Open Office 3 for Mac

As soon as I knew that a new version of Open Office was available for Mac, I decided to test it to see if they finally were able to create a valid competitor of Microsoft Office. Obviously, I don't expect an open source initiative (even with the dimension of Open Office) to reach the same level of completeness as Microsoft Office (hate Windows or not, fact is that Microsoft Office is an excellent tool). But at least, I would expect it to reach a certain level of compatibility.

First, let's have a look at the things that I liked in this new version:

• Speed - version 3.0.0 is in fact a lot faster than the previous version (2.4.1) I tested on my Mac. The launch app loads quickly and opening files is quite fast. The only thing that is not so smooth is window resizing.

What, no more good things?
Nope, that's it!

Now, for the problems I encountered:

• Native look - it still doesn't feel like a native Mac application (except for the speed). The looks still resemble a poorly-designed Java application. Also, Command + Shift + Left Arrow (Home) or Right Arrow (End) don't work as they should. Instead of selecting text from the beginning/end of the line untl the end/beginning of the line, it selects text word by word.
  
• Still no support for track changes - For me, this is one of Word's most important tools. When exchanging documents with colleagues, I often have to use track changes to suggest changes in parts of the documents and insert comments. So, a word processor that doesn't have this feature is quite useless to me. Other users may survive without this feature, though.
• Integration Open Office <--> Word - I decided to create a document in Word to test the integration between the two office suites. In this document I inserted the most common formatting that one can use (bullet points, headings, comments, track changes, tables, etc...). As I said before, no track changes support, which results in track changes text appearing as simple text with a different formatting (but no way of accepting or rejecting changes). And simple bullet points result in the strange symbol that you see on the image on the right. Even the integration between iWork's Pages and Microsoft Office is better.

For now, I haven't tested other Office applications such as Excel and Power Point, but as soon as I have the time, I'll have a look at it.
But, bottom line, my first experience with this new version of Open Office was not a good one. So, I guess we still have to wait a bit longer for a version that comes along and shakens the Microsoft Office's throne.