Author: JT Smith
KOffice is an integrated office suite for KDE which utilizes open standards for component communication and
component embedding. The primary goals of this release, which follows one month after the release of KOffice
1.1beta2, are to provide a preview of KOffice 1.1 and to involve users and developers who wish to
request/implement missing features or identify problems. Code development is currently focused on stabilizing
KOffice 1.1, scheduled for final release late next quarter. Though this release is a beta, it constitutes the most stable and feature-complete release of KOffice to date.
The KOffice team encourages all users of earlier KOffice releases to upgrade to KOffice 1.1beta3. In
particular, this release is substantially more stable and feature-complete than KOffice 1.0, which was released
together with KDE 2.0 in October 2000. Changes to individual KOffice components since the last beta release
are enumerated below. In addition, a list of changes since the KOffice 1.0 release, and a FAQ about KOffice,
are available at the KOffice website.
The most significant improvements since the last beta release occurred in KWord, particularly in the
implementation of new features in respect of inline pictures, tables, frames, line spacing, auto-correction and
page breaks, as well as a host of usability improvements, such as automatic switching between modes,
improved menus and more pop-up menus. For a further list of improvements to KOffice since the last release,
please refer to the incremental changelog below.
This release includes the following components:
- KWord (a frame-based, full-featured word processor)
- KPresenter (a presentation application)
- KSpread (a spreadsheet application)
- KIllustrator (a vector-drawing application)
- Krayon (a bitmap image editor f/k/a KImageShop)
- Kivio (a flowchart application)
- KChart (a chart drawing application)
- KFormula (a formula editor)
- Kugar (a tool for generating business quality reports); and
filters (for importing/exporting documents).
KOffice and all its components are available for free under Open Source licenses from the KDE server and its
mirrors. As a result of the dedicated efforts of hundreds of translators, KOffice 1.1beta3 is available in 27
languages.
Incremental Changelog
The following are the major improvements, enhancements and fixes since the KOffice-1.1beta2 release last
month:
All suite applications:
- added many page formats;
- extended general DCOP facilities (for scripting suite applications);
- switched to KGhostview for print previews (requires kdelibs-2.2.x);
- added a warning if a file is saved in a non-native file format;
- improved language and grammar (no more typos);
- fixed auto-addition of file extensions; and
- fixed crash on loading remote documents.
KWord:
- added a new preview mode (multiple pages per row);
- improved drawing of inline elements (variables, images, frames) when selected;
- added ability to toggle objects between inline and non-inline;
- improved read-only mode (when KWord is embedded in Konqueror text can now be
selected and copied); - implemented Insert Frame and Insert Page Break (also as part of styles);
- implemented “1.5” and “double” line-spacing (also as part of styles);
- added an Apply button to the stylist;
- implement arbitrary zoom values;
- added auto-correction, typographical quotes;
- added a “View Formatting Characters” feature for displaying the format codes
in the document; - implemented insertion of (configurable) predefined expressions;
- implemented auto-switching between text editing and frame editing;
- added ability to set all frame types as “copy”;
- added the Flesch reading ease score as well as the enhanced layout to the
statistics dialog; - added support for importing WMF clip-art;
- increased spell-checking options (requires kdelibs >= 2.2-alpha2);
- implemented auto-adjusting frame size;
- added undo-redo availability to many actions;
- added new bullets-numbering dialog (visible in the stylist and the paragraph editor);
- enhanced context-menus (RMB popup);
- added changing the case (capitals) of a text selection;
- improved usability with better mouse selection and some new key bindings;
- achieved major speedups for large documents (improvements in paragraph
- formatting, loading and painting fixes);
- added a submenu for custom variables;
- fixed recalculation of “page number” variable in header and footer;
- fixed painting and run-around-frame (e.g., in multi-columns mode);
- fixed the creation and removal of pages;
- fixed crash when embedding into Konqueror;
- fixed Table Of Contents creation and updates;
- fixed placement and drawing of tables; and
- fixed many other things, this list is far from complete.
KPresenter:
- decreased size of saved documents;
- added mouse wheel navigation between pages during presentations;
- added the ability to move objects with the arrow keys;
- improved many UI elements (enabling/disabling of actions);
- improved the appearance (same page drawing as in KWord); and
- added a new configuration dialog.
KSpread:
- added CSV Import-Filter dialog; and
- fixed drawing when embedded (no active cell).
For more details, including available binary packages and instructions, see
http://www.koffice.org/announcements/announce-1.1-beta3.phtml.
