New visual books

InPictures has published four new books covering OpenOffice.org

• Base 2.0,
  
• Writer 2.0,
  
• Calc 2.0,
  
• Impress 2.0.
  

InPictures follows an unusual concept: [Its] computer how-to books are based on pictures, not text. The company states Most computer books contain over 50,000 words. In Pictures books contain one-tenth as many.

Best of all, the books are cheap, dirt cheap For a limited time, In Pictures books can be downloaded for free.

Open Document format 1.0 becomes ISO approved

In a joint press release, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has approved the international Standard ISO/IEC 26300, Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0.

The Open Document Format (ODF) has been developed as an application-independent format by a vendor-neutral OASIS Technical Committee. ODF has been at the heart of the controversy around the State of Massachusetts adopting open standards to ensure long-term readability of electronic documents.

FSF may take OpenOffice.org off its high priority list

According to an article at NewsForge, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) considers removing OpenOffice.org from its high priority list of open source projects.

The FSF does maintain this list to draw attention to various projects it considers critical to achieve parity with proprietary platforms. FSF put OpenOffice.org on the list, despite that it is open source itself. However, it is based on Java and depends on features that are not available in the free Gnu implementation of Java.

With the recent release of OpenOffice.org 2.0 the goal has apparently been achieved to eliminate all the quirks, that prevented OpenOffice.org to compile on GCJ. One caveat, this build is not the fasted in the world and rather not usable. But the FSF claims the principle goal to be achieved and hopes that future GCJ implementations will take care of reasonable performance.

OpenOffice.org books covering the current version 2.0

Finally I discovered a bunch of books about OpenOffice. org, the open source alternative to Microsoft Office that covering the current version (2.0):

• Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 2.0, by the OOoAuthors.org a group of volunteer documentation writers.
• Sams Teach Yourself OpenOffice.org 2, Firefox and Thunderbird for Windows All in One by Greg Perry is the book for those that want to convert wholesale to open source products.
• OpenOffice.org 2.x Resource Kit by Solveig Haugland and Floyd Jones. this book is scheduled for publishing on June 24. 2006. Solveig Haugland has also blog about her work with OpenOffice.org worth reading.
  
• Point & Click OpenOffice.org by Robin Miller.
• The Tiny Guide to OpenOffice.org by Benjamin Horst, a member of the OpenOffice.org Marketing Project
• A Conceptual Guide to OpenOffice.org 2.0 by R. Gabriel Gurley.
• OpenOffice 2 by Mike Weber, published by spidertools.com focuses on Linux users.
  

OpenOffice.org books for special audiences

Continuing my research regarding books on OpenOffice. org, the open source alternative to Microsoft Office. I found a few today that Appeal to special audiences:

• OOoSwitch: 501 Things You Want to Know About Switching OpenOffice.org from Microsoft Office by Tamar E. Granor, Scott Carr, and Sam Hiser. The book covers OpenOffice.org version 1.1 from the perspective of users converting from MS Office.
• OpenOffice.org Macros Explained by Andrew Pitonyak. The book is obviously for advanced users who want to automate functions for repeat use.
• 6x9 Book Template for OpenOffice.org Writer by Dmitri Popov is a template for a book for OOo-Writer.

OpenOffice.org books focusing on specific components

Continuing my research of books on OpenOffice. org, the open source alternative to Microsoft Office, I found a few books that focus on single programs of the suite:

OpenOffice Writer

• OpenOffice.org 2.0 Writer Guide by the OOoAuthors.org, a volunteer group of documentation writers.
• OpenOffice.org Writer : The Free Alternative to Microsoft Word by Jean Weber covers version 1.0 or 1.1. Jean Weber did write this book originally in self publishing and O'Reilley later decided to publish the book which gave it a wider audience.
• Writer for Writers by Dmitri Popov

Books about OpenOffice.org

I started some research on OpenOffice. org, the open source alternative to Microsoft Office. I compiled a list of books, teaching the popular office suite. I thought I share my results online. First I found quite a view Covering older versions (1.0 and 1.1):

• OpenOffice.Org 1.0 Resource Kit by Solveig Haugland and Floyd Jones. This book has a successor "OpenOffice.org 2.x Resource Kit" announced for 24. June 2006
• From the "For Dummies" series there is "OpenOffice.org for Dummies" from Gurdy Leete, Ellen Finkelstein, Mary Leete. The book covers OpenOffice 1.0 or 1.1 and needs updating to the current version of the free office suite.
  
• Sams Teach Yourself OpenOffice.org All In One by Greg Perry and Kenyon Brown.
• OpenOffice 1.3 published by spidertools.com