Open Office fFor Dummies?

peter pvant67 at wnyip.net
Sun Mar 9 19:36:32 EST 2003


Joe Pollock wrote:
> Hi.  I'm thinking about switching over to OpenOffice.org from M$ Office 2000
> to save money and to make the transition to Linux easier.  I'd appreciate
> responses to any of the following questions.  I'm also open to other
> alternatives, but I'm not quite ready for all Linux-only solution.
> 
> What do you folks think of OOo?
> How good is it for an end user with no computer experience (my partner)?
> How good is the documentation for use in learning it?
> Are there any "OOo for Dummies" books out there?
> Are there any compatibility issues with reading and writing MS Word files?
> What's the relationship between Star Office and OOo?  Are they pretty much
> the same from an end user's point of view (other than cost)? (I'm asking
> this because I already have a Sams Star Office Book.)
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Joe
> 
> 
> 


Open Office is cool for me, I use it for general word processing. It's 
pretty much identical to Sun's StarOffice, but you need to integrate the 
database support by hand. Sun's star Office has the database support 
already included, I have older copies from RedHat7.x (StarOffice5.2)

I don't really need the big time commercial database stuff, a few 
directories with plain text files are OK for me. So, I go with 
OpenOffice. It's great for converting files and formats.

If you do need the full-on database thing, StarOffice is available from
Sun for about $65 last I heard.

http://wwws.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/6.0/


I've got the docs in ps format on how to get MySQL to interact with 
OpenOffice too, if anyone wnats copies. Just email me and ask.


"When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price."
		-- Richard M. Stallman




More information about the nflug mailing list