have been reports of the import functionality not working for other people.

OpenOffice is maturing

Slowly but surely OpenOffice is becoming an even more solid alternative to Microsoft Office, and whilst it might not have some of the bells and whistles that are available in its main rival, it’s certainly positioning itself extremely well as a strong contender.

Some people have found the new MS Office to be confusing and difficult to use (due to their major overhaul of the user interface) and other people have heralded it as a massive improvement, but for those that find Office 2007’s interface to be a mistake, OpenOffice offers a simpler and more familiar menu system.

There are other advantages for OpenOffice, aside from the obvious price difference (OpenOffice is free, Microsoft Office costs between €80 and €400). OpenOffice has an excellent “extension repository” which allows third party developers to extend the functionality available. There are hundreds of extensions which you can easily download and install and they include writer’s tools for looking up information online, wiki editing tools, free document templates, Google Docs export/import functions, reporting modules, fax services, export to Palm, and multiple language tools.
Essentially there is a wealth of possibilities, and if OpenOffice extensions take off in the same way that Firefox Add-ons have taken off, this could become a major selling point for OpenOffice.

And of course, it’s free!

So if you haven’t checked it out, head on over to the OpenOffice.org download page and try it out. It’s available for all flavours of Windows, Linux, Mac, and Solaris.