OpenOffice 3.2 is actually good and usable.

[reddragdiva]

I just downloaded and installed OpenOffice.org 3.2. You should too.

On this here laptop (a Toshiba R600 with 1.4Ghz Core 2 Duo and 3GB memory, running Ubuntu 9.10 64-bit), I have the included OOo 3.1 and a copy of MS Office 2003 running under Wine.

I have tended to use Excel simply because it starts in under a second from cold, whereas OOo Calc 3.1 takes seven seconds from cold.

Let me tell you: that extra six seconds is approximately forever in user interface terms.

And before someone cuts'n'pastes a reply about Excel preloading hence the startup time being illusory — I said Wine. No preloading. OOo is, quite simply, ridiculously fat and slow. I've used OOo since 638c and it's always been way too fat and way too slow.

So let me heartily recommend you install OOo 3.2, because Calc starts in two seconds from cold. Enough to compete with Excel for user convenience.

(Ubuntu: Download the .deb tarball, use official instructions to extract the binaries into a convenient folder in your home directory, point your OOo menu items at them. Windows: just download and install.)

I understand the 3.2 cycle was quite expressly a speedup and bugfix cycle. GOOD.

It's also worth noting that OOo is around 10% in US and Canada, up to 20% in some countries. At that point it's deadly serious competition.

Man. OOo is usable at last. Who'da thunk?

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I should try that on my incredibly useful microscope calibration spreadsheet and see if Calc can now actually see the fucking numbers.

[reddragdiva]

Always a useful test ;-p