Archive for the 'Word processor' category

OpenOffice.org 3.0 arrives and this is important. As a matter of fact, the free desktop suite (as interesting as the MS-Office suite) shift in high gear.

OpenOffice.org v3.0

The new features are quite noticeable:

• Support of MS-Office 2007 format for documents
• OOo 3.0 is now compatible with Mac OS X
• New multi-page mode in Writer
• Several users can now simultaneously edit and share a single spreadsheet
• Capacity to use MS Access databases from Writer

To freely download your MS-Word 2007, your MS-Excel 2007, you just have to run to the OpenOffice.org web site. This is free, this is legal!

Google Chrome

How could we ignore the launch of Chrome, the new browser from Google? Every is babbling about it, everybody tried it (it can be downloaded here).

But after one test run, I believe that I should explain something. Yes, this is a marvellous browser because it takes most of the good things from FireFox, Opera or Safari (all IE competition). I immediately noticed:

• No space is lost in useless graphical waste, everything is concentrating on user display,
• The good tab management,
• The impressive performance,
• The name-completion in the address bar.

Some will also have noticed the more technical features like:

• The separation of applications running in different tabs,
• The very small footprint (including for the Javascript).

But, all this is hiding a very critical reality: Google did not even try to make a mere browser (it even lacks a simple RSS feed manager). They are more interested in doing more than Internet Explorer competiton. Much more.

Chrome (tasks)

The impressive advantage of this browser is elsewhere: it will fight against Microsoft applications allowing to work online in the best possible conditions. Chrome is nearly an Operating System competing with Windows. Yes, because where Windows offered a vehicle to sell Microsoft Office, Chrome will allow Google to develop a wider range of online tools in the path opened by the Desktop applications and GMail.

It will hurt Microsoft real bad. Chrome is obviously the best browser to support this approach. Rock solide, fast (very), reliable and able to support application crashes.

A few templates for documents you would want to use with OpenOffice 3.0 or MS-Office.

Microsoft Office 2007 Templates

Free legal download.

We never can get enough of them, but our computers are sometimes overflowing. Software applications are everywhere, but how to choose the right one for the task at hand? I built a real collection of pages where you will be able to find nearly all you can dream for nearly all computers:

• Five important security apps for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows
• Superior Alternatives to Crappy Windows Software
• The Windows Apps You Never Need To Install
• Battle of the Free Windows Software Firewalls; We have to admit that there is no longer any good reason to pay for your computer security under Windows.
• Top 100 of the Best (Useful) OpenSource Applications
• Logiciels gratuits from TutoWeb.
• Now, to look into the future, Sneak peek at OpenOffice.org 3.0
• And, last but not least, for old dinosaurs, let’s remind you that you can still use VAX-VMS on your Linux PC. If you don’t know what I am saying, either you’re too young, or you never received a hacker education. Or both.

Source: Ironic Sans.

If you want to convert your Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint files into PDF, just email them to pdf@koolwire.com.

But there’s more:

• iphone@pdfonline.com to convert from Microsoft Word or Visio to PDF file
• doc@koolwire.com to convert from PDF to Word or RTF file
• mp3@koolwire.com to convert from WAV to MP3 format
• wav@koolwire.com to convert from MP3 to WAV format

The bane (correction: “one of the banes”) of the new opus of the Microsoft Office saga (MS-Office 2007) is that the Redmond developpers once again changed the file formats. I’m sure that this is for the best. But if you went the MS-Office 2007 path and not your colleagues or friends, they no longer can read your files.

Solution (partial because you still need to do something): Crunch all documents through a software to make them readable. This is basically the offer from Docx2RTF, Windows utility that you can download freely.

Here is a software tool that will allow you to explore the fonts installed on your Windows computer: FontEXPRO.

I am in love with the Opera web browser. I use it for 99% of my web browsing, so it is also the tool I use when writing posts for the roumazeilles.net web site. The only thing that I did not have right out-of-the-box after download was the ability of checking my spelling (and several people noticed a few typos in my posts along with some of my bad English).

So I decided to add a spell checker to Opera (a plug-in to limit the risks of my own typos). I found a pretty simple one: Aspell for Windows that Opera will automatically recognize when it is installed. It has dictionaries for many languages (it is easy to create one from a mere word list in your own language if you need to). It supports several languages at the same time.

The only drawback is that it is not working in real-time, but you have to call it from a right-click on the mouse into the post box. I would have preferred an active underlining of wrongly-spelled words (like in Word or OpenOffice-Write).

May be you know a better one that you would like to share…

Note for new bloggers: Even if I have been waiting long for this, typos in your posts just pushes forward a bad image for your own web site. Go and correct this now.

Source: http://www.opera.com/support/tutorials/opera/spell check/.

You wanted to be able to produce those pro presentations with PowerPoint. But Microsoft Office seemed to expensive to buy it, so you decided to download an illegal (but free) version. No! Hold your horses. Real solutions are appearing all over the place.

Up to now, you had the possibility to use Open Office (which just went to version 2.3). This free desktop suite is compatible with Microsoft file formats (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and gives you the ability to do nearly everything that PowerPoint does. And -we have to admit that- we do not use a lot from PowerPoint (bullet lists and titles).

But Google joins the race with the arrival of Google Presentations, which their online answer and free again (and more legal than any botleg copy downloaded from BitTorrent, DirectConnect or similar P2P network). There was already a Google Docs application suite; It is now complete.

Have fun with your free download of… PowerPoint competition products.

Even if I persist in advising you not to pirate-copy MS-Office, not to download Word, Excel or PowerPoint but to download OpenOffice for free, I can’t resist to the temptation to give some echo to a Microsoft proposal.

Steal Office!

MS-Office is still out of reach for normal people around $400 (for this price you can consider buying a computer). But Microsoft hides behind this slogan a proposal just for students starting September 20th: $60 for MS-Office, it’s a steal.

Not sure this is really a steal, I keep recommending to download OpenOffice for free…

Really! Who would like to have Microsoft Office. It’s expensive. If you donwload it for free, it’s just illegal.

However, you can download the excellent Neo Office for OS/X (a Mac OS/X port of OpenOffice). It’s now available.