OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta FAQ - OpenOffice.org Ninja

OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta FAQ

Posted by Andrew Z at Friday, May 9, 2008 | Permalink

The real OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta is out and people are asking questions. Here are FAQ, a few other questions that should be FAQ, and errata.

This is a beta. What's the worse than can happen?

Minimally you should assume any document saved from a beta version will be totally lost, so you should backup your documents and not save anything from OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta that you are not willing to lose. As precedent, certain documents saved from OpenOffice.org 2.0 beta (three years ago) are hard to retrieve.

For more ideas of what can go wrong, see the list of issues discovered in OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta and issues planned to be fixed in OpenOffice.org 3.0.0. The issues planned to be fixed in 3.0.0 were found in different versions back to before version 1.0.0. Many of the issues planned to be fixed are already fixed in in the 3.0 development series.

If this risk is too great, use OpenOffice.org 2.4 until September when 3.0 is released as a final version.

The file associations are not registered. When I click on documents with extensions .odt, .doc, etc., OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta is not the application that opens.

The lack of file association registration is intentional. The beta is unstable and not intended for everyday use: it is intended for testing only.

Accepting that warning, you can register your own file associations. There are several ways. On Windows XP. Right click on the document. Choose Open With - Choose Program. Click Browse, and choose c:\program files\OOo-dev 3\program\simpress.exe.

On Windows, another way is to run the command setup.exe WRITE_REGISTRY=1

(thanks Joost Andrae).

In GNOME, right click the document and choose Open With Other Application. Then choose /opt/ooo-dev3/program/soffice.

How do I start OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta?

In Linux, run /opt/ooo-dev3/program/soffice .

On Windows, you can start OpenOffice.org 3 beta with the exception above regarding file associations.

Will the OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta installation coexist with my OpenOffice.org 2.x installation?

Yes, OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta will install in parallel so as not to touch OpenOffice.org 2.x installations. You can run both 2.x and 3.0 simultaneously.

OpenOffice.org 3.0 does (something wrong) when I do (something)

Gather information about the bug so that someone else can reproduce it. Next, query the Issue Tracker to see if it already has been reported. If not, report it to the Issue Tracker. Ask if you need help.

Do I have to install Java? I already have another version or I just don't want to install Java.

When downloading the beta for Windows, there is no option: you must download Java. OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta comes with Java Runtime 6 update 5. However, you don't have to install it. During the install, choose a custom install. Then, under Optional Components, uncheck the Java option.

Alternatively, see the comments for location to download OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta without Java.

What's new?

Here is what's new in OpenOffice.org 3.0

What should I test?

There many different things to test including whatever you normally do with OpenOffice.org, the new OpenOffice.org 3.0 features listed above, specifications marked for 3.0, issues listed in the Issue Tracker for 3.0, and the standard QA tests.

Which bugs have already been reported?

List of issues discovered in OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta

Why are my lists in Writer formatted incorrectly when saving in OpenOffice.org 3.0 and opening in OpenOffice.org 2.x?

A new feature makes list formatting incompatible from 3.0 to 2.4. See issue report 89210 for more information.

I cannot save documents on Windows Vista

OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta can't save documents on Windows Vista (issue #87244). The workaround is to click Tools - Options - OpenOffice.org - General. Select the OpenOffice.org dialogs.

Alternatively, upgrade to a newer DEV300 developer snapshot.

Other questions

Post your other questions in the comments below.

11 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi, is there any way to have OOo 3 beta translated ? Are there some French translations anywhere ? Has translation work began ?
Thanks !

Andrew Z said...

Yann Dìnendal: According to the 3.0 beta download page, "Localized builds and language packs can be downloaded from the extended mirrors from within the ../extended/3.0.0beta directory. " For French, look for a file name with _fr near the end.

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately PDFimport is not yet in the OOo3 beta. However, according to the features list it will be available soon.
But what about export and import PDF/ODT hybrid files? It was mentioned several times (on OOocon, on OOoNinja,a few words in the wiki), but the related Issue #65397 is still unconfirmed. Will it be in 3.0?

Thanks

Unknown said...

The lastest Java Runtime is U6 not U5...
http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp

And it was released a while ago, even before OOo 3 Beta was released.

I always like to install the JRE and OOo separately... but I think that the bundle is not so bad for many people.

Andrew Z said...

Anonymous: Issue 82450: Open into PDF embedded ODF (hybrid PDF) directly in OOo, save into hybrid PDF if the user saves document changes is targeted for 3.0 but unconfirmed. It is too late for 3.0, so it will slip to some other version. Good catch.

JorSol: Interesting. www.java.com still states "Recommended Version 6 Update 5" for Linux and Windows. Maybe bug 87600 applies.

Unknown said...

Yes Andrew Z,

There has always been the problem that in www.java.com is not up to date with the lastest version, maybe different webmasters and poor communication?

That is a really bad thing because java.com is more for "general users" and java.sun.com is more for "developers", that means that users believe that they have the lastest version.

But anyway this is for OOo comments...

I was hoping that OOo 3 do a makeover to the interface, but, at least in this beta, it looks a lot like a 2.x with new icons...
The change made from 1.x to 2 was more drastic.

Anonymous said...

You can download the Installation Sets without Java Runtime Environment from here:

http://download.openoffice.org/680/

It's an OOo-Dev 3.0 Developer Snapshot (build BEA300_m2) which is the same version as the public beta. Enjoy!

Anonymous said...

/opt/ooo-dev3/program/soffice

I'm using debian testing and i cant find an executable by that name in the given folder. Is this a testing problem? Has anybody had this problem on etch? When i run this command from konsole i get :
cavan@debian-mejias:~$ /opt/ooo-dev3/program/soffice
bash: /opt/ooo-dev3/program/soffice: No such file or directory
Any ideas?

Andrew Z said...

CavanD: Where did you install from? The vanilla OpenOffice.org can be located with this command

find /opt -name soffice

If you installed from Debian repositories, then try

find /usr | grep -i openoffice

Anonymous said...

Thank you Andrew Z. I'm now using Openoffice 3.0.1 and it installs menu entries in Kmenu. So everything works ok now. If I remember correctly I didnt install a debian-menu package back in October so perhaps that was the problem. I couldn't find a soffice executable under /opt back then, but...
Everything seems to be working ok now, thank you.
My only complaint the appearance of fonts, but that ain't necessarily OOo's fault.
Cheers

Andrew Z said...

CavanD: Yes, to get icons and file associations you need to install a desktop-integration package. The vanilla OOo edition ships with integrations for Debian (and Ubuntu), Red Hat (and Fedora), Mandrake, SUSE, and Generic (Freedesktop) if I remember correctly.

If you cannot find OpenOffice.org, try this command
find / | grep soffice$