Migrating to OpenOffice
(without losing your head)


Dan Kegel
4 March 2004
Presented at http://la.uuasc.org/
Archived at http://kegel.com/openoffice







OpenOffice is a free office suite

* Roughly like Microsoft Office '97 
* has nifty features like Export As PDF
* source code is also free








Migration to OpenOffice is Economically Inevitable

* It's CHEAP
* It WORKS
* It uses OPEN, LICENSE-FREE, PATENT-FREE DATA FORMATS
* Anyone can improve it (e.g. translate, test, or fix)
* It Runs Everywhere (Windows, Linux, Solaris, MacOSX)








It's CHEAP

* Moore's Law means:
  * MS Office now costs twice as much as a computer
  * Computers are fast enough that even slow software is ok







Anyone can improve it

* Users are actually translating it into
  10 or so languages
* Users like me have helped triage 5000 bug reports
* Users are building OpenOffice from source for 
  minor distributions of Linux
* A few brave souls are actually wading into the code






OpenOffice 1.1 Not Perfect

* Loads slower than MS Office '97
* Can't load all MS Office documents properly
* Not very intuitive for people switching from MS Office
* Stability problems
* Awkward installation








OpenOffice 1.1.1 Better

* Many stability, performance, compatibility, usability fixes
* but many more left to fix
* see ooo111.html and release_notes_1.1.1rc.html








OpenOffice 2.0 Better Still

* All the "hard" fixes
* Explicit plan for achieving world domination
* see q.html and q-concept.html









So What's the Plan?

* Pick a set of "must support" documents
* Install OpenOffice 1.1.1, verify those documents work
* Create intranet web page with local FAQ and links to help sites
* Have volunteers switch to OOo 1.1.1
* As they run into problems, note them in the local FAQ with workarounds
* Monitor OOo 2.0 snapshots for fixes to problems
* Vote for the problems you run into
* If you have problems not noted in OOo 2.0 plan or
  bug tracking system, submit them as new bugs
* When working well, roll out to larger group of users, repeat









Examples of Votes

* bugs-with-votes.html
* enhancements-with-votes.html
* features-with-votes.html










Books

* OOoSwitch: 501 Things You Wanted to Know About Switching to Open Office.org, by Tamar Granor, Hentenwerke Publishing
* StarOffice 6.0 Suite Companion, by Solveig Haugland and Floyd Jones,  Prentice Hall
* Taming Openoffice.Org 1.1 Writer, by Jean Hollis Weber
* OpenOffice.org for Dummies







Online Tutorials

* suned.sun.com
* www.digitaldistribution.com

Online Help

* Outline of Existing OpenOffice.org User Resources
* Taming-Openoffice-Org.com
* getOpenOffice.org
* etc.






How to Help QA OpenOffice

* http://kegel.com/openoffice/






Example Bugs Fixed in OOo 1.1
* bug12936 Word processor crashes when opening file (V)
* bug14053 pre-1.1 Import/Export crash bugs with test cases and stack dumps (V)


Example Bugs Fixed in OOo 1.1.1

* bug6044 General GUI performance very slow, especially on remote X server
* bug17727 ~EntryList_Impl() trashing heap? (V)
* bug21113 ms word doc file causes openoffice to hang

Example Bugs Fixed in Latest OpenOffice 2.0 Snapshot

* bug13857 text box in wrong location when importing .doc or .rtf file from Word
* bug17567 WW8: Negative vertical graphic positioning
* bug20184 Fix problems detected with valgrind (V)
                (See also valgrindingOOo.html)
* bug25268 memory overwrite in _InitCore() (V)

Example Bugs Not Yet Fixed

* bug4999 Envelope Printing via insert Envelope
* bug12701 Race cond with WM when opening new window
* bug18466 User can't figure out how to add fonts with spadmin




Examples of progress in OpenOffice 2.0 snapshots
See 2.0 trunk releases page.

* m34, Apr '04
* m32, Mar '04
* m30, Mar '04
* m28, Mar '04
* m26, Feb '04
* m24, Feb '04
* m22, Jan '04
* m20, Jan '04

(Scroll down to bottom of each to see
what problems were reported against earlier
snapshots, too)