Leading Open Source office productivity solution introduces major new user experience and improvements
23 July 2013 --Forest Hill, MD-- The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), the all-volunteer developers, stewards, and incubators of nearly 150 Open Source projects and initiatives, today announced the immediate availability of Apache OpenOfficeTM 4.0
Apache OpenOffice is the leading Open Source office document productivity suite, providing six productivity applications: Writer, Calc, Impress, Base, Draw and Formula, with native support for OASIS Open Document Format 1.2 (ODF). OpenOffice supports multiple platforms, including Linux, OS X® and Microsoft Windows®, with additional 3rd party ports to other operating systems. Apache OpenOffice is translated by community volunteers into dozens of languages, including major market languages as well as regional and minority languages that are often ignored by commercial vendors.

More than 58 million copies of Apache OpenOffice v3.4 have been downloaded since its release in May 2012. Apache OpenOffice 4.0 is available for download at: http://www.openoffice.org. 
OpenOffice 4.0 features a new, more modern user interface, improvements to Microsoft Office interoperability, enhanced graphics support and many other improvements, which are detailed in the Release Notes: http://s.apache.org/fw
"With Apache OpenOffice  we are making major improvements to our user experience by introducing the Sidebar, the first radical improvement to the OpenOffice user interface in years," said Andrea Pescetti, Vice President, Apache OpenOffice. "Together with major new improvements in Microsoft Office interoperability, enhancements in graphics and color palette management as well as improvements in Calc, Chart and Draw editor modules, Apache OpenOffice 4.0 adds up to a compelling new release. With a rigorous quality assurance testing process, we wholeheartedly recommend our user community begin to upgrade.  Innovation happens at Apache and is immediately available to everybody who wishes to build upon the OpenOffice source code."
"IBM is proud to see its source code contribution of IBM® Lotus® Symphony™ coming to fruition with the release of Apache OpenOffice 4.0," said Kevin Cavanaugh, Vice President, IBM Collaboration Solutions. "The time is right for wide-scale enterprise adoption, especially with the upcoming end-of-support for Microsoft Office 2003. By choosing Apache OpenOffice, enterprises will free up resources for their cloud and mobile infrastructure investments."
Under the Hood
The new Sidebar makes better use of today's widescreen displays. Users may easily edit their document properties in-context, with the most-frequently needed controls available in panels in the Sidebar.  Panels may be expanded or collapsed as needed.  Twenty-two panels were implemented, offering users a major productivity improvement.
A new framework was implemented allowing application developers to build extensions to the Sidebar.  With this new framework Apache OpenOffice 4.0 offers a robust extensibility mechanism, enabling applications that integrate business application data,  seamlessly integrate with cloud and mobile document editing environments, and automate common document workflow tasks. 
Apache OpenOffice Extensions may be downloaded from the new version of the Apache OpenOffice Extension Repository, maintained by SourceForge: http://extensions.openoffice.org
"We at SourceForge are proud to actively support the Apache OpenOffice community", said Alice Hill, President, Slashdot Media. "The new versions of OpenOffice extensions and templates websites provide an enhanced user experience complete with notifications for new versions. We think the Apache OpenOffice community will be thrilled with these upgrades."
Apache OpenOffice provides new Office Open XML (OOXML) support, including support for docx outline levels, support for table background color from table style in docx files, more bullet and numbering support in docx and support for font color in pptx files.
"Microsoft Office interoperability is a very high priority for the project," said Juergen Schmidt, Apache OpenOffice Release Manager. "We are working hard to ensure that our users can successfully exchange documents and document content with colleagues who continue to use Microsoft Office. Moving forward we plan to continue our focus on OOXML document interoperability."
Apache OpenOffice an all volunteer led project. All are welcome to make contributions to any aspect of the project. To get involved visit: http://openoffice.apache.org/get-involved.html
Availability and Oversight
As with all Apache products, Apache OpenOffice software is released under the Apache License v2.0, and is overseen by a self-selected team of active contributors to the project. A Project Management Committee (PMC) guides the Project's day-to-day operations, including community development and product releases. Apache OpenOffice release notes, source code, documentation, and related resources are available at http://openoffice.apache.org/.  Follow Apache OpenOffice @ApacheOO on Twitter.
About The Apache Software Foundation (ASF)
Established in 1999, the all-volunteer Foundation oversees nearly one hundred fifty leading Open Source projects, including Apache HTTP Server --the world's most popular Web server software. Through the ASF's meritocratic process known as "The Apache Way," more than 400 individual Members and 3,500 Committers successfully collaborate to develop freely available enterprise-grade software, benefiting millions of users worldwide: thousands of software solutions are distributed under the Apache License; and the community actively participates in ASF mailing lists, mentoring initiatives, and ApacheCon, the Foundation's official user conference, trainings, and expo. The ASF is a US 501(3)(c) not-for-profit charity, funded by individual donations and corporate sponsors including AMD, Basis Technology, Citrix, Cloudera, Facebook, Go Daddy, Google, HP, Hortonworks, Huawei, IBM, InMotion Hosting, Matt Mullenweg, Microsoft, PSW Group, VMware, WANdisco, and Yahoo!. For more information, visit http://www.apache.org/ or follow @TheASF on Twitter.
"Apache", "Apache OpenOffice", "OpenOffice", and "ApacheCon" are registered trademarks or trademarks of the Apache Software Foundation in the United States and/or other countries. All other brands and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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