OpenOffice.org is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite. It is a free office suite. A new version OpenOffice 2.3 is officially released today (September 17th, 2007) for Linux fans. OpenOffice 2.3 boasts of some improved features

The first release candidate (RC1) of OpenOffice 3.1 is available to download and includes several new features. The 3.1 update to the free open source office suite includes anti-aliasing to improve the clarity of graphics, such as lines and circles. Improvements have also been made to the comments system in documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

Version 3.1 of the open-source OpenOffice.org productivity suite provides plenty of feature and performance enhancements. The performance of the Calc spreadsheet program has been notably improved, as has rendering of on-screen objects in the Impress presentation app. The Write word processor offers new collaboration functionality.

OpenOffice is already a complete desktop office suite that is at par in terms of features with the proprietary Microsoft Office.

Want to expand OpenOffice.org's default functionality? The official extension repository has quite a few extensions you can use to add some nifty features to the productivity suite. Precisely which extensions you might find useful depends, of course, on your particular needs, but there are at least five extensions that deserve a closer look no matter how you use OpenOffice.org.

One of the major new features for OpenOffice 2.4 on Linux is the 3D capabilities for Impress, the presentation component. The new transitions are not part of the default install, but as an extension. If you’re an Impress user, you may be interested in installing it.

The OpenOffice team have made version 3.2 of the open source office suite for Windows, Mac OS, Linux and Solaris available to download. It offers numerous enhancements over its predecessor which offer both stability and speed benefits. Writer and Calc, for example, should now start twice as fast as in version 3.1.1.

Compared to its predecessors, OpenOffice 3.1 offers a whole range of new features. Instant eye catchers are the improved anti-aliasing for graphics, better chart functionality, and the new text highlighting in Writer. However,

Some complain OpenOffice.org is slow and bloated. With each release there may be dozens of individual performance improvements, but there are also new features, some of which may slow things down. This the natural balance in software development, but in the end, what is the net effect on performance from one version to the next? Is it realistic to expect new features and faster performance?