OpenOffice.org 3.0 Releases Monday--Or Get It Early

The OpenOffice.org 3.0 suite of productivity applications arrives Monday, but, as noted at Download Squad, you can get it today. The OpenOffice team has posted it to a number of mirror sites. The list to check is here.  As Download Squad notes: "Just pick one in your region, navigate to the folder marked 'stable' and grab the appropriate files for your operating system from the '3.0.0' folder." If you want the Windows version and not the Linux version, FileHippo has it available today. Here's more on what's under the hood.

Mike covered the beta of OpenOffice 3 for OStatic here. "While the new features are not revolutionary, this is a solid release that's plenty good enough for many users to adapt as their primary office suite," he noted.

OpenOffice 3.0 has support for ODF 1.2 (Open Document Format) as a native document format, and it can also open Microsoft Office documents. Mike found the beta to have strong compatibility with Microsoft Office, although not perfect.

He also noted that Mac users will appreciate the fact that the new version is an Aqua application. So far, we haven't determined where to get the Mac version on an early basis, but we'll keep an eye out over the weekend in case it becomes availabe on any mirror sites. 

Update: Thanks much to the reader who wrote in with the link to how to get the Mac version early. Here it is.  The Mac version is four links down.