OpenOffice.Org, the creaters and maintainers of the open-sourced OpenOffice, have just released version 1.1.5 of their office software suite. The update addresses a security problem concerning a buffer overflow; there are other issues that are repaired since version 1.1.4, such as porting updates (OpenOffice was developed for Linux first, and from there ported to other OS's), document translation issues, new currency formats, and some compiling problems.

The other neat thing about OO 1.1.5 is that the software will now read in the new OpenDocument format introduced with OpenOffice 2.0 beta. Presently in Beta2, OO 2.0 greatly enhances the suite by providing more translation tools, new symbol shapes, new PDF export options (very cool!), a Mail Merge wizard, and integration enhancements to iron out "look and feel" issues with the parent OS. Under Windows, OO 2.0 looks like a Windows application; Linux users will experience a Linux feel to the program.

I am glad that OO 1.1.5 will read in OO 2.0 files, because in my home, I have seen some problems having both of the programs in my environment. My Fedora Core 4 desktop computer has OO 2.0 installed, whereas the Fedora Core 3 laptop has OO 1.1.4 installed. I had a bit of a document conversion issue... now with 1.1.5, I can use the same file formats on both machines.

OpenOffice 1.1.5 is available for the Windows and Linux platforms. On Macintosh OS X, the software is still held in beta status "release canidate", and from my scan tonight, the packages have not been updated recently to reflect the new version. Mac OS X users are stable with version 1.1.2 of the software, or running NeoOffice/J's 1.1 version, which is based on OpenOffice 1.1.4.

I use OpenOffice on Windows, on Macintosh OS X, and on Linux. The suite works very well for me, and I hope others continue to migrate over this excellent software package.

Christian