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| Version 3.0 |
IBM Lotus Symphony
is a free Office Suite available on Windows, Mac and Linux. The
project began in 2007 and is basically a modified version of
Openoffice.org. Though active, it still uses Openoffice 3.0 as its base. The developers seem to be focusing on stability and have
released 3 "fix-packs" for Symphony 3.0 last year instead of newer versions. After
the Libreoffice/Openoffice split, Symphony will continue to be based
on the "official" version of Openoffice maintained by
Apache.
I. Downloading
Lotus:
Lotus can be downloaded from the IBM Lotus Symphony website. For Ubuntu I had to download a 277 MB .deb installation file as well as a 44 MB “fix-pack”.
Lotus can be downloaded from the IBM Lotus Symphony website. For Ubuntu I had to download a 277 MB .deb installation file as well as a 44 MB “fix-pack”.
II. User
Interface:
The first thing
that you will notice about the user interface is that the toolbar has
been positioned to the right. This makes sense as today's computers
have widescreen displays. Symphony will automatically change the editing
options that it displays depending on what type of content you are
editing. For example, in the below screenshot, I'm editing text and
so Symphony shows you the text editing tools.but as soon as I select
an image, the toolbar automatically shows me image editing
options.
Symphony also had a
tabbed interface, which I thought was a great idea. The downside to
this is that it is rather limited and won't allow you to open new
windows. This feature would have been much more complete if it's
implementation was similar to that of a web browser's.
III. Performance:
IBM Lotus Symphony
took a little longer to launch than Libreoffice. The interface was
just a little more sluggish than Libreoffice. It didn't crash on me once during the 5 hours that I tested it. It's reliable, a little sluggish but not overly so.
IV. Presentation
tools:
This
is where Symphony really shines and provides some actual benefits of
using it over Libreoffice. I personally believe that the best
presentations do not use templates but rather utilize whitespace and
convey their ideas through diagrams. However, sometimes you might
rather want to just finish your job quickly using templates and
bullet points. The templates included along with Symphony are much more
impressive than the ones included with Libreoffice.
Also,
there are no options to insert shapes or objects. Instead you get
something similar to Microsoft's Smart Art, only not as smart.
To
insert objects, you have to go do Clip Art. Under Text Shapes and
Diagrams, you would find the shapes that are commonly used. The other
Clip art images are actually useful as well as they consist of often
used symbols. You might find yourself liking these images better than
the objects that come along with Libreoffice.
There
is also a downside to this as these objects are basically treated as
images. If you want to insert text, you would either insert text over
the entire object or have to manually add text boxes yourself.
There
was also no option of inserting text boxes under writer, making a lot
of the diagrams not useful while using Writer. Also, copying and
pasting objects from a presentation to a writer document didn't work
in my case.
V. Compatibility
I remember very clearly seeing options to export to Microsoft 2007 format in version 1 but they have been curiously taken away, though you can save as a .odt or a .doc file. For better compatibility with Microsoft Office, I would recommend using Libreoffice instead.
VI.
Web Browser
Symphony also has its very own web browser. That's right, a WEB BROWSER. I
initially thought that it may be just based on Webkit or Gecko but I
turned out to be wrong as the browser could not be identified by
various sites. I think that the main reason that it was there in the
first place was to download extra templates and plugins that are
available online. The idea is pretty cool and its coolness makes up
for its redundancy.
VII. Conclusion
Overall, IBM Lotus Symphony has
some really interesting ideas that need better execution. If executed
properly, IBM could use its muscle to promote the Open Document
Format, which would benefit Libreoffice/Openoffice and as an
extension Open Source Software.
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