Customer Reviews

StarOffice 6.0

5 star:		(68)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Awesome product, I'd played with SO 5.2 a while back and it was good, but a little buggy. This one however is great. It has way more functionality than any normal mortal needs. So far at least there's not been anything I wanted to do that I couldn't (though to be fair, I sometimes had to look twice to find how to do it...

For help with finding functionality, get the "StarOffice Companion by Haugland and Jones", it's a great book, well laid out and easy to use, tells just what you need to do, and with a good index (why is that so rare??) so you can find what you wanted).

Frankly I feel free at last. I'll not be using any of micky$loth's overpriced "you have to buy your bug fixes, and then we'll make it incompatible with your friends with the old version" software any more. I'm running StarOffice on Windows XP right now but, I think I might have to check out Linux, as I understand StarOffice runs on that too.

It's new, yes. Does that make it bad? No. Give it a try, or download the free OpenOffice.org version.

StarOffice is more compatible with MS Office than MS Office. Try opening a Word 95 file with Word XP. Then try it with StarOffice.

StarOffice is worth it if only for the drawing program, which is excellent, easy to learn and use, and exports to not only GIF and JPG but SVG, EPS, and a host of other formats.

StarOffice opens WordPerfect files, on Windows. If you're looking to switch from WordPerfect, here is your chance.

Word files litter the Internet; college students are required to submit Word files often for simple essays; elementary schools publish lunch menus in Word. Government agencies publish calculation forms for the public in Excel. StarOffice is particularly appropriate for people who simply want to create some documents, and read other people's documents, and not pay hundreds of dollars for the privilege to read what ought to be in an open, nonproprietary file format.

StarOffice costs as much as you're going to spend on a sweater for your mother at Christmas. What you'd spend on Microsoft Office would cover two of her car payments. If you're one of the many people who doesn't have money to throw away, and you're looking for the value that a product actually provides instead of just continuing the same expensive habit, then you're going to be delighted by StarOffice.

This is software the way it should be. No paying a month's rent just so you can read Word files, no paying a wad just so you can get a spreadsheet to do your taxes, in a format your accountant will accept.

It's not perfectly usable yet and the doc included is limited at best. But you know, with the hundreds of dollars I've saved, I have enough left over to buy a book, and with the hundreds of dollars I've saved I can pay myself for a couple hours of getting to know the program.

Its open source and free version, OpenOffice.org, is of course an even better deal. Download it today, use it today, distribute it if you want and all for free with *no* license restrictions.

Here are a few things I like in the program, in addition to its' ideological coolness:

********You can edit the source of any document.**************** Any StarOffice or openoffice.org file unzips with Winzip or whatever. You get a styles.xml file, content.xml file, etc. You can go into each file, change paths to graphics or delete bunches of old styles, or whatever. Then zip everything back up again and there's your document, reflecting the changes you made.

Good wizards. They call them AutoPilots, but whatever, they're wizards. It's pretty easy to put together a mail merge letter, business cards, labels, presentations, web pages with multicolumn etc formatting, etc.

You can connect to standard databases. Just go to the data source connection set up window and pick Access, Oracle, etc. The documentation isn't much on the syntax but the StarOffice Companion tells you the syntax to use.

The spreadsheet tool is pretty good. Still a 32,000 row limitation but you know, most of us will be able to keep our enthusiasm in check and stick to 31,500 rows. Good DataPilot wizard thing to bring in data from a data source, and create automatic total fields at the same time.

The drawing program is amazing. If you don't have a vector drawing program that you're absolutely happy with, get StarOFfice or Openoffice.org just for the drawing program. I was blown away. The 3D and Visio type features were a real surprise.

So that's my take on it. Be prepared to spend a little time, rather than a lot of money, getting started with this, and you'll be happy.

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StarOffice 6.0 matches Microsoft Office Professional in every way in terms of features and functionality, but costs about about forty times less per seat (each copy of StarOffice allows 5 installations). StarOffice also reads and writes Office 95,97,2000, and XP documents with almost 100% compatibility including compatibility in advanced features like redlining and OLE embedding. StarOffice has it's own open and fully documented XML document formats and an open source version (OpenOffice), which means that Sun who publish StarOffice will not be able to force unwanted upgrades on customers by making file formats of successive versions incompatible as is the case with Microsoft Office.

The things I like about StarOffice are the HTML output format, the PDF output format (Unix) and the fact that it doesn't run MS Office macro viruses. Generally I prefer the way the way StarOffice Writer is organised, particularly things like formatting and bullets and paragraphs which are more straightforward and logical and easier to edit than MS Word. If I were starting out from scratch, I would pick StarOffice over MS Office on functionality and utility.

So in a world dominated by Microsoft Office, how (apart from cost) is StarOffice better? For most office suite users, the big issue is not how good the package is but how compatible it is with other companies' MS Office suites. At my company, we have used both Microsoft Office and StarOffice 5.2 in the past, and based on our experience, I would say categorically that contrary to commonly cited reason for using it, MS Office in practice is a very poor choice for compatibility. We originally had MS Office 95 many years ago, and as we and our overseas offices bought or upgraded computers, we ended up with a few machines with Office 97 and 2000, particularly in our overseas office. This caused no end of headaches because we would have files in all different version formats all over the place and we could not tell them apart from the filename. We eventually asked everybody to standardize by using Office 95 format since everybody could read it and just as importantly we wouldn't annoy clients by sending out documents they couldn't read. This didn't work because the Office 98 and 2000 users would save in their default format and would forget to convert it before sending it out because there was no outward indication of the file format version. Even worse archived files ended up in various assorted MS Office formats. Finally we ended up banning Office 98 and 2000 from use, and StarOffice 5.2 proved to be our salvation for compatibility. It saves in a default native format which has obvious and different file extensions from MS Office. It also reads and writes MS Office 95,97 and 2000 formats. We saved in StarOffice native formats, and converted documents going out to clients, to Office 95 format which just about anyone can read. Because the documents are normally saved in StarOffice native formats, people were forced to convert the files to Office 95 format when they sent it out and could never mix the files up as they could with two MS Office file versions. StarOffice 5.2 could also read incoming MS Office 95,97 and 2000 formats without a problem. Our MS Office compatibility problems disappeared overnight. From this experience, I can say hand on heart that in practice StarOffice is more compatible with MS Office usage than MS Office itself. StarOffice 6 is the best thing around for file conversion compatibility with MS Office, and even better than StarOffice 5.2.

For some users however it may be necessary to ensure 100% compatibility with a particular version of MS Office by buying the same version of MS Office. Somebody who wants to use existing Excel spreadsheets (eg with macros) for accounting checks and cannot be bothered to recheck it for StarOffice may want to stick with a particular version of Excel. Somebody who sends Word documents to a publisher (rather than using a proper typesetting program) may be required to use the same version of MS Office as the publisher. This is no problem, just buy one or two copies of MS Office for converting such documents and keep these upgraded regularly, and for everyone else use StarOffice.

I would recommend anybody considering buying an office suite to check out StarOffice 6 first. Since it's cost is so low, it is worth getting a copy, even if it is just for evaluation.

Whether you're a power office suite user or just someone who dabbles in spreadsheets and word processing documents, this product covers your bases! With the new copy protection schemes in all the Microsoft Office products, it's no longer possible to use the same copy of MS Office at work and at home. That reduces your options to 1) paying a lot for an office suite for home use, or 2) searching for an alternative. I chose the second option, and I'm glad I did.

First of all, StarOffice 6.0 actually reads and writes Microsoft Office documents without "converting" them or taking them through a filter. This means you'll have seamless read/write capability on documents prepared by MS Office users.

You'll have a powerful spreadsheet that finally gives you a cut and paste function without the quirkiness of the one in Excel, and which provides 98% of the functionality of Excel. (I would have said 100%, but I haven't found pivot table functionality in StarOffice yet.) You'll have a fantastic word processor that comes with tons of fonts and a look and feel that's very similar to MS Word. You'll have the Adabas database, a fantastic drawing program, and you'll have a presentation tool that rivals MS PowerPoint. Oh... and one more thing you'll have... a few extra c-notes in your pocket.

I have used Microsoft Office XP and StarOffice 6.0, and to be honest, the Office XP is a more refined interface and has a bit more polish on it, but SUN has come close to the MS Office product's look and feel, and has given us StarOffice at a very attractive price. Plus, they've chosen to omit the crazy hardware-level copy protection scheme that Microsoft "threw in" with MS Office.

You'll be impressed... It's clean, doesn't "take over" your system, runs great, and gives you a full-blown office suite at a fraction of the cost.

5 Stars! (and then some)

I'm not sure if the average person uses even 20% of the capabilities of MS Office. Most people make extensive use of Word and Outlook, good use of Excel, fair use of PowerPoint, and almost no use of Access. STAROFFICE IS A GREAT ALTERNATIVE THAT WILL SAVE YOU HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS! Before purchasing, please note that Sun offers this product for download under the name "openoffice".

Benefits of StarOffice:
* Great compatibility with MS Office apps, particularly Word; you'll be hard-pressed to find a Word file that doesn't open accurately (preserved formatting) in Star. In fact, compatibility is *far* better than WordPerfect presently offers--and I'm a WP user from back when it was one of the original "killer applications"
* StarOffice Draw (for creating graphics) blows Word's drawing tools out of the water. This has always been a weakness of Word. Draw is comparable, if not better than, drawing tools in WordPerfect.
* StarOffice Adabas (database application) is included (getting MS Access requires buying MS Office Pro) and is easier to use than MS Access. Adabas integrates with other StarOffice apps so, for instance, users can easily create mail merge documents.

Drawbacks:
* MAJOR: No MS Outlook: This really may be the most important part of MS Office. Detractors can complain all they want, but there is just no PIM available that is near its equal. (The opensource community is working on this, however.)
* MEDIUM: I have yet to see a presentation package as good as PowerPoint (which is by no means perfect). I do hear that Apple's got a good new one, but most of us use PC.
* MINOR: No pivot tables in Excel: If you don't know what a pivot table is, then you don't need to worry that it's not available.
* MINOR: Interface to MS Office apps is more refined than StarOffice's.
* MINOR: MS Access is a better database application, but Adabas is easier to use.

For home or small- to medium- business use, this is a no-brainer. Frankly, with Microsoft's new licensing policies, which will penalize people for not upgrading by requiring them to pay full price for new versions if they skip a version, I expect some large corporations to eventually make the switch.

Everyone's fussing so much about Word versus Writer that no one's given any comments yet on how great it is for graphic art and just anyone who wants to do a drawing.

Illustrator and Photoshop, fine, use those if you're a turbo illustrator and have the money. But I LOVE StarOffice's Draw program and anyone who has to do any drawings, just once in a while or if you're a techwriter or programmer or just arty regular person, will find it fabulous and easy to use.

For instance, let's say you want to do an org chart or some sort of diagram. It's really easy. You draw some squares, fill them in with a color or gif or anything, then double-click in them and write "Peter Hanson, Vice President," or "Home Interface" or whatever. To connect it to all the other things in the diagram, use the Visio-like connector lines that stay connected to the boxes no matter where you move them.

Or if you want to crop and mess around with the photo you took on your hike last summer. You can crop easily, make it black and white, and increase the blue or green.

The 3D features are absolutely amazing. Just download OpenOffice.org and try them out, or buy StarOffice today and you'll be blown away. Globes, donuts, pyramids, and you can draw them sticking into each other like that XFiles episode where people started intersecting. You have to see it.

You can do a bunch of stuff with FontWork. Draw absolutely any line, type absolutely any text, and you can make the text conform to the line, and then make the line invisible.

You can export your drawings to absolutely anything, including GIF, JPG, TIFF, SVG, and EPS. Open up the SVG in Illustrator and it's totally editable.

It also comes with some good basic clipart, and you can add your own to the gallery and just drag it right in.

I think that Draw, and its corresponding slide-creation program Impress, are fantastic. Let the techy Word and Excel fans beat each other to death on whether StarOffice or MS Office is better; it doesn't matter. StarOffice is worth it just for the art and presentation features.

Get it today. You'll have the most fantastic holiday newsletter or holiday web page ever.

It's kind of hard to believe that it's sixty bucks or whatever the current price is, substitutes for Word Excel and Powerpoint, opens those file formats, lets you SAVE BACK TO THOSE FILE FORMATS, and is still good. But that's the real deal.

It doesn't convert everything perfectly, but then if you've ever tried to open Office 97 files in Office XP, you've experienced far more frustration. StarOffice is more compatible with multiple versions of Word than Microsoft Office itself is.

It's also basically got a combination of Corel Draw Lite and Visio Lite built into its drawing program, Draw. The other reviewers haven't mentioned it much and I don't know why, because I think it's the best part of the program. You've got:
- Connector lines like Visio
- Spectacular 3D effects
- Bitmap editing ability
- Standard drawing tools
- Gallery you can put clip art into
- Conversion between different types: Bezier curves, polygons, 3D, bitmap, metafile, etc.
- EASY TO LEARN. I've tried to learn Illustrator which of course is a great product but I much prefer Draw.

Writer, Calc, and Impress are good too. I imagine there are some features in MS Office that you might want but don't have in StarOffice, but I haven't come across them.

My only complaint is that it's kind of hard to figure out where some of the features are. Some are under menu items you don't know about. We finally got a few copies of the StarOffice 6.0 Office Suite Companion at work, though, and it's pretty much got everything you need to know. I haven't found much yet that isn't in there, and they make a point of telling you when stuff doesn't do what you might expect so you don't waste your time trying. I really liked the migration chapter, since I had some 5.2 stuff that I needed to convert, and the database chapter is GREAT since it gives you exactly the syntax to set up databases for mySQL and ODBC and stuff.

So in short (though it's too late for that), get this, or if you want a demo download openoffice.org which is the free open source version.

On the whole a very good suite. However, after using it for several months I have found the following important limitations:

1. You cannot search for and replace end of paragraph marks. This is important when documents are imported from another application and have to be re-formatted.

2. There is no way to print envelopes. Form letters can be printed, but envelopes cannot. For a small business, it is essential to be able to print a single envelope on completing a letter.

These comments apply to version 6.

In my humble opinion it comes down to a rather basic choice. We got two fully functional office suites, both rather similar in terms of user interface, and both fully capable of working with standard (*.doc, etc.) files.

If money is no issue for you, you may as well choose Microsoft Office. Nothing is more compatible than the original.

If you have a hard time understanding
- why you should pay several hundred percent more than for a comparable office suite
- why you should be locked up in tough licensing terms where you cannot install the software on all of your computers at home legally
- why you should be required to call the vendor to re-activate a software you already own anytime you make significant hardware upgrade
- why you should be forced to upgrade every two years or so to remain compatible
- why the software costs money even if used for educational purposes (schools and universities)

IF all of this seems a little odd to you, and you don't have money to burn, THEN Sun StarOffice is the logical choice for you.