OpenOffice.org 3.0 Base in Pictures

OpenOffice.org Base is a desktop database application that can be used to perform the standard tasks of creating and manipulating tables, queries, forms and reports.

Base is well integrated with the rest of the OpenOffice.org suite-for instance, data sources that live in Base are easy to pull into mail merge documents in Writer.

Using Base, it’s possible to access tables stored in Microsoft’s .mdb and .accdb formats, but forms and reports stored in Access databases can’t be read from Base.

Base’s limited .mdb support is further limited on non-Windows platforms, but it’s possible to work around this gap with the help of third-party applications such as MDB View.

Base has lacked an Access-like switchboard option for creating front ends to collections of forms and reports, but this feature has made its way into Base through OpenOffice.org 3.0’s expanded extensions framework.

Another element of Base that’s received a boost in functionality through the OpenOffice.org extensions system is report building. The addition of the Sun Report Builder add-on brings a rather good report design feature to Base.