Taking Open Office 3.0 Through the (Web Analyst) Paces

The beta of Open Office 3 is a big step for Mac users, removing the need for X11 or the aging NeoOffice port. I tried out the spreadsheet app for some basic data crunching tasks.

I was pleased with the design of the charting workflow. Click through to Flickr for the 4 image sequence. On casual inspection, it seemed a bit easier to work with than the multi-path 2003 Excel or the new 07 Excel.

There are also new charting features for regression plotting and custom error bars.

Check out a quick Jing screencast of running a "data pilot" (akin to pivot tables) on some recent eyetracking data. Alternatively, check out this howto blog post on the Open Office blog.

While I had to read docs to figure out how to do a pivot table, check out this neat menu explorer help function!

While I opened a simple .xlsx file succesfully, Infoworld tried more complex files and found support in need of more work. I did notice that OO won't save to .xslx, though it opened several simple files fine.

Will OO v3 be a credible alternative to MS Office? Depends on the task -- but it looks to do a decent job an analyst's basic requirements.