Launch of Friendship 7

Apache OpenOffice™ 3.4.1 launches, with more languages, improved performance and stability.

(This announcement is also available in Italian, French, Simplified and Traditional Chinese.)

The Apache OpenOffice project is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Apache OpenOffice 3.4.1, the latest release of the free and open community-developed productivity suite.  This maintenance release builds upon the success of Apache OpenOffice 3.4.0, which has been downloaded over 12 million times by users in 228 countries, and adds further language support, platform compatibility, performance enhancements and bug fixes.  OpenOffice 3.4.1 can be downloaded now from http://www.openoffice.org/download/ or by going to the the Help/Check for Updates dialog within OpenOffice 3.4 or 3.3.

Apache OpenOffice (formerly OpenOffice.org) is undergoing incubation at Apache.

Complete details for the contents of the 3.4.1 release can be found in the release notes.  Highlights include:

  • New support for Khmer, Finnish, British English, Slovenian and Slovak languages.   The Dutch, Spanish, Italian and Hungarian translations have also been improved.  Along with US English, German, Japanese, Czech, French, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Gallician and Arabic, this brings the number of languages supported to 20.
  • Support for Microsoft Windows XP up to Windows 8 (32-bit), Linux 32-bit and 64-bit, and Apple Mac OS, including Mountain Lion.  New to this release are compatibility fixes for improved operation in Microsoft Windows 8.
  • Enhancements in performance, interoperability and security
  • Fixes for 69 bugs reported by users.
  • Community members are also working on BSD, Solaris and OS/2 ports.  More information can be found on our OpenOffice Porting Project page

Apache OpenOffice users also have access to broad ecosystem of 3rd party enhancements. The newly renovated Extensions and Templates websites, re-engineered and hosted by SourceForge,
currently feature 2388 templates and 628 extensions.

    Future Releases and Invitation to Submit Ideas

    In parallel with work on the Apache OpenOffice 3.4.1 maintenance release, project members have also been working on changes for the 3.5 release.  Areas of focus for 3.5 include: improved MS Office interoperability, performance, stability, usability and support of additional languages.  We are targeting the first quarter of 2013 for Apache OpenOffice 3.5.0.

    A major update, Apache OpenOffice 4.0, will follow, including additional features and improvements merged in from the the IBM Lotus Symphony code recently contributed to Apache.  There is also opportunity in this release to think "outside of the box" and bring additional innovation.

    As a project we are starting to brainstorm about what could be possible in Apache OpenOffice 4.0.  We invite OpenOffice users, community members and other interested parties to join us in this process, to help make version 4.0 the kind of radical success that version 1.0 was over a decade ago.  We're using Google Moderator to collect and rate ideas.   Please join us and share your ideas.

    Volunteers

    Apache OpenOffice is a community-run open source project.  The Apache OpenOffice project welcomes new volunteers in all project-related disciplines, including coding, QA, UI design, translation/localization, documentation, web design, and marketing.  If you are interested in volunteering, you can send an email to our public mailing list, at ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org.   Introduce yourself and tell us what you would be interested in doing. 

    For more information

    More information on the Apache OpenOffice product can be found at our website, www.openoffice.org.

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