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OpenOffice 3.2 is available for download.

Improvements in the latest release of the open source office suite include faster start-ups, improved compatibility with other office programs, and several new features (with special attention to the Calc spreadsheet program.)

At the same time, the OpenOffice.org team is celebrating its tenth anniversary and a claimed total 300 million downloads of the office software since its initial launch. They say that just over a year since its launch, OpenOffice 3 has logged over one third of those downloads from the central server alone.

(Thanks in a large part to Germans, Czechs, and Poles, some may say).

According to the OpenOffice team, 3.2's Calc and Writer components have reduced their start-up time by 46 per cent from version 3.0.

Version 3.2 also boasts improved compliance with Open Document Format (ODF) 1.2 standards as well as the ability to open password-protected Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files.

OpenOffice's Calc program appears to have received the most attention with the new release, adding more cell border options, improved autofill, extensions to Calc's copy and past functionality, and more. If spreadsheets are your thing, there's quite a bit look over.

Check out the full list of new features here.

The OpenOffice folk encourage all users to upgrade and remind those running OpenOffice 2 that the version was declared "end of life" in December 2009. That means no more security patches or bug fixes from the community. However, enterprise support with longer lifecycles may be available from other distributors and commercial vendors like the project's new sugar daddy, Oracle.

Version 3.2 of OpenOffice.org is available for download yonder. ®

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