Customer Reviews

StarOffice 6.0 Office Suite Companion (Sun Microsystems Press)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

We just switched to StarOffice at work, with a few rogue openoffice.org copies floating around, and, OK, it was a bit bumpy in the first few months. Some of the vocal people went over my head to the VP and said they needed their Word and Excel back. However, she said we weren't allowed to give up on it without actually making sure that we couldn't do it, so of course it was my job to go down to the bookstore and sit there til I found out how to do everything. There was a huge list of stuff we hadn't figured out: do mail merges, print correctly in Calc, print multiple slides per page, import text files into Calc, do animated slides, do numbered headings and cross references in documents and a bunch of other things the techwriters were fussing about, and I forget what else but at least a dozen other things that no one could figure out.

I started with some 5.2 books but then found this 6.0 StarOffice Companion and I found EVERYTHING in this book. EVERYTHING.

You can use this at home and make yourself happier, but that's just you. Think about the big picture. If you use StarOffice in a business setting, and your salary actually depends on how the business does, and you go down the hall hearing people cursing at their computers, you will really understand how many thousands or millions of dollars it can cost to have your employees struggling with their software. So I'm paying the measly cost of the book for each of my 34 employees, and I'll get the cost back in about 14 minutes for each of them, because they'll actually be able to work well in StarOffice and they won't be going over my head to the VP.

If you're using StarOffice commercially, you MUST get this book. While it's fun to be snooty and talk about how you're Alternative and Open Source and all that stuff, it's really all about whether you can get work done and make money.

I used the Companion 5.2 til it was dogeared and I got the 6.0 update as soon as it was out. Definitely worth it; lots of stuff is the same but they changed a bunch of stuff too, including all the database connection windows and it's easier now but the mail merge is a lot easier to figure out with the book. It tells you how to do Oracle connections and Access and stuff, with examples. I found out some new stuff too on the drawing program which either they added to the program or the authors didn't document last time. So it's worth getting the new version. I've generally found that if you can do it, it's in the index, and if it's not there, you can't do it.

I think the part I like best is they tell you if stuff doesn't work, or if it's hard to do and you should try something else. Like someone who really uses the stuff not just the company line on how it's supposed to work.

No actual documentation, still, on how to write macros, but I found some online stuff that workd.

Works for OpenOffice.org too, which I just downloaded and seems to be really similar.

It covers the Quirks

This book doesn't just tell you how StarOffice is supposed to work, it also tells you about some of its quirks and peculiarities. The book doesn't assume everyone uses Windows and includes information on the Unix/Linux versions. It gives pointers to other resources, such as websites with templates and macro programming information.

Book Structure

The Getting Started section covers the "why" of StarOffice and the "how" of Setup. The "why" includes "Ten reasons to Use StarOffice". This includes "Bill Gates has enough money, Do you?" and "It has the best drawing program you've never used". Of course the authors are slightly biased but the list contains more fact than propaganda. The Getting Started section also covers differences between StarOffice and OpenOffice.org, comparisons with earlier versions and a summary of features. It then moves on to the more gritty details of installation, configuration and trouble shooting.

Not just for beginners

My main exposure to StarOffice was with the incredibly powerful Word Processing feature (Writer) I have written a 280 page book about Java Programming and have found that module to be excellent. Despite having considerable experience with it, even a brief reading of the Writer section gave me some ideas about my further use. Notably I am going to remember to use captions for figures and tables in documents in future, so I can automatically generate lists of them for the table of contents. It is interesting to note that the authors describe the Master Document Feature in Writer as being a lot closer to FrameMaker than to Word. If you don't know about it, FrameMaker is a tool used for creating industrial strength documents such as technical manuals and full sized books.

The book covers the dull but very important details of areas such as page numbering and chapter settings. This was something that frustrated me when I was learning StarOffice 5.2 and I wanted to ensure that the pages in each chapter had the chapter name at the top. I had to blunder my way about experimenting and fiddling with this, and the vagaries of the Master Document system. My life would have been much easier if I had been able to use a book like this at the time.

In addition to the document management features the book covers the more "Page Layout" style features of StarOffice such as the ability to manage columns and to place vertical text running up the page. These are features I was not even aware existed in StarOffice before I read this book.

It's big and its packed with information

The StarOffice companion has over 1030 pages, but it is really bigger than it sounds because it is very dense. Although it has many screen shots, plenty of use is made of text based instructions. Instead of repeating instructions, the text will often point you to the page where a concept was first explained. This does break up the flow of instructions but it also means that the book contains more information than if they had repeated the text every time it was needed.

I found the section on the graphics module useful because I had not realised how StarOffice has some slightly non-standard ways of working with menus and selections. For example I spent quite a bit of time trying to get the 3d shapes menu to pop out and show all the possible shape options. It was only on a closer reading of the text of this book did I appreciate that you need to click and hold down the mouse for a few seconds before the menu pops out.

The writing style

The tone of the book comes across as being created by people who like the program rather than a creation of a faceless corporation. Thus in the graphics section they have included the amusing Moose with moving fly graphic that is used for the logo of the JavaRanch website. Here is an example of the text style from the section on macros. "Macros can do things like open a file when you do a particular task, process data, or take your grandmothers' credit cards and buy $3000 worth of cat toys".

If you use StarOffice you need this book

The StarOffice suite has a huge amount of functionality and this book covers most of the features you are ever likely to use. It doesn't try to do it in a visual style with a screen shot for every mouse click but includes plenty of text instructions. The book is in paperback and has a 40 page alphabetical index. I learnt a huge amount of new features despite having worked with the application for over two years. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who intends to use StarOffice.

I got this a couple weeks ago and the only thing I'm annoyed about is that I didn't have it sooner. It's what I needed for the last three months while I was figuring things out the hard way. Finally got headers and footers working and page numbering, once I read the book.

Get it, use it. Life will be easier.

Great book, clearly written (and light hearted which seems sadly rare in technical books) and perhaps most valuable of all, _great_index_. You have a problem, you look in the index, you find the section you need, and then you find a clear, concise, to the point description of how to do what you need.

StarOffice (version 6.0) is a great product (I'm using it on Windows, but I understand it runs on Linux and Solaris too). It's massively better value for money than anything micky$loth ever produced (it would be better value even at two or three times the price) but it's user interface is somewhat unfamiliar (well, duh, it's not micky$loth, so of course it's unfamiliar) and a little help learning your way around is worth it's weight in gold. Fortunately this multi-pound gem doesn't cost that much :)

Get StarOffice, get this book, get on with your life, and find something more interesting to spend those license fees on than giving them to someone so rich he doesn't need it anyway ;>

I've looked at all the StarOffice books out now and this is the one I like the best. This one seems better researched in terms of what people need to do, and isn't simply a cataloging of the features in the software and how to choose File > Print.

A few of the things I like the best are the tutorials at the beginning of every section, the well documented screen shots and illustrations, addressing common things that are hard to figure out like bringing a text file into a spreadsheet and printing the spreadsheet correctly, and the excellent index.

This book saved me more than once. I have had all I can stand of Microsoft products, so I decided to make the switch. But I want the least amount of pain, struggle, effort, and time involved in ramping up and getting something *done* with this software. The companion book gave me exactly what I needed, and it wasn't painful to read, either! I'm actually enjoying it. Strange, I know, but I hope this is a trend -- making technical books *interesting* for a change. I was able to find exactly what I needed from this book. I won't say that StarOffice is a walk in the park -- it can be a pain, but at least this book made it much, much simpler. Finding what you need is a big plus for this book, and yes the index IS useful. (And even funny...)

If you're trying to get your company (or a family member) to give up Microsoft, stage an intervention but don't forget to include this book in your "rehab" therapy.

If you use Linux and have just migrated from Windows well its time to move to the free Office Suite, well almost free. This book is EXCELLENT companion to the Sun Staroffice program. It teaches you in one book, how to master StarOffice. Unlike Microsoft Office with it 100's of books this all you need.

(BTW: I am a complete beginner, meaning no previous knowledge, and now I have more knowledge of the OS and StarOffice than I have of Windows and Office XP)

At this point, I don't even care what the rest of the book is about. I am so amazed. I set up my data source according to the instructions, no problem with that, connected to it with no problem with the letter autopilot, printed those with absolutely no problem, set up and printed the labels for the same addresses with absolutely no problem, and just got back from the post office.

Might I add, I couldn't get mail merges to work with Microsoft no matter what I tried.

I haven't done anything else yet, but for mail merges from Access address databases, this product and this book ROCK.

I am very pleased with this book, the "StarOffice 6.0 Office Suite Companion." It is an excellent balance of clarity and detail and while I cannot vouch for everyone I find that the "tech level" is just right for me. I am an experienced computer user so do not need a "Dummies" book, which this is not, but I do need direct, clear instructions to tell me what I want to do. Which this book provides.

I was most delighted by coverage of setting up databases, which was clear and provided me everything I needed without mistaking me for a system administrator who cares deeply about views and joins. The database works for StarOffice have changed in this version and I was rather alarmed at the prospect of learning a new system, but the instructions were quite nice and I had no trouble at all linking to my Access databases.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants a supplement to the existing StarOffice manual, which is small and does not cover enough. This book also has many excellent illustrations while the StarOffice manual has almost no pictures.