What needs to be fixed in OpenOffice?

[phrostbyte]

What do you think could be fixed in OpenOffice?

Personally I think it could use a speed boost.

[Depressed Man]

I'd say (from my personal use) a grammar checker. It comes in handy sometimes. Granted they aren't 100% accurate to begin with (I usually can do better by getting a friend to peer review it for me). It sucks to use the word word or grammar and not realize it (English isn't my first language) thus getting marked down for it.

A speed boost could come in handy (though you can cut down its loading time alot by disabling the java).

[Sporkman]

Sometimes formats get screwed up when reading in fancy MS Word documents.

[bread eyes]

OpenOffice already is extensible.

[seshomaru samma]

I would go for "all of the above"

[Kingsley]

I wonder why there's no grammar check in the word processor yet. The spreadsheet could also do with some improvement also. There's currently no way to make a scatter plot graph with a best-fit line going through it.

[wh0rd]

I started using Abiword because of the load time. I don't use the whole office suite, so it's a really good substition.

[BarfBag]

I voted for Reduce Memory Usage. I have 1.5 GB of RAM, so it isn't much of an issue anymore. However, a couple of months ago when I was stuck with 512 MB, I couldn't do anything else. That's ridiculous since technically, you're just typing a document.

One minor thing that really annoys me is that useless scroll bar at the bottom. I despise side scrolling, and that bar is nothing but bloat!

[Dimitriid]

Just a minor annoyance but I hate when the spelling check detects a word in error and only wants me to separate a correctly spelled word as two separate non words. I don't know what causes this but I hate it and haven't found a way to turn that off other than killing all spelling checks ( which I need english being my second language )

[some_random_noob]

Improve loading speed and reduce memory usage. It also needs the spellcheckers to work properly and automatically install. The spellcheckers have only got worse (on Kubuntu 7.04 at least).

In Dapper, the dictionaries didn't install automatically, but I was able to use the "add new dictionary" wizard to install them. But now in Feisty the "add new dictionary" wizard just crashes!

[dizee]

Improve loading speed
Reduce memory usage
Redesign user interface
Add grammar check
Wiki integration.
All of them really. The biggest thing for me though would be the general bloat of the application, that is its poor load times and general memory-hungriness. Also the fact that MS format documents you save with it sometimes don't render correctly in MS programs (not entirely the fault of OO devs, but still).

Also its integration with gnome is quite poor, with a dark theme the menu is almost unusable.

[starcraft.man]

Mostly I want them to add missing features (notably in Calc compared to Excel, as many people who complain about OOo have noticed).

[FuturePilot]

Add a grammar check. Everything else is fine here. Loading speed isn't an issue. I don't think you can get any faster than 2 seconds.
Yeah, Calc needs more features. It's lacking compared to Excel.

[bread eyes]

I don't think you can get any faster than 2 seconds.

That made me giggle.

[Spr0k3t]

Better scripting and macro support through the use of Python or Ruby. Also, better XL conversion. I don't use MSOffice anymore, but sometimes I have spreadsheets that just refuse to work in Calc thanks to their horrible VB macros.

[a12ctic]

I love OO but recently ice been using abiword and gnumeric simply becuase the load times, responsive-ness, gtk intergration, and memory usage is a thousand times better.

[misfitpierce]

Really I dont think anything is wrong with it. I love it in fact but I guess grammar correction may be a useful tool for some and should be added. Not sure :)

[jrusso2]

I voted to add a grammar check thats clearly something that has needed to be done for a long time. Loading speed should be improved.

Also a scheduler and calendar should be added, I think the recently abandoned Thunderbird with the Sunbird or lightning extension would fit the bill.

[aquavitae]

I think there's quite a lot that could be improved. Loading time first. I use it work as an act of rebellion (everyone else uses MS office), and it looks kinda silly, I'm sitting there telling everyone how great ooo is compared to office, and its taking half a minute to load! Grammar check too. I personally don't use it, but I know quite a few people who refuse to use ooo because there's no grammar check.

Calc could do with a bit of work - mostly little things, but irritations. E.g. have you tried clearing the contents of a cell? Press delete, then a box pops up, press enter to get rid of it. Or moving a column - right-click, cut, move to new location, right-click, insert, right-click paste. I know its not a big problem, but I like to save the key-presses!

Something else that irks me is the MS office way of doing things, as compared with the latex way. Any latex fans will know what I mean! True, styles make it a bit easier, but they're still nowhere near as powerful as the latex environments and they're quite complicated to set up properly. On the same note, why has nobody thought of using expandable spaces in ooo? So useful and powerful, but not possible in ooo. I think the basic problem here is that ooo is trying to be an MS office clone, instead of improving on the MS limitations and flaws. I'm not saying it should just become a latex frontend (I also have a few problems with latex!), but there are features that could be copied.

[steven8]

but I know quite a few people who refuse to use ooo because there's no grammar check.

No one actually wants to learn grammar. They just want grammar check. Amazing.

OO is fine.

[distroman]

Grammar for sure, better spelling check would not hurt either. If I have to do anything more serious then “I vote for” Ill use word or I would have to go around with a sign saying “Please excuse me I am not English” and that's just too much trouble me. Not that word is perfect but it beats OOo by fare.

OOo can load in 2 sec it's just really demanding.

[LookTJ]

All of the above imo... impress(spreadsheet?) should use serious improvements

[cutare]

Why isn't this a multiple choice poll, again?

[kostkon]

Support for OpenType (OTF) fonts??

[deanjm1963]

Support for OpenType (OTF) fonts??

You beat me to it... OpenType support is badly needed.

[super breadfish]

A speed increase would be good.

So would a few minor interface tweaks. There are several common things that are hidden away where you wouldn't expect them, like page size. Text boxes also behave a bit strangely which is irritating for me because I use them a lot.

[mangar]

The poll title is wrong, imho, and should actually be: what is the most visible problem with openoffice..
All of the poll options are in need of action, an as soon as possible.
The most immediately annoying part is the horrible performance of openoffice, but the rest of the items are not less pressing.

[Nevon]

One of the few reasons I still keep my Windows partition is because of MS Office 2007's superb text formatting options. I'd say openoffice is up to part with MS office 2004 and older, but Office 2007 is still way ahead. If the text formatting would be as good as MS office 2007's, then I'd definitely use openoffice more.

[ssam]

judging from the 2.3 betas in gutsy, it will be getting faster.

try installing preload. it uses free ram to cache files that you are likely to use for starting applications.

[adamklempner]

I had written my MS Thesis is OOo using Linspire. Recently I tried opening it up in Kubuntu and the document looked vastly different. Then I opened it in Windows and again it was different than either.

All 3 OS's have the SAME EXACT font set installed. The Thesis only uses Times New Roman and Arial fonts. Here are three screen shots showing what I mean. And these are just of the title (imagine this on almost every line of the document; also ignore the fact that the zoom was a little different between the screenies):

Linspire (click) (http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/883/linspire1croppedia7.png)

Kubuntu (click) (http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/5499/kubuntu2croppedgi6.png)

Windows (click) (http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/5236/windows2croppedbf1.png)

In Linspire my Thesis is 195 pages. When opened in Kubuntu it is 203, and Windows it is 205. You can imagine what this does to the document formatting.

It was originally written in 2.0.3, but even after upgrading all 3 OS's to OpenOffice 2.2 the result is still the same.

This problem effectively makes it impossible for me share/collaborate with ODT files with others who do not use my OS of choice. What's the point of a "standard" format if it displays differently to everyone??. It ultimately may not be OOo's fault, but it certainly needs to be addressed some how.

[tigerpants]

Replace the database app with a real database app. Or scrap it completely. Other than that, I think its cool. Works well for me.

[forrestcupp]

I know what adamklempner says, but I have noticed that if msttcorefonts is installed, it takes care of some of the formatting problems.

As for the grammar check thing, here (http://www.languagetool.org/) is a java-based plugin for OpenOffice that does some simple grammar checking. It isn't anywhere near as complete as Word's or Wordperfect's grammar checks, but maybe someone would find it useful.

[UbuWu]

Bibliographic functionality (http://bibliographic.openoffice.org/)

[Quillz]

A lot needs to be fixed, but the most important is a new user interface.

[j.carpenter]

Better printing support! I chose "other" in the survey because printing support wasn't listed. I am using Ubuntu 7.04, HP Laserjet 1320 and HP Deskjet 3320. I have trouble with page size in OpenOffice.org constantly defaulting to A4. I need letter. Also printing envelopes is really difficult to get the settings correct. I cannot add additional envelope sizes if they are not listed and when I do choose an envelope size, it does not override the printer settings and may print 180 degrees rotated, or portrait instead of landscape. In order for OpenOffice.org to be an easy replacement for other suites, envelope printing must be improved.

[TravMan63]

Coming from fighting to get Impress 'to work' - the fix for this has been to scrap OO, Linux - and go back to Office on XP/other MS OS.

Impress is slow - slow to load, slow for transistions, and had other issues with (PowerPoint files) compatibility and videos.

Had Office 2003 via wine - and it was much faster.

However - OO (native) and 2003 in wine - would not load/play videos (various formats wmv, mpg etc. Client used PowerPoint at home, (unwilling to switch to OO) .. Impress on location. Imbedded sounds (i.e. wavs) - would work in version 2.0 - but not 2.2 - without tweaking. Some slides had text problems (fonts not installed on Linux?)

I think Impress did play the videos on Linux (if Impress was used to create presentation locally) - however the machine (a 600mhz P(3?) 256 (Xubuntu) - would play very slowly/choppily. - Same machine works fine with XP and Powerpoint. Attempts at running videos via xine/other players and slides in Impress had mixed results. (Some wmv's wouldn't play correctly (some just stopped, other had audio/video sync problems. ) VLC plays these correctly (wmvs - in sync) - but was to 'choppy' on that machine. Video drivers? Codecs? Seems odd they would play ok in some players but not in Impress...

I use OO write 2.0 on XP box - it's fine. That and Corel Wordperfect work for our personal use.

[Mr. Picklesworth]

I'd say it needs a new user interface. Right now it is practically a clone of Microsoft Office's horrid interface of many years ago (before they made it decent), and that, I think, is a shame.
Particularly the Options menu. Just look at that thing, try to find something in there and try to explain the difference between Options and Customize. Oh, and check out the View options, which contain all sorts of technical details like "Use OpenGL", "Use dithering", "Use hardware acceleration", right beside options that actual humans do need. The Memory options, too: number of undo steps, graphics cache size (?!!), memory per object, number of objects to store in that cache (which seems quite redundant), the length of a TIMER to remove objects from memory, and below all that, an actually useful option that people should know about, to toggle the system tray quick-starter. Way too easy to screw things up by clicking the wrong button, and why is this stuff even exposed? This is the kind of thing every other program (even graphics-intensive games) has managed to keep unexposed for the sake of user-friendliness, because these are the kinds of things that should be determined automatically for a good user experience, and should Never have to be touched. If those options have to be touched, the program has failed anyway and should just quietly go away until it is fixed. Why should I have to be telling my word processor how to render graphics?! I don't even need to tell this kind of stuff to Compiz, and it has worked well everywhere I have put it.
Now, tell me that the user interface (or at least that very important chunk of it) does not need a full revision.
Hell, not even the help file can guide me through the options. Every time it tells me to go in there I am terrified, because I know it will take at least five minutes to find what I want even with its "help"!

Speaking of which, isn't anyone else bothered by how help files guide you through long lists of buttons to click instead of just doing the job for you? In OO, the quick Help assistant guy is clearly a more intuitive interface, but it forces you to use the horrible buttons interface anyway.
How about a search box in the UI that finds precisely the option or formatting thing you want to change? I know a lot of people that would like that, if it was done well. As it is, this interface is the weakest link and quite awful. I am still baffled by how word processors are the most complicated pieces of software people can use. Something has to be done here -- something radical.
How about separate, integrated tools for different stages in document creation? For example, the content tool, the publishing tool (extra formatting and printing), and the Editor tool (spell / grammar check). Integrated well, it could be really natural and it would keep a lot of gunk out of the interface by making it very task-oriented. It would also ensure that changes to content do not break formatting, which is something way too common with people and word processors.

A proper Gnome / GTK front-end would also be pretty nice, but of course, sadly, unlikely. I would be most pleased if they managed a clean UI and back-end separation so that the program could be efficiently made to look native in different platforms. It is really ugly that so much of the major software installed by default on Ubuntu (Firefox, OpenOffice) does not use the fantastic native ui toolkit, but instead clones the native look and makes a complete mess of the native feel with their own weird and ugly systems. This is the default software for an operating system; it should all be integrated! It really gives people a bad impression, and harms possibilities for accessibility, when it is not.

[ThinkBuntu]

How about moving the baseline Word document (.doc) file size to the standard 10-20KB???

OpenOffice saves every .doc file at a size of over 100KB. Which means that before emailing such a document as an attachment, I always have to open it in AbiWord first, delete and restore a single letter, and then save the document to shave off 100KB.

[bread eyes]

Why isn't this a multiple choice poll, again?

Technically it is but, I think they meant what needs to be fixed the most.

[sybille]

Bibliographic functionality (http://bibliographic.openoffice.org/)


I agree with that. I'm waiting for a working extension for Writer that will insert and manage citations directly from the Zotero (http://www.zotero.org) database.


A Zotero extension is being developed, it's just not really working yet.

[skwishybug]

I would have preferred a multiple choice poll:

- Improve the loading speed
- Add a grammar check
- Improve the table handling. I find it does not handle tables that break across pages very well. Especially if it has been imported.

[cb951303]

they MUST fix XUL dialogs. They look HORRIBLE in gnome...

[sanderella]

Automatic tools are really annoying. The easiest way to use OO is.....

Type everything you want to say into Text Editor, then cut and paste it into OO Wordprocessor, and then format it the way you want. I don't bother with spell checker or any stuff like that, but you can always switch these tools on if you want them.:popcorn:

I would like OO to speed up a bit. It's having all these extra tools and functions that slows it down.:(

[frrobert]

Base.

I would like to use Base as a front end to mysql for a desktop front end.

In the past I've written database applications that have a web based front end, a mysql back end, and also a MS Access front end for reports. I want to replace Access with Base so the system could run on multiple platforms.

But whenever I have tried to connect mysql with base it is just too unstable to be ready for prime time.

[@trophy]

The name. Adding ".ORG" to the end was REALLY counterproductive to marketing the thing.

[hardyn]

a reasonable crop tool...

i started that feature/bug report almost 2 years ago... 30+ votes, no traction.

[j2fraser]

Loading time is not great, but if you use quickstarter, it is fine, particularly on re-load from cache. Memory use could be better, but it can be minimized (to the extent possible) by tweaking OOo settings.

A pet peeve of mine, and I use OOo Writer (in Windows 2000 professional :( ) extensively -- every day at work -- is the file open dialogue. You can set it up to achieve certain views of directories (e.g. choose "details", sorted by "modified" date and then expand the dialogue to show you the appropriate directory information / fields), and then the next time you go to open a file, you have to do the whole enchilada all over again. REALLY frustrating.

[j.carpenter]

The name. Adding ".ORG" to the end was REALLY counterproductive to marketing the thing.

I believe that the ".org" was added due to legal reasons. Someone else has the use of the term "OpenOffice". I've tried to find a citation, but that's what I recall.

[sybille]

There's a new release of Zotero that works with an extension for OpenOffice.org Writer. I've only used tried out the OOo support in some test documents so far, but it seems to be working just fine.

Yay!!

[stig]

As a long-time Wordperefct user on Windows, I found OpenOffice on Ubuntu had lots of limitations. Gradually I've found workarounds to some of these, but I shouldn't have to make do with workarounds. The trouble is that OO has been developed to mimic Word - and who wants that! (Well, OK, some of you obviously do, but wouldn't it be better to have an office suite etc that does what you most want instead of what Word does?)

For any small business or office user the conversion of address files to labels is hopeless in OO exept for the very basic default.

The document statistics tool gives minimal information - Abiword beats it by a long way (e.g. it gives number of paragraphs).

OO is slowwwwww both in loading and in saving. Long documents or long spreadsheets take ages to save compared with the old WordPerfect I used on Windows.

OO seems designed simply to match the things that word does and fails to be a good office suite when in fact the potential is there. I would use Abiword all the time for word processing if it were not that I need a few extra features that Abiword lacks.

I wish someone would start developing OO as an office suite in its own right and forget about Word. Also, it would be better if many of the features were modular and could be left out - I could then probably reduce it by half!

Edit: And because it happened right now - "Paste Special" often does not work when copying text from other apps. I have to paste it into Gedit then copy from there to OO.

Edit2: Oh - another problem. The File Open dialog in OO is very basic. About all you can do is open a file! In WordPerfect the File Open dialog worked like a File Manager - you could copy, paste, move, delete files etc instead of having to open a separate file manager. These sort of basic features were available in WP from the mid-1990s so why can't they be in OO too?

[sybille]

Hi stig,
I doubt that one piece of software will ever satisfy every user's needs, especially when it comes to something like a word processor, since different people need such different features.

It might be possible to address some of your concerns with OOo. For example, have you tried any of the suggestions for label printing found on
Solveig Haugland's blog (http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/labels/index.html), which is a great resource for OOo? Also, it is possible to see the number of paragraphs in an odt document, as this screencast (http://plan-b-for-openoffice.org/writer/topic/calculate-text-document-statistics) shows - maybe this feature depends on the version of OOo you're running.

Anyway, while I'm happy with OOo - I use Writer the most, followed by Calc - I'm glad that there's a choice of apps such as OOo, the Gnome office apps like Abiword and Gnumeric, and KOffice. If I found that another app or group of apps fit my needs better, I'd certainly change.

[bash]

A proper Gnome / GTK front-end would also be pretty nice, but of course, sadly, unlikely. I would be most pleased if they managed a clean UI and back-end separation so that the program could be efficiently made to look native in different platforms. It is really ugly that so much of the major software installed by default on Ubuntu (Firefox, OpenOffice) does not use the fantastic native ui toolkit, but instead clones the native look and makes a complete mess of the native feel with their own weird and ugly systems. This is the default software for an operating system; it should all be integrated! It really gives people a bad impression, and harms possibilities for accessibility, when it is not.

Apperently they are working on seperating the UI from the rest of the suite. Its one of their Google SoC projects (Link (http://code.google.com/soc/2007/ooo/appinfo.html?csaid=8F8DBD16F8638C32)).

Also I agree that most of the options in the poll need definite attention. Especially the user interface. Why are half the options you regularly need hidden and the ones you never use waste space on the toolbars. Also I hate that when you for example click on an image half the window "shakes". Instead of just adding the image formatting toolbar and just keeping the page that the same position, OOo moves down the page. Which is quite annoig if you click and unclick images and everything moves around.

So Im curious do any alternative Office suites exist on Linux? I know about the KDE office suite and the GNOME office programs, but besides that? Anything like Wordperfect for Linux ...

[em007a]

No one actually wants to learn grammar. They just want grammar check. Amazing.

OO is fine.

I was thinking the same thing! :lolflag:

[sybille]

I was thinking the same thing! :lolflag:

I use a grammar checker when I write in my second language (Antidote RX, a French grammar checker, dictionary and thesaurus that works with OOo and Thunderbird on Linux). Since I write in that language almost every day, it's an important tool for me.

I don't think that this kind of tool substitutes for learning grammar, but it does help me with certain structural issues such as gender and conjugation - things that I know but still make some errors with since I learned my second language as an adult.

It's like another pair of eyes telling me where to look again at my text rather than a replacement for grammar knowledge.

[el mariachi]

I would say grammar correction and the interface..
Although the Office 2007 interface is somewhat based on early versions of OO I liked it, since it also gives a speed boost to the way you work.

[kurty_77]

The absolutely only thing keeping me using excel is it can automatically generate a trend line with multiple options, and it can then give the equation of the line.

I would think that to display the trend line Calc has to figure out an equation, why can't it just show it to me?

[sybille]

The absolutely only thing keeping me using excel is it can automatically generate a trend line with multiple options, and it can then give the equation of the line.

I would think that to display the trend line Calc has to figure out an equation, why can't it just show it to me?

Please vote for the bug here:
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=5289

I haven't voted for that one, but only because I don't encounter it. I have voted for other bugs that come up in my OOo usage. Anyway, voting is something that us users can do :)

[jonathonblake]

It was originally written in 2.0.3, but even after upgrading all 3 OS's to OpenOffice 2.2 the result is still the same.

a) Did you realize that you were not running the same build of the same version of OOo on those platforms? That can make for some significant differences.

b) The OOo for Ubuntu are broken. I haven't delved into the source to see why they are broken, but Ubuntu consistently delivers broken OOo builds.

xan

jonathon

[jonathonblake]

Grammar for sure, better spelling check would not hurt either.

a) Grammar checking is available as a user installed option. I'll grant that the current rule sets for the various grammar checkers (plural) for various languages (plural) is not very good. None the less, it is fairly easy for end users to add rules to all of the grammar checkers. Or to add new languages to them, if one so desires.

b) Hunspell is a vast improvement over Myspell. Not all dictionaries have migrated to Hunspell, yet.

xan

jonathon

[Depressed Man]

Really? Do I have to reinstall to get it (I've just updated it since installing it a while back)?

[jonathonblake]

In order of importance:
* Unicode 5.0 compliance for all 16 planes;
* Reverse Boustrophedon,writing system support;
* a11y writing system support (both input and output)

xan

jonathon

[JewelledDragon13]

For me:

-Not getting laggy when working with large documents. Word + AbiWord do this too; I've been looking forever for a word processor that can handle 300+ pages.

-Standardization of formatting across platforms (as already mentioned). Also preferably between it and Word.

-Correction of that font problem that suddenly changes everything to OpenSymbol or something equally annoying (this just happened to me).

[timpino]

Everything except wiki integration imo

[boomcat]

Allow search and replace of non-printing characters.
Allow search and replace of text formats and styles.

[jonathonblake]

Allow search and replace of non-printing characters.

That has been included since at least OOo 1.1.5.

Check the "regular expression" box on the search/replace screen to search for regular expressions.

( I don't remember which variant of regular expression OOo understands.)


Allow search and replace of text formats and styles.

The ability to search and replace paragraph styles has been available since at least OOo 1.1.5.

Check the "Styles" box in the search/replace screen then select the style to search for, and then the style to replace it with.

xan

jonathon

[Biochem]

The plotting functions in Calc is pretty useless. Error bars should be linked to cell. Otherwise how to re-use spreadsheet

[teasum]

I don't know if this was posted earlier in this forum, but I have two problems with OpenOffice in particular:

1) Selecting text is difficult. When clicking and dragging a paragraph from the top, for example, in order to select the entire paragraph I have to bring the cursor to the end of the paragraph text, not to the white space on the line after the end of the text. (I hope that's clear... it's annoying)

2) Most importantly, as I work in academia, I submit papers and grant applications, and I receive papers from students, often in .doc. format. However, the metrics of fonts and line spacing (or something) seem to be off in OpenOffice. Case in point: I had a ten-page proposal to submit to an online application site. Following the site's directions regarding margins, font size, spacing, etc., I composed my proposal under the 10-page limit. When I uploaded the .doc file, however, it was over the limit. I then had to feverishly cut the proposal down by about a paragraph in order to submit it, and, yes, I had to boot into my XP partition to complete it.

Those are my two problems! If these could be addressed somehow, I'd find OpenOffice much more usable. Thanks.

[RAV TUX]

Simple...


sudo apt-get remove openoffice.org


sudo apt-get install koffice

...all your OO.o problems are solved.