Many Linux distributions package KOffice 2.2.2. We know that binary packages are ready for various distributions. If you wish to build KOffice from the sources, you can download them at downloads.kde.org. You can find instructions on how to build them on the KOffice wiki.

Many Linux distributions package KOffice 2.2.1. We know that binary packages are ready for at least Kubuntu (10.04 and Maverick, the upcoming 10.10), Fedora F13, and Debian Unstable. If you wish to build KOffice from the sources, you can download them at downloads.kde.org. You can find instructions on how to build them on the KOffice wiki.

Highlights of KOffice 2.2

Kexi is Back

The big news for this release is that Kexi, the data management application, is back. Kexi was last released in KOffice 1.6 and has seen a complete overhaul of the user interface. This means that Kexi has seen over 3 years of developement. Kexi should be ready for production work already.

Kexi is the new data management application in KOffice

Major Enhancements

The biggest enhancement that is available for all applications is a new framework for effects on shapes. From the start there are 11 effects. More effects will come in future releases.

New Import Filters for MS OOXML Formats

KOffice has received new import filters for the Microsoft XML based office formats that are used in MS Office 2007 and later. The filters are still pretty basic, but definitely usable for real documents. At this time there are no plans for export filters for these file formats.

Improvement in the Applications

All Applications

We have improved compatibility with non-X11 platforms like Windows and OSX. There are also many performance improvements and improvements to OpenDocument handling. For the developers and integrators there has been a cleanup of the libraries and API’s.

KWord

KWord can now load and show many new formatting features. Spell checking works again. Change tracking has been improved and there is now a dialog for accepting or rejecting changes. The support for metadata using RDF has been brought up to OpenDocument 1.2 level. The import filter for the Microsoft doc format has been much improved and there is a new docx import filter.

KSpread

KSpread, the spreadsheet application, has received a lot of work. Among the changes are a number of new functions, an improved default layout, rich text in cells. The import filter for Microsoft Excel has been much improved and there is a new import filter for the MS Office 2007 format xlsx.

KPresenter

The biggest improvement in KPresenter, the presentation application, is the new shape animation framework. There is also an improved support for Xinerama setups. Like the other productivity applications, KPresenter has received much work on the import filter for MS Powerpoint, and there is a new import filter for the xml based format pptx.

Karbon

Karbon has gotten better compatibility with SVG, the Scalable Vector Graphics format. There is also new effect filters for shapes. Most of the improvements to Karbon has gone into the common components and libraries and are therefore available to all KOffice applications.

Krita

Krita has received the most changes of all. There are a number of new brush engines, a new brush settings preset system,a new core image handling system and a quick-acces popup palette for recently used colors and brushes. There are also new file filters for xcf, jpeg2000 and OpenEXR.

Krita has a separate announcement on Krita.org, where you can read a comprehensive list of what’s new in Krita 2.2.

Kexi

As mentioned above, Kexi is back in KOffice. The biggest changes against the old 1.6 version is that there is a new user interface and a new reporting framework. This reporting framework is also used in KPlato.

KPlato

KPlato has received a new project scheduler and improved reporting using KoReport (shared with Kexi).

Improvements in Plugins

The charts have received many bugfixes.

There are two new shape plugins: one for vector images, currently supporting WMF and EMF formats, and one for embedded videos.

Suitability for Use

This release should be much more stable and full-featured than 2.1. Version 2.2 has received many enhancements to the layout engine, the libraries and the filters. There are still areas in the user interface that we want to work on before stating that KOffice is fit for the general public. We are, however, at a stage where we think that KOffice can be used for real work by some users.

Sources and Binary Packages

The source code to KOffice 2.2.0 can be downloaded from download.kde.org. Binary packages of KOffice 2.2.0 will be available and announced separately as soon as the respective distribution provides them.

Bug Reports and User Feedback

The developers are very interested in user feedback and bug reports. Please report bugs that you find at bugs.kde.org. In particular, the KOffice Team is interested in bugs in the following areas:

• OpenDocument support
• Crashes
• Errors on non-X11 platforms since most developers run Linux and may overlook these.

Trademarks Notices. KDE, K Desktop Environment and KOffice are trademarks of KDE e.V. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Qt is a trademark of Nokia. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group. All other trademarks and copyrights referred to in this announcement are the property of their respective owners.

Press Contacts

As usual, this release offers many improvements and bug fixes, as can be seen in the list of changes. Most of the reported bugs on the so called “release blocker list” have been fixed. The rest will be fixed before the final release. A release blocker is a bug that is either a crash that prevents the user to use the application or a bug that leads to unacceptable data loss. They are marked with a special keyword in the bug database. A regression within the unit test suite can also be regarded as a release blocker.

A more thorough description of what is new in KOffice 2.2 in relation to version 2.1 can be seen in the announcement for version 2.2 beta 1.

Readiness for End Users and External Developers

As also mentioned in the 2.2 beta 1 announcement, the KOffice team had hoped to have time to make the user interface and available feature set ready for end users as well as make the underlying engine ready for external extension developers in time for 2.2. Unfortunately time and limited developer resources didn’t permit to reach both of these goals. The libraries have been reorganized and improved, but the user interface does still not reach the level of quality that the team wants to achieve.

Notable exceptions to this are Krita, that has seen much work on the user interface and Karbon that was already usable before.

Sources and Binary Packages

The source code to KOffice 2.2 RC can be downloaded from download.kde.org. Binary packages of KOffice 2.2 RC will be available and announced separately as soon as the respective distribution provides them.

A more thorough description of what is new in KOffice 2.2 in relation to version 2.1 can be seen in the announcement for version 2.2 beta 1.

Readiness for End Users and External Developers

As also mentioned in the 2.2 beta 1 announcement, the KOffice team had hoped to have time to make the user interface and available feature set ready for end users as well as make the underlying engine ready for external extension developers in time for 2.2. Unfortunately time and limited developer resources didn’t permit to reach both of these goals. The libraries have been reorganized and improved, but the user interface does still not reach the level of quality that the team wants to achieve.

Notable exceptions to this are Krita, that has seen much work on the user interface and Karbon that was already usable before.

Sources and Binary Packages

The source code to KOffice 2.2 beta 2 can be downloaded from download.kde.org. Binary packages of KOffice 2.2beta 2 will be available and announced separately as soon as the respective distribution provides them.

As was noted in the announcement for 2.1.0, KOffice 2.1.2 is probably still not usable for production work.

Many Linux distributions package KOffice 2.1.2. A Windows version is expected within a month. If you wish to build KOffice from the source, you can download them at downloads.kde.org. You can find instructions on how to build them on the KOffice wiki.

Kexi 2.2 - Form Designer

The 2.2beta1 release of KOffice gives you a preview of what will be new and improved when the final 2.2 version is released in May. As you can see in the list of changes, there are many new features and an old application from KOffice 1 has made a reappearance: Kexi, the data manager in the style of MS Access. Another completely new feature is import filters for the MS OOXML formats, introduced in MS Office 2007.

Readiness for End Users and External Developers

The KOffice team had hoped to have time to make the user interface and available feature set ready for end users as well as make the underlying engine ready for external extension developers in time for 2.2. Unfortunately time and limited developer resources didn’t permit to reach both of these goals. The libraries have been reorganized and improved, but the user interface does still not reach the level of quality that the team wants to achieve.

Notable exceptions to this are Krita, that has seen much work on the user interface and Karbon that was already usable before.

Sponsored Development and OpenDocument Community Work

Release 2.2 will be the first release where external companies and organizations made significant contributions in development. Nokia has sponsored much work on the general improvements and the converters for importing MS file formats for their Maemo office viewers. NLnet has sponsored the work on RDF metadata and change tracking. KO GmbH as well as NLnet have sent participants to the ODF plugfest and OpenOffice.org conference in Orvieto, Italy.

Sources and Binary Packages

The source code to KOffice 2.2 beta 1 can be downloaded from download.kde.org. Binary packages of KOffice 2.2beta1 will be available and announced separately as soon as the respective distribution provides them.

As was noted in the announcement for 2.1.0, KOffice 2.1.1 is probably still not usable for production work.

Many Linux distributions package KOffice 2.1.1. A Windows version is expected within a month. If you wish to build KOffice from the source, you can download them at downloads.kde.org. You can find instructions on how to build them on the KOffice wiki.

The advantages of the clean and well-structured codebase have started to show. Despite a relatively limited developer group, there are a large number of improvements over 2.0. During the development of 2.1, it was also announced that KOffice is going to be used in the Nokia n900 smartphones based on Maemo Linux.

The State of KOffice 2.1

This release is a marked improvement of almost all parts of KOffice compared to 2.0. Version 2.0 was labeled a “platform release”, which was meant as a first preview of the framework and new UI paradigm. In version 2.1, most applications and components have improved significantly but should still only be used by early adopters and probably not as the primary worktool.

The exceptions are the graphics applications: Krita, the picture editor / paint application, and Karbon, the vector editor application. Nuno Pinheiro, the designer of the Oxygen KDE theme and icon set says: “I have tested Karbon and it is definitely usable for real work even if lacks a few advanced SVG features“. What Krita is capable of can be seen at the Gallery in the Krita forums.

Karbon 2.1 editing the oxygen Webcam icon

Targeted Audience

Our goal for this release is to show the public the current state of KOffice and create a platform for further improvements. This release is mainly aimed at developers, testers and early adopters. It is not aimed at end users, and we do not recommend Linux distributions to package it as the default office suite yet.

It is noteworthy that KOffice 2.1 still does not have all the features that KOffice 1.6 had, even if it in some ways greatly exceeds KOffice 1.6. These features will return in the upcoming version  2.2, in most cases better implemented and more efficient. Also, not all applications which were part of KOffice 1.6 made it into KOffice 2.1. The missing applications will return in 2.2 or possibly 2.3.

Applications and Components

The following applications and plugins are part of KOffice 2.1:

General

All parts of KOffice, including the underlying libraries have received many bugfixes and improvements. Special attention has been paid to support for the OpenDocument Format, ODF. One example of that is handling of lists. To ensure the quality of the ODF implementation, the KOffice team has participated in ODF interoperability tests called the ODF Plugfest. For a more detailed list, refer to the announcements and changelogs for the alpha and beta versions of KOffice 2.1.

KWord – Word processor

KWord has a new implementation of tables. The tables are more advanced than the ones in version 1.6: They can be larger than one page and support nested tables in tables and they support a number of formatting properties. The drawback is that the table contents can be edited, but the tables themselves will only become editable in the next version.

Another large new feature in KWord is change tracking. Changes in the document can be tracked and are displayed color coded. Insertions, deletions and formatting changes have different colors. Still lacking is a dialog to select individual changes and make them permanent.

KSpread – Spreadsheet calculator

There are no big new features in KSpread, but a fair number of bugfixes.

KPresenter – Presentation manager

KPresenter has a few new features and many bug fixes. Some of the new features are an infinite canvas and slide numbers.

KPlato – Project management software

KPlato has been improved a lot, and has support for many different manipulations of resources, currencies and work types.  It also has support for offline work using a small utility called KPlatoWork. KPlato was featured in the release announcement for KOffice 2.1 RC1.

Karbon – Vector graphics editor

Karbon 2.1 has a new framework for svg filter effect plugins.  There are also a few filters implemented: offset, blur and merge.  These can be combined to create a drop shadow effect.

Also new in 2.1 is an import filter for PDF files.

Krita – Raster graphics editor

Krita has new brushes: among them a spray brush, a deform brush and a 3D visualization of brushes. It also has a new infinite canvas feature and a dyna tool that can simulate a pressure sensitive input device by using the speed of the mouse.

Plugins

The Chart plugin (or so called shape) has received a number of bugfixes but no new features.

The Formula shape is now back in KOffice 2.1 after being absent in 2.0.  It is not very advanced at the moment.

The Picture shape has seen many optimizations.

Import and Export

Import and export of foreign file formats have been given an overhaul, and especially the import filters for Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt) and Word (.doc) have been much improved. This is a result of the work done for the Nokia n900 Office viewers.

The desktop database creator Kexi was scheduled for inclusion in 2.1, but has not been finished. Right now we hope to be able to release it in version 2.2. Kivio, the flowchart editor, is currently without maintainer and it is not certain when or if it will be released.

Highlights of KOffice 2

KOffice 2 is a much more flexible application suite than KOffice 1 ever was. The integration between the components is much stronger, with the revolutionary Flake Shapes as the central concept. A Flake Shape can be as simple as a square or a circle or as complex as a chart or a music score.

With Flake, any KOffice application can handle any shape. For instance, KWord can embed bitmap graphics, Krita can embed vector graphics and Karbon can embed charts. This flexibility does not only give KOffice unprecedented integration, but also allows new applications to be created very easily. Such applications can e.g. target special user groups like kids or certain professions.

Karbon - Tiger

Unified Look and Feel

All the applications of KOffice has a new GUI layout better suited to todays wider screens. The GUI consists of a workspace and a sidebar where tools can dock. Any tool can be ripped off to create its own window and later be redocked for full flexibility. The tool layout is of course saved and reused the next time that KOffice is started.

Platform Independence

KOffice is available on Linux (with any desktop), Windows and Macintosh. Solaris will follow shortly and we expect builds for other Unix versions to become available soon after the final release. It is possible that the release of binaries for Windows and Macintosh will occur after some time if other packages that KOffice depend on need more time.

Since KOffice builds on Qt and the KDE libraries, all applications integrate well with the respective platforms and will take on the native look and feel.

Krita 2 runs on Mac OS X

Native Support for OpenDocument

The OASIS OpenDocument Format (ODF) is the ISO standard for office document interchange. ODF has been selected as the national standard for many countries around the world, and continues to grow stronger every month.

KOffice uses the OpenDocument Format as its native format. This will guarantee interoperability with many other Office packages such as OpenOffice.org and MS Office. The KOffice team has representatives on the OASIS technical committee for ODF and has been a strong participant in the process of shaping ODF since its inception.

Bug Reports and User Feedback

The developers are very interested in user feedback and bug reports. Please report bugs that you find at bugs.kde.org. In particular, the KOffice Team is interested in bugs in the following areas:

• OpenDocument support
• Crashes
• Errors on non-Unix platforms since most developers run Linux and may overlook these.

Trademarks Notices. KDE, K Desktop Environment and KOffice are trademarks of KDE e.V. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Qt is a trademark of Nokia. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group. All other trademarks and copyrights referred to in this announcement are the property of their respective owners.

Press Contacts

The application that has received the most bugfixes is once again Krita. Also KWord has seen numerous improvements in many places, and the Microsoft Word filter has once again been improved. The same goes for KPresenter and its Powerpoint import filter and KSpread.

One of the applications that we have not talked much about so far is KPlato. KPlato is short for the K Planning Tool, and is an application for project management. It was released as technology preview in 2.0, but in 2.1 we believe it to be usable for smaller projects and for early adopters. We expect that KPlato will bring KOffice to new categories of users who need our unique cross platform project management application.

KPlato quick introduction and tutorial

KPlato has features including graphical and list based task dependency editor, task status view, and a schedules view. It can also calculate and display performance indexes, etc for earned value management. It has support for scripting via the common KOffice scripting interface and a number of scripts are provided with the application. It comes with a tutorial to introduce new users to the concepts.

KPlato has support for external workflow by issuing work packages that can be issued to project members. These people can use a separate utility called KPlatoWork to report back to the main project. Last but not least, KPlato can export to the iCalendar format so that it integrates with many applications, including Kontact, the KDE personal information manager.

KPlato dependencies view

Please try out KPlato and tell us what you think at the KOffice forums. There is still time to fix the last few bugs, and all feature requests will be used as input for the next versions.

This is the last release before the final release of KOffice 2.1. We ask all our users who want to help with the process to try it out and report remaining bugs. As usual we are especially interested in bugs that cause data loss or incompatibilities with other office suites such as OpenOffice.org. This time we expect there to be few, so we are increasingly interested in finding them before the real release.

Many Linux distributions will have packages of KOffice 2.1RC1. If you wish to build KOffice from the source, you can download it from download.kde.org. You can find instructions on how to build them on the KOffice wiki.

Update about Kexi:
Although Kexi is continuously developed, we don’t manage to deliver the final version of the application on time. It is scheduled for KOffice 2.2. Users are encouraged to stay with 1.1.x series if possible.