Its 3 – Its Free – Its Symphony

Earlier today, IBM Lotus released Symphony 3.0, a major new version of the OpenOffice-based desktop productivity editors.  Symphony 3.0 features major improvements in usability, integration, programmability, and compatibility.  For those of you who have been using Notes 8 (where Symphony is already bundled for you) or just wanted the freedom to say no to Microsoft Office – this is a welcome upgrade with some new functionality. Business could do worse that pilot Symphony – especially those with diverse operating systems requirements – since Symphony runs on Windows , Macs and Linux !!

Specifically

So from the release site …….. heres where you can download it and heres a summary  of whats new

New in IBM^® Lotus^® Symphony^TM 3?

General

New Features

• VBA scripts support
• ODF 1.2 standard support
• Office 2007 OLE support
• Brand new sidebars containing enriched property sections and panels across different editors, with support of sidebar panel management to show or hide sidebar panels
• Ability to customize toolbar content and layout
• Ability to create new business cards and labels
• Ability to insert OLE, audio and video files
• Master document support
• Support of Live Text
• Enabled file encryption and password protection with Microsoft Word and Excel files
• Support for “Open in new window”. Users can use Command+~ on Mac OS and Alt + Tab on XP/Vista to switch windows
• New clip art gallery
• More template files
• Support of VML images in OOXML files
• Support of more parameters for protecting spreadsheet files and sheets in VBA API
• Support of separate downloads of spell check dictionary addons for 22 languages for Windows OS users
• Support of same build re-installation in silent mode on Windows
• Support of online check of new product updates

Enhancements

• Better graphic object rendering through improved anti-aliasing
• Refined main menu and toolbar design for better usability and consistency across editors
• Ability to open a file by dragging and dropping it to a tab or empty workbench
• Better usability during the operation of dragging graphic objects
• Enhanced the usability in manipulating color property with new color picker controls
• Enabled new progress bar to launch and load/save files
• Enabled memorizing user file paths when inserting objects into file
• Added one click link to LotusLive website on homepage
• Improved accessibility support for graphic objects in files and help
• Various additional user experience enhancements
• Significant enhancement in online help content and structure

Document editor

New Features

• Enabled native nested tables support.
• Enabled multi-page view layout support.
• Support of Auto Text
• More fields support
• Custom properties
• Outline levels within paragraph

Enhancements

• Enhanced PDF export support.
• Improved document notes function.
• Enhancements in supporting much more types of fields in documents.
• Ability to select rectangle region of text in document editor.
• Ability to set bullets and numbering in multiple table cells at a time.
• Document header and footer function enhancements and usability improvements
• Enhanced the interoperability with MS Word documents that contains page grid layout content

Spreadsheet editor

New Features

• Extended maximum number of columns from 256 to 1024.
• Sheet specific zoom support.
• Text to column value convert support.
• Detective function.
• Solve equations and solver.
• “What if” function.
• Inline array constants in formulas.
• Dynamic ranges in validation lists.
• More formulas.

Enhancements

• Improved sort and formula performance.
• Enhancement in moving rows or columns easily through dragging column headers.
• Ability to select multiple sheets.
• Formula hot hints.
• Flexible source range selection
• Enabled multiple calculation in one sheet of the Lotus Spreadsheet editor, including mixed sort and filter, as well as multiple sort areas.
• Enabled sorting instant filters in Lotus Spreadsheet
• Enhanced functionality and usability in “import data from external file” function
• Enhanced the support of auto selection in files with built-in database ranges

Presentation editor

New Features

• Multi-monitor display support.
• More presentation animation effects.
• More page layouts.
• More drawing objects.
• More fontwork.
• Support of copy and paste pages or objects together with animation effects.

Enhancements

• Significantly improved user experience in managing and using templates.
• Enhancement in slide show effect through hardware acceleration for graphics.
• Improved crop feature.
• Support of switching between four different views in presentation by clicking tabs at the bottom of the screen.
• Disabled Autosave during Lotus Presentation slide show to avoid the unexpected interruption
• Enhanced the Presentation text objects undo and redo function

Chart

New Features

• Significantly improved chart experience through new chart engine.

Enhancements

• New chart creation wizard.
• Many newly added formatting options.
• More chart types: Column and Line, Cylinder, Cone, Pyramid…

Symphony 1.3 features disabled in Symphony 3 releases

• Ability to import SmartSuite files.
• Freehand table.
• Presentation print preview.
• Ability to create new XForm document
• Connector support in document editor