word

Sun Microsystems has released the first beta for OpenOffice.org 3 for Windows and Mac. The new version of OpenOffice, which is a popular open-source competitor to Microsoft Office, looks to offer users improvements on every component from interface to features to behavior.

OpenOffice now natively supports OS X, so Mac users won't have to install the X11 module before running the suite. Full Vista support is also included in the beta, and didn't cause any problems during light testing. Notably, OpenOffice 3 includes filters for the new Microsoft Office document formats such as DOCX and XLSX as … Read more

Tom Cruise and his publicity crew are apparently buying up ads on Google AdWords. Hollywood Newsroom first noticed the fact that when you type in "Tom Cruise" in a Google search, paid sponsored ads for the Scientologist's official, soon-to-be-launched Web site appear. "Stay Tuned For Official Site Launch" and "Get the real scoop from Tom Cruise," the ads proclaim.

The timing of the Google Adwords move appears to coincide with Cruise's recent appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where he made an earnest attempt to convince Oprah and the public that he'… Read more

Faster is almost always better, at least when it comes to computers. So what's the fastest way to open a word processor?

You can create a keyboard shortcut to open Notepad, WordPad, Word, or any other word processor on your PC by right-clicking the program's shortcut on the Start menu, choosing Properties > Shortcut > Shortcut key, entering your keystroke combination of choice (be sure not to overwrite one that's already in use), and pressing Enter. I described how to get fast access to all your keyboard shortcuts in a post from last week.

Now press the … Read more

You have to hand it to WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg. At his talk at today's Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, he managed to be the first conference speaker to put up a picture of a LOLcat while actually tying it into what his company is all about.

The LOLcat in question came from icanhazcheeseburger, a notoriously popular site that rakes in a whopping 1 million unique page views a day. It also runs on WordPress.com, Mullenwag and company's hosted blogging platform.

While the talk was classified as a "high-order bit," which usually involves … Read more

This free, open-source word-processor strikes us as a worthy alternative to pricey, big-name products. AbiWord has a quick learning curve, since the interface is very similar to other word processors. You'll find just about all the features you need, including the ability to cut and paste, to highlight, as well a bevy of common formatting tools.

Although we did miss a grammar-checking utility, AbiWord can check your spelling in many languages--you'll need to choose the appropriate foreign language dictionaries during installation. A huge plus is the ability to open and save Microsoft Word documents, though the program also … Read more

Safe and dependable software old-timers WordPerfect and WinZip have been bestowed with some upgrades. WordPerfect gets a major overhaul with Version X4, while WinZip's 11.2 adds some new features to the program, the first update in a year.

You can read the full CNET Reviews analysis of WordPerfect X4 here, but in short, it's a good, solid improvement on what has gone before in the suite even if it is cost-prohibitive and not quite as spiffy as one would hope. It's able to gracefully handle more than 60 document formats, including the nascent Open Document Format, … Read more

WordWeb is a handy utility that gives you the definition, synonyms, and antonyms of any given word without requiring you to go online, though it can connect to the Internet for expanded functionality. The interface should feel familiar, since it resembles many office application dictionaries. Users can manually type words into the Lookup text field, but the real strength of the program lies in the hot key function that lets users find definitions with a single keystroke.

The bottom pane offers tabs for such items as synonyms, antonyms, and related words. There are tools for changing the database to one … Read more

If you're running a business, there's no substitute for professionally created stationery with your company's logo and other information in the letterhead. You need to communicate to your clients and customers that your organization is legitimate, and a knockoff letterhead with a generic graphic is a dead giveaway of a low-budget operation.

At the same time, you may have occasion to create a one-off letterhead for a special event or side project that doesn't require anything fancy, and that you don't want to spend a lot of time or money to generate. Microsoft Word lets … Read more

For freeware productivity fans, March has ended like a lamb, not a lion. Microsoft Office replacement OpenOffice.org--download for Windows, Intel-based Macs and PowerPC-based Macs--and MS Word analogue and significantly smaller AbiWord have released updates that strengthen their functionality, expand their features, and ensure that they won't be rolling over to Web-based competitors anytime soon.

Redmond's MS Office is a behemoth of a program, but Silicon Valley-based Sun Microsystems' OpenOffice.org is hardly a lightweight. Currently, the update is only available for the Windows version of the suite, although updates for the Mac editions are expected … Read more