OpenOffice.org 1.1 RC Features

2003-05-22

Enhanced file format support

• PDF (Portable Document Format) export
• Support for mailing a document as PDF.
• DocBook/XML import/export.
• XHTML export.
• Support for exporting as a flat XML file.
• Support for Macromedia Flash (SWF) export.
• Support for mobile device formats like AportisDoc (Palm), Pocket Word and Pocket Excel.
• Example xslt based filter for Office 2003 XML documents

Accessibility

• Support for full keyboard navigation and control
• Support for tracking system colour scheme and theme settings
• Support for accessibility in the help system and documents
• Initial support for Assistive Technologies via Java accessibility APIs

Internationalization

CTL, vertical and bidirectional writing

• Support for vertical writing within text documents, text frames and graphic objects
• Support for vertical writing in spreadsheet cells (the direction is individualy selectable)
• Support for input, display and editing of scripts using Complex Text Layout (CTL)
• Support for RTL layout and text in the OpenOffice.org GUI
• Support for BiDi-writing in OpenOffice.org documents
• Support for using either Arabic or Hindi numerals
• The RTL vs. LTR default text direction is automaticly selected based on locale

Other Internationalization enhancements

• Support for various 8-bit Arabic and Hebrew text encodings / code pages.
• Support for the KOI8_U encoding.
• New CTL options tab in language options dialog.
• Rescue mode support for BiDi/CTL with X11 fonts.
• Sequence Input Checking (SIC) for languages like Thai and Hindi.
• Initial glyph fallback support.

MS Office compatibility enhancements

All components

• More accurate import and export of graphics objects
• Import and export of CJK and CTL documents
• Enhancements to overall stability and accuracy of conversion

Word

• Forms conversion within Word documents
• Improved import of text document layout

Excel

• Support for Data Validation
• Import/export of graphical details of charts

PowerPoint

• Even better one-to-one layout of text frames
• Improvements to import of WordArt objects

Writer

• Enhanced footnote support.
• Improved hyperlink support for TOCs.
• Improved keyboard handling in toolboxes.
• Plain text files are now imported using a non-proportional font.
• Configurable font for HTML and BASIC source code.
• Support for drawing objects in headers and footers

Draw/Impress

• Alternative language support for spell check on text drawing object.
• New command line option -start to start the presentation automatically after the document is loaded.

Spreadsheet:

• Import and export of areas in charts in Excel files that are formatted with bitmaps, textures or hatchings.
• The sum button inserts a sum function or a subtotal function, depending on context.
• Support for Excel 95 (and older) form controls

Database:

• Table control via keyboard navigation in table designer.
• Added ability to switch off brackets for bibliography fields.
• New database type in data source administration dialog - MySQL.
• Ability to add labels to field names in the report wizard.
• A data source can now use any character set known to OpenOffice.org.
• UI support for user installed database drivers.
• Database Report Wizard

Writing Aids

• Autodetection of newly installed languages for spellchecker, thesaurus and hyphenator.
• Integrated support for spell checking English (US and UK) and Italian
• Integrated support for hypethnation of Danish, English (UK and US), German and Russian
• Initial support for spell checking Hindi
• Spell checking uses n-gram scoring for suggestions

Programing and Automation

• Macro Recorder
• Crash reporter for collecting crash dump and error information
• Integrated Python-UNO bridge allowing creation of UNO components in Python
• A new java to native UNO bridge with up to 10 times better performance.
• Detection of a misconfigured Java installation.
• OpenOffice.org ActiveX Control (Windows only).
• Additional property pages for OpenOffice.org file types in Windows Explorer.

Other Enhancements

• The splash screen now has a progress bar.
• Improved online help content.
• Improved configurability of dialogs and toolbars.
• Improved URL autocompletion in hyperlink dialog.
• The context menu now contains 'Open Hyperlink' if opened on a URL.
• Locking of user installations against accesses from multiple machines with shared directories.
• Command line tools and an API for importing configuration data into the backend.
• Document windows are now always created in a cascade to avoid new window completely overlapping the old one.
• Support for registering add-ons and accessing add-ons via an auto-generated menu.
• New FTP file access component.
• The registration dialog will now display instead of addressbook data source selection on first run.
• Support for recovering slightly damaged OpenOffice.org files.
• New ppd file for generic postscript printing with type42 font support.
• Support for copy/paste of bitmap graphics on Unix.