"If it's the Psychic Network why do they need a phone number?" -Robin Williams



   
BentUser Updates Feed     


Featured Articles
iPhone 3G Review, Gripes and Praise: Part I
Xbox Live Arcade 2008 Preview: Part I
Resident Evil 5 Preview
Customer Service?
The Fallout from Sony’s E3 Press Conference
Windows XP and Vista b5270 Side-by-Side
DRM Hell
Sharp XR-10X LCD Projector Review
Xbox 360 Launch
Microsoft BOB Review
Logitech V200 Wireless Notebook Mouse
Office 12 Screenshot Gallery
Apple Thinks Same, Goes Intel
.NET 2.0 vs. Java 1.5 Shootout
Microsoft Windows Vista Build 5231 Indepth Look - Part 2
Why Google is Being Sued by Publishers
Microsoft Windows Vista Build 5231 Indepth Look - Part I
Comprehensive Tablet PC Review with the HP tc1100
Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 Review
IBM / Lenovo ThinkPad T43 Review
Windows OneCare Live Preview
Windows Mobile 5.0 Preview
Battle of the Betas: IE7 vs. Firefox 1.5
Unicomp Customizer 101 Keyboard Review
Dell UltraSharp 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - 2405FPW Review
Yahoo! Music Engine First Look
TopDesk Review
More
 
  OpenOffice 2.0 Writer Beta Preview
  By Pat

  Front > Software > Office
  9/19/2005
  Specifications    Images    

 

Basic History

OpenOffice is an open source office suite built on the StarOffice code-base. It consists of a word processor, presentation tool, spreadsheet application, drawing tool, database program and a fairly serious little equation editor. It provides support for multiple operating systems including Windows, OS X, Linux, BSD and Solaris. Best of all, the price is right. At a grand total of free, OpenOffice undercuts Microsoft Office by a lot, although they would appreciate a donation.

OpenOffice splash screen
OpenOffice splash screen 

Version 2.0 has been in development since 2003 and has missed it's target launch. It is nice to see that the open source community is finally catching up with Microsoft in this regard. Aside from the cynicism, it seems like the team has gotten a lot of work done, let's take a look at the major new features that affect Writer.

Writer, if you haven't gathered, is the OpenOffice equivalent of Word.


Interface

Ah, now here is progress. Writer and the rest of the OpenOffice suite have come a long way in the looks department. OpenOffice 2.0 greatly improves the look and customizability over previous versions. Instead of the decidedly old, clunky look of the 1.X version, 2.0 on Windows looks like a clean, modern application.


OpenOffice Writer Writer Beta 2.0
OpenOffice Writer Writer Beta 2.0 

As you can see from the screenshots, Writer now looks a lot like Word. This makes the transition from Word a great deal easier, but what about the little differences? You can fix most of those yourself. The toolbars in Writer are customizable to the point that you can put any feature or tool on any toolbar you like. You can then position the toolbars wherever you like.



     Next  
[ Word Processing ]
 

 

Contact Us        Links:  NLP APIs      




Copyright � 2005 Retro Reviews LLC.  All Rights Reserved.
Technorati Profile