OpenOffice.org 2.3 released

OpenOffice.org has released the latest version of its office productivity suite, promising enhanced security and access to more extensions.

OpenOffice.org 2.3, which was made available for download on Monday, contains a fix for a security issue relating to the opening of .tif files.

It also includes a rewrite of the suite's chart component, according to OpenOffice.org's marketing project lead, John McCreesh. "It is more intuitive and there are more features available there," McCreesh said on Wednesday. He said the chart component would work with Calc, Writer and Impress — applications that form part of the OpenOffice.org suite.

McCreesh also pointed to the project's burgeoning extension library, which has been made available in conjunction with the new version of the suite. He acknowledged that the OpenOffice.org project has in the past been criticised for being too slow and unwieldy, but claimed that allowing developers to write extensions containing new features — rather than adding those features into the main source code — would help overcome these obstacles.

"If there's a new feature required, you can write an extension in a variety of languages and then users can import it into their copy of OpenOffice.org," said McCreesh. "As far as the end user is concerned, it's like they've got a whole new feature — we can continue to add features without making the programme any bigger."

OpenOffice.org 2.0 was released almost two years ago, and version 3.0 is expected to appear next year. That version will run natively on Mac OS X, and could benefit from IBM's involvement in the project.