Open Office releases new version

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OpenOffice.org has released the latest version of its software suite, Open Office 2.4, the open source alternative to Microsoft's Office.

Open Office 2.4 is mostly an incremental upgrade but adds support for Access 2007, and improves the "find and replace" feature in Writer, as well as introducing new keyboard shortcuts and the ability to print hidden and place-holder text.

PDF handling benefits from new export options, and a host of minor improvements have been made to the Chart, Draw and Impress presentation package, the latter of which has received some shiny new 3D transition effects.

Open Office is the most prominent proponent of the Open Document Format, and just about the only real challenger to Microsoft's dominance of the desktop Office software market.

OpenOffice 2.4 will be the last version of the Office suite to be built on the 2.x codeline, with version 3.0 slated for a September release and set to add PDF import, Microsoft Office 2007 file format support, and ODF 1.2.

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