Customer Reviews

Getting Started with Open Office .org 3: OpenOffice.org 3.0

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am switching over from MS Office to Open Office 3. I have a number of years experience with heavy duty office suites including Corel Perfect Office and Microsoft Office. And, I can say without reservation that Open Office 3 is an excellent package. This manual comes with the suite's download in Adobe Acrobat format. So, you may wonder why someone would pay for a printed version. The answer is simple, "convenience". It's easier to use a printed version than to keep jumping back and forth, and when you consider time and printing materials, certainly cheaper than printing it off for yourself. Do I recommend it? In a word, "yes".

My only knock on the book is that it is skimpy. The writers try to cover an awful lot of material and in so doing, they don't go into a huge amount of detail on any one thing. That means that they make assumptions about how much a reader already knows. For an experienced user, the book can be quite helpful, for a beginner just starting out on office suites, probably less so.

One problem the book doesn't address is the variation in terminology from suite to suite. For example in MS Office reader remarks are called "comments" whereas in Open Office, they are called "notes". Not knowing what something is called can make it hard to look up. Still, with the manual and some experimentation you should be up and running fairly quickly.

Free software without a guide is not worth the price...so I was very happy in my research to find that blog after blog recommend this Getting Started Guide....

I had been trying to wean myself off Microsoft products and was looking at Open Office but up to now Open Office was lacking in the manual dept. Not any longer....in a few hours of opening this book I felt I was an old pro on OpenOffice.

I loved the info, the format and the fact that its written for a user in mind, not a technician in mind....written for real people!

Very, Very well recommend!

I ran into open office org by mistake when I was trying to convert to a PDF file. It is easier than word and you don't lose formatting. This book helped me get through that hurdle and many more. The book is even a better user guide than the help feature on office org.

A great learning tool for the beginner and experienced users. Easy to understand, written from the non-technical standpoint

I got the software for free and was completely lost at first. After a friend gave me a copy of this book, I thought the least I could do was to come online and write a review of how thankful I was for the guidance. This manual took me from being completely lost to feeling like I actually knew exactly what I was doing. If you are a beginner with this software, or you are thinking about using this software for the first time, I would highly recommend this manual.

Enjoy!

Todd Hagopian
President/CEO
Hagopian Institute
Author of the popular "Quote Junkie" series, and the newly-published "Idiom Junkie" series

This manual is essential to the productive use of Open Office. It is well written and give details to all programs in the suite. So far this book has answered all questions I've had.

I have been using OpenOffice.org for over a year now. After migrating from Lotus SmartSuite. There are a lot of features in OpenOffice that may not be in Microsoft Office or Corel WordPerfect.

The main reason is [in my opinion] being that OpenOffice is ported to four operating systems, i.e., Windows, Linux, Mac OS, and Solaris [UNIX]. It is translated into over forty languages, and is updated quarterly! It is sponsered by Sun MicroSystems and volunteer developers from all over the world. The program is written in Open document Format, not Windows programming language exclusively. What that means is that any one, any where in the world can use the program on almost any known operating system! I Love It. . .

I have used Open Office 3 (OO3) since 2004, and am completely happy with the product in almost every way. However, I grate at its inscrutability; I need a good clear simple intro to abet understanding of the-how-to.

This book partly fulfills this need. I keep it on my desk beside my PC for reference. As the easiest intro to OO3, it is quite helpful. However, I have to say this is no "made-simple/for-dummies" book and is still pretty arcane going for a none too technical guy like me.

I would like more simplicity and a far-better index. I get bogged down with all the ifs:ands:buts of what this book presents. RSVP in newer editions of this book, OO????

--Vernon Lynn Stephens

I have to say that this book saved me from hours of painful searching for solutions. It is a great resource for beginning users. I was particularly looking for help with OObase and this book condensed in a few pages what others on the web say in volumes.

Well written and easy to find stuff. I never expected to find documentation this complete and professionally done for a software program suite that is free! Buy it! You'll be glad you did.