Software update: KOffice 1.2 beta

SVG Support. KOffice components can now handle many SVG images (animation is not yet supported).

DCOP (Remote Control). All KOffice components have a greatly enhanced DCOP scriptability. For example, DCOP can be used to insert or reformat text in KWord and KPresenter.

spell checking. KPresenter and KSpread now have a spell checker.

Thesaurus. KThesaurus is a new KOffice component. It is a thesaurus which can also be used on a stand-alone basis as a frontend to a local installation of WordNet.

Word Completion. KWord and KPresenter offer a word completion feature. By using a key shortcut, these office applications will try to complete the word using a word-list, consisting of the words in the current document or compiled from another document.

File Format. KOffice has switched to zip (instead of tar and gzip) for archiving/compressing its native file format and to using “relative paths” for objects included in the archive (such as images or embedded components). This provides greatly improved document compatability with other Open Source office suites, while enhancing performance. For backwards compatability, KOffice 1.2 will support saving in the KOffice 1.1 format, and KOffice 1.1 users can download a utility to convert from the KOffice 1.2 to the KOffice 1.1 format.

Bi-Di. KWord and KPresenter now feature full support for reading and writing bi-directional text, such as Arabic and Hebrew (screenshot†

Auto-hide Cursor. Both KWord and KPresenter now hide the cursor when the mouse has been idle for some time.

table. Table borders have been properly implemented. The sizing of variable width table cells has been greatly improved.

frame. You can now choose where to inline a new frame. Frames now have a “z-order”, so they can be lowered and raised. Layered frames are currently opaque.

text. KWord now supports double underline, text shadow, soft hyphens, non-breaking spaces and a text background color. In addition, comments can be added to text.

filters. KWord has a number of new import/export filters for enhanced compatibility with other office suites.

• The new export/import filters are AbiWord (substantial support), PalmDoc (full support), Unicode or plain text (full support), WML (limited support) and Lotus AmiPro (limited support).

• The new import filters (with limited support) are MSWrite and WordPerfect.

• The new export filter is SGML (substantial support).

• HTML export/import has been greatly enhanced, though for this release HTML tables are ignored. Latex export has also greatly improved.

• XSLT support for mapping to other XML-based office formats.

shortcuts. You can now assign a style to a key shortcut. New shortcuts have been added for non-breakable spaces and soft hyphens. A triple-click now selects a paragraph. The PageUp/PageDown keys now default to moving only the scrollbars, not the cursor.

miscellaneous. KWord now supports hyperlinks (an Internet, email or file link). The handling of tabs in the ruler has been improved.

New tools. A set of new tools for creating professional presentations: freehand, polyline, quadric bezier curve, cubic bezier curve and convex/concave polygon. A new “Configure Image” dialog supports a number of operations on images, such as flip/mirror, color depth, RGB to BGR conversion and brightness control.

zooming. KPresenter now has zooming support. Besides the standard percentage zoom, you can zoom to a region selected with the mouse.

Layout. Improved page layout, so changes in one page no longer cause other pages to misalign. The position and size of an object can now be set to fit on the page. A grid system has been implemented.

Transition effect. New transition effects include Blinds, Box In/Out, Checkboard, Cover, Uncover, Dissolve, Random and more.

style. KPresenter now supports styles for text and paragraph formatting.

miscellaneous. KPresenter now has a useful status bar. The undo/redo functionality was extended to include page insertion, deletion, pasting and duplication. The search and replace functions work over all pages. KPresenter has new “guide lines” and “guide points” for helping to layout objects on the page. It can also report the duration of a slide-show presentation.

filters. KSpread has a new dBASE import filter.

functions. Function names are now case-insensitive. The formula editor has a new “Related Function” feature. Thirty-seven new built-in functions have been added: integer/boolean/text conversion functions, 7 new math functions, 5 new text functions, 4 new date/time functions, 4 new financial functions (including a EURO function for converting between the Euro and other currencies), and 20 new statistical functions.