OpenOffice.org Newsletter

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OPENOFFICE.ORG NEWSLETTER

Volume 05 - Issue 18 - 12/2008

Please send news clippings to:
dev@marketing.openoffice.org

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Contents
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1. Announcements
================
* OOoCon 2009 - Call for Location


2. Success Stories
==================
* A breakthrough in curriculum change for 201 m students and adoption of 
Open Source Technologies in schools

3. Featured News
================
* AustralianIT : OpenOffice skakes Microsoft
* InformationWeek: Review: Open-Source Office Suites Compared
* Datamation: The Future Facelift of OpenOffice.org
* tbusiness.ca: OpenOffice upgrade gives free office suite wealth of new 
features
* Macworld: Review: OpenOffice.org 3
* CRN : The 10 Coolest Open Source Products Of 2008

4. Tips & Tricks
================
* Mitch Frazier: Starting, Stopping, and Connecting to OpenOffice with 
Python
* LinuxPlanet: How to Zoom In and Enlarge Details In OOo Impress Slideshows
* Solveig Haugland: How to take a spreadsheet that has firstname, 
lastname, and initial all in the same column, and turn it into two columns

5. ODF News
===========
* Daily News & Analysis: Single standard unlikely for e-gov projects
* ARS TECHNICA: Microsoft releases three interoperability solutions
* Leif Lodahl: Sanders expert report is ready
* eWeek: Microsoft Details How it Will Support ODF
* Register: Microsoft spits out ODF plans for Office 2007 SP2
* CNET: Microsoft's file format perestroika
* PCWorld: Group: 2008 Progress Shows ODF Will Prevail


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Want to help OpenOffice.org? Find out hot to contribute or see our
To Do List!!

http://contributing.openoffice.org/index.html
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/To-Dos/index.html
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Announcements
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OOoCon 2009 - Call for Location
========================

The OpenOffice.org Community is now accepting proposals from Community 
teams for hosting its next annual international conference, OOoCon 2009. 
Hosting OOoCon is challenging, rewarding, exhilarating, exhausting ... 
and can provide a huge publicity boost for OpenOffice.org in your 
country. There is no fixed date for OOoCon, although past conferences 
have been held in the autumn.

http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2009/cfl/cfl.html



Success Stories
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A breakthrough in curriculum change for 201 m students and adoption of 
Open Source Technologies in schools
=================================================================
... in Indonesia. Ministry of Research (RISTEK) has adopted MySQL and 
OpenOffice as the recommended open source software for database and for 
document processing.



Featured News
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AustralianIT : OpenOffice skakes Microsoft
=========================================

OpenOffice is an open-source software outfit responsible for a bundle of 
productivity software that competes with the Seattle company's great 
cash cow, Microsoft Office. It does almost everything MS Office does 
but, unlike the Microsoft product, it's free.

http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,2473438...


InformationWeek: Review: Open-Source Office Suites Compared
===============================================

Bit by bit, the Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) monopoly on office productivity 
applications is receding -- and one of the most important ways this is 
happening is through the proliferation of open source productivity 
suites. The most obvious example is OpenOffice.org, now in a landmark 
third release...

http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/enterpriseap...


Datamation: The Future Facelift of OpenOffice.org
=====================================

"The mission statement: Create a User Interface so that OpenOffice.org 
becomes the users' choice not only out of need, but also out of desire." 
With these words, the Renaissance project was launched last week with 
the goal of giving the popular free office suite a face lift.

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3790086...


tbusiness.ca: OpenOffice upgrade gives free office suite wealth of new 
features
========================================================

OpenOffice.org is a powerful productivity suite--including tools for 
word processing, spreadsheets, slideshows and more--with one major 
additional feature: it's free.

http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=51212


Macworld: Review: OpenOffice.org 3
===========================

OpenOffice.org is a powerful productivity suite-including tools for word 
processing, spreadsheets, slideshows and more-with one major additional 
feature: it's free.

http://www.macworld.com/article/137436/openofc3.html


CRN : The 10 Coolest Open Source Products Of 2008
=======================================

The popular -- and free -- open source productivity suite hit its 
milestone 3.0 version in 2008, making it more clear than ever that its 
functionality and compatibility with Microsoft Office (including 
OpenOffice Impress, which is PowerPoint compatible) make it a force to 
be reckoned

http://www.crn.com/it-channel/212501022;jsessionid=UWILDQ...


Tips & Tricks
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Mitch Frazier: Starting, Stopping, and Connecting to OpenOffice with Python
=====================================================================

Using pyuno you can script OpenOffice with Python. Pyuno allows you to 
create macros inside OpenOffice and it also allows you to create 
external Python scripts that talk to a running copy of OpenOffice.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/starting-stopping-and...


LinuxPlanet: How to Zoom In and Enlarge Details In OOo Impress Slideshows
========================================================

Everybody knows that you can liven up your OpenOffice.org Impress slide 
shows with animations. Did you know that you can also use several 
animation ...

http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://www.linuxplan...


Solveig Haugland: How to take a spreadsheet that has firstname, 
lastname, and initial all in the same column, and turn it into two columns
===============================================================================

You might not do it today or tomorrow, but you'll do it someday. You'll 
need to paste some content from a Web page, or a Word document, or 
something else that's got some goofiness embedded in it, into your 
Writer document.

http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2008/12/how-to-tak...


ODF News
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Daily News & Analysis: Single standard unlikely for e-gov projects
================================================
The government may favour multiple standards for e-governance projects 
from the earlier stand of supporting single standard for such projects, 
but the deliberations inside the information technology department are 
still on with final judgment months away.

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1210790


ARS TECHNICA: Microsoft releases three interoperability solutions
================================================
Today, the software giant is boasting about three interoperability 
solutions that have come to fruition thanks to the DII:

http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2008/12/03/...


Leif Lodahl: Sanders expert report is ready
==============================

Helge Sander, Danish Minister of Science and Technology earlier this 
year asked an expert committee to look into the technical and legal 
implications of the introduction of two standards for documents in the 
government.

http://lodahl.blogspot.com/


eWeek: Microsoft Details How it Will Support ODF
=====================================

Microsoft announced its plans to support ODF earlier this year and this 
documentation represents the first concrete step the software giant is 
taking to ...

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/Microsof...


Register: Microsoft spits out ODF plans for Office 2007 SP2
===========================================

And that's why it's decided to publish documentation that details its 
implementation of OASIS Open Document Format (ODF) version 1.1 support 
in MS Office ...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/16/microsoft_office_...


CNET: Microsoft's file format perestroika
==============================

Rightly or not, the perception was that Microsoft Office did not treat 
ODF as first class citizen. "That kind of feedback is why we built ODF 
support into ...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10123793-75.html


PCWorld: Group: 2008 Progress Shows ODF Will Prevail
======================================================================================

It was a good year for Open Document Format (ODF), which gained support 
from governments across the world in 2008 as its backers continued to 
promote it as an international standard for XML-based document exchange, 
according to the ODF Alliance.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/155999/group_2008_progress...




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