Office

OpenOffice.org 2.4 final is now available for download. Just not from the official OpenOffice.org web page, which is still offering a choice between version 2.3. 1 and release candidate 6 for OpenOffice.org 2.4. But you can find a download link for the latest version from Filehippo.

There are no release notes available for version 2.4 yet, but you can check out a list of features that are probably included by looking at the feature freeze testing page on the OpenOffice.org wiki. Honestly, most of the improvements seem pretty minor, unless you get really excited about things like:

• Display both in the data point label: value and percentage
• Reduce complexity: Remove unnecessary display options
• Remove GUI option “Automatic file name extension” from File-Save dialog (Office Dlg)

If you want to see where OpenOffice.org is headed, check out our preview of Openoffice.org 3.0.
[via CyberNet]

While we’re guessing Microsoft would love to make Windows Mobil customers out of each and every iPhone user, that doesn’t mean the company doesn’t see a business opportunity in Apple’s cellphone. After all, Microsoft has been selling Office software to Mac users for years, so now that Apple has provided an SDK for the iPhone, why not port Office Mobile and other Microsoft applications to the iPhone?

Fortune Magazine reports that a team of Microsoft developers has been poring over the iPhone SDK. While the company still has to determine whether it would make business sense to develop for the iPhone, doing so shouldn’t be hard. After all, Apple is licensing Microsoft’s ActiveSync and Exchange Server technology to provide push email capabilities.

What Microsoft applications would you like to see for the iPhone? We’re going to assume Office Mobile is a given, but what about Windows Live Messenger? What we’re really hoping for is Virtual PC 2007, but we’re not going to hold our breath.

[via Brighthand]

What’s the first word processor you remember using? Word, WordPerfect, Works or something else altogether? On the one hand, word processing has come a long way in the last two decades. On the other hand, the image above shows Microsoft Word 1.0, which is almost 20 years old. And you know what? You could still use it to write most of your daily correspondence if you really wanted to.

ImpressionSoft@Work has an overview of the history of MS Word, from version 1.0 all the way up to Word 2007. Do you remember when Microsoft added real-time spell checking or the ability to draw to Word? What about the first version to include the annoying paper clip pop-up assistant?

If the trip down memory lane is making you nostalgic, don’t forget that you Microsoft made Word 5.5 for DOS available as a free download a while back. And the download link still works.

[via WinBeta]

As Google Docs slowly begins to take form as a legitimate office replacement, there are still a few glaring feature absences. One of those is the inability to add custom-formatted page numbers or dates to your documents.

If you don’t mind rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands a little dirty, Google Operating System tells us how to add page numbers and other information to your document’s header or footer. This involves a little HTML editing, so consider yourself warned.

Note: If you simply want page numbers added to your Google Doc, and you don’t need to customize them by adding color, size, or scheme, then you’re better off exporting the document as a PDF and selecting the bullet that adds page numbers to your document. In other words, the following method is useful only if you want more customization than Google Docs by default provides.

In order to add a header that displays, for example, “Page (current page number) of (total number of pages)”, open your Google Doc, click on “Edit HTML” (right next to the Revisions tab), and add this code at the very beginning of the code:

<div style=”text-align: right;” class=”google_header”>Page <span class=”google_pagenumber”>1</span> of <span class=”google_pagecount”>1</span></div>

To add the same information to the footer, add this code to the bottom of the document:

<div style=”text-align: right;” class=”google_footer” id=”google_footer”>Page <span class=”google_pagenumber”>1</span> of <span class=”google_pagecount”>1</span></div>

Now that the code is in, you can customize it any way you desire.

If you are an Office 2003 user who has recently installed Service Pack 3 who has found it necessary to open up file formats from the pre-Office ‘97 era, you may have noticed that Office now blocks access to these file formats. According to Microsoft, older Word, Excel, Lotus 1-2-3/Quattro and Corel Draw files are affected, because “…By default, these file formats are blocked because they are less secure. They may pose a risk to you.” This isn’t pure FUD, as Larry Seltzer points out, file parsing is an easy way for miscreants to attack computers using malformed data files. So rather than patch the holes for these, let’s face it, ancient file formats, Microsoft has decided to just disable default access. Yeah, it’s lazy - but we kind of don’t blame them (even in the corporate or academic environment, when was the last time you access a document created in one of these formats?).

For users who really need to access that old data, Microsoft’s Support Site has posted instructions on how to modify the registry so that your program(s) can access the old files. This can be done manually or by running a pre-configured registry script.

Conversely, OpenOffice can be used to open the old file types. In any event, we highly recommend converting your old files to a new format anyway — it really is more secure (and will help guarantee compatibility with future Office suites by Microsoft or someone else).

Microsoft finally released an updated version of Office Mobile with support for Office 2007 documents yesterday. That means Windows Mobile 5.0/6 users can finally open and edit DOCX, PPTX, and XLSX files. Office Mobile 6.1 is a free upgrade for some users, but others will have to fork out some cash if they want the latest and greatest. This is the first time Microsoft has sold a version of Office Mobile directly to consumers.

Up until now it was unclear how much Microsoft would be charging. But now that you can pick up a copy of Office Mobile 6.1 at Handango, we finally know the price: $50. And we’re a bit ambivalent. On the one hand, this is a bargain basement price compared to Office 2007 for the desktop. On the other hand, nobody would ever mistakes Office Mobile for Office 2007. It’s a stripped down version of the application meant for working on the go.

So how do you know if you need to pay for Office Mobile 6.1 or if it’s a free upgrade?

• If you have a version of Windows Mobile 6 that includes Office Mobile, you can upgrade for free.
• If you have a version of Windows Mobile 6 that did not ship with Office Mobile, say goodbye to $50.
• If you have a version of Windows Mobile 5.0 that came with Office Mobile, you may be able to upgrade for free, but some users with older devices have reported that they are unable to install the upgrade.
• If you have a version of Windows Mobile 5.0 that does not include Office Mobile, you’re out of luck.
• If you’re using Windows Mobile 2003SE or earlier, Microsoft would prefer to think you don’t exist recommend upgrading to a newer unit.

[via Jason Langridge]

While you’re busy waiting for Google to add a Power Point clone to its Docs & Spreadsheets suite, Google went and added support for charts to its online spreadsheet application.

The chart function is easy to use. Just highlight the cells you want to analyze and click the little pie-chart button in the toolbar. You can make charts with columns, bars, lines, pie, or scatter methods. You can also export the chart as a PNG image.

The feature works well with Firefox and Internet Explorer, but Opera is not officially supported so Opera users may experience some quirks.

[via Google Operating System]

Hewlett Packard has made the puzzling decision to stop bundling Microsoft Outlook with its Ipaq line of Windows Mobile devices starting in April. Customers are instead told that they can purchase Outlook through Microsoft’s website.

But here’s the thing. A PDA or smartphone is of limited use if you can’t synchronize it with your desktop. Try transferring hundreds or thousands of contacts from your old device to your new one without Outlook.

Sure, you could use BirdieSync or Finch Sync to synchronize your PDA with Thunderbird. But after dropping $300 to $600 on a new device from HP, it’s a bit baffling that the company would tell you to cough up some more money to make it useful. We can only hope that this doesn’t become a trend among PDA manufacturers.

[via Pocket PC Thoughts]

Well, it seems HP’s order fulfillment for enterprise Linux desktop systems is so massive, (multi-thousand units) they are considering offering factory loaded Linux on PC’s. The numbers may represent a trend that market demand and mainstream acceptance of Linux is here.

We previously reported evidence of this when the number one consumer comment on Dell’s Idea Storm website was having Linux pre-installed on Dell PC’s. Dell launched Idea Storm to get consumer feedback to help get its sales back on course.

Clearly, HP is attuned to the market demand for open source and attributes $25 million in hardware sales for its support of the Debian distribution in its Europe, Middle East and African market, (see HP: Debian Cha Ching!). It’s never been a question of when brand name PC’s come pre-loaded with Linux, but more a question of who will be the first to lead the way.

So it’s clear there is consumer demand and profits to be realized in leveraging the free software community. To help move things along, the Free Software Foundation is working to get hardware vendors to take advantage of ripening conditions by making their products work optimally with free software and that their drivers are easy to operate and maintain. In a recent white paper, they make a case for hardware manufacturers to do the following:

• provide free software drivers
• remove proprietary BIOS locks
• ship hardware with free BIOS and provide free BIOS support
• end the “Microsoft Tax”
• discard Digital Restrictions Management

In return, the FSF claims vendors will realize increased sales, and the free software community will have hardware that meets its ethical requirements. To this end, FSF has pledged their assistance in helping vendors make the changes outlined in the paper.

Could these developments be the sign the Linux tipping point is near? No one can say for sure, but things are looking positive.

In addition to the sweeping changes in Dell’s upper management ranks to help right its slide in sales, Dell is reaching out to consumers for input on products and services at a website called Idea Storm.

So far, the suggestion getting the most votes is the one that offers one of the 3 top free Linux versions pre-installed on all Dell PCs.

The second vote getter is having Open Office, an open source alternative to Microsoft Office pre-installed on your machine. My favorite idea on the list, though, was saying no to foreign tech support! What do our readers think of the people’s choice so far?