StarOffice

[Ken Massingale]

Well, Google has added StarOffice from Sun to it's Google Pack. I dl'ed it to LOML's PC and actually I like it as well as MS Office. I need to actually download it again (no option to DL and save from Google) and burn it to a CD for a friend with dialup. Sun still wants ~$70.
Now the question, is OpenOffice the same apps? It looks like they are the same but I'm not certain.
Anyone seen a download for StarOffice?
Thanks
k

[cabinetman]

It looks free here.

[Ken Massingale]

That' a link to Google. Can't download and save, you have to install directly.

[gwyneth]

Now the question, is OpenOffice the same apps? It looks like they are the same but I'm not certain.

A couple of years ago, StarOffice morphed into OpenOffice, so I'm not sure if OpenOffice morphed back to StarOffice; whether this version of StarOffice is pre-OpenOffice; or if they just changed the name of OpenOffice back to StarOffice.

[Thom2]

http://www.openoffice.org/FAQs/mostfaqs.html#6

[radhak]

StarOffice is just a shade different than OpenOffice (both are from Sun's OpenOffice.org) : it has certain templates and code included that's not exactly 'open', so cannot be licensed under the 'open' license as OpenOffice. Translated, that means Sun must have paid license-fees to use those extra pieces of code, spell-checkers, thesaurus, cliparts, fonts, etc.

The differences make StarOffice a better product for the casual user : it allows better compatibility with Microsoft products than OpenOffice, but it takes away your ability to add / modify to its code. If I assume that (changing software code) is not something you are keen to do , you can stay with StarOffice.

About the downloading : it's not by accident that you cannot download from Google. Sun is selling this product, so the fact you get it free is because Google has bigger designs on you for the future . How they got it from Sun, is because of agreements between Sun / Google.

But if you insist, you can get the download : from Sun's educational page, as long as you can claim you are a teacher, a student or something like that. Go ahead, claim it - I won't tell .

Btw, the Google download is less than 140 MB while the sun download is 270MB.

Or, you could try the Oxygen Office Professional. I am told this might be the same or better than StarOffice, but have not tried it myself.

[jziegler]

Well, Google has added StarOffice from Sun to it's Google Pack. I dl'ed it to LOML's PC and actually I like it as well as MS Office. I need to actually download it again (no option to DL and save from Google) and burn it to a CD for a friend with dialup. Sun still wants ~$70.
Now the question, is OpenOffice the same apps? It looks like they are the same but I'm not certain.
Anyone seen a download for StarOffice?
Thanks
k

As has been said, OpenOffice.org (OO.o) is not quite the same as StarOffice, but they share most of the same code. I've been using oo.o for a few years now, and prefer it to MS Office, and not just for price. Last time I tried to do a mail merge in MS office (for my wedding invitations) it was a disaster. The wizard didn't do the right thing, there was no reasonable way to do it without a wizard. And LOML had experience with mail merge in older version of word too. So, 20 minutes after going to openoffice, it just worked. Less unhelpful help than MS has. And you can't beat the price. So go ahead, try openoffice, I doubt that you'll miss what is missing compared to StarOffice.

Jim

[tedkitch]

I'm the computer geek for work and we have a combination of both MS Office and OpenOffice.org there. Most folks don't even know the difference.

I would suggest that you go with the free OpenOffice.org suite of applications. If you don't like it then you can pay for the StarOffice suite. You can purchase it from Amazon, download it (for more than Amazon) from Sun, or get the latest and greatest free one from OpenOffice.org.

[sparkeyjames]

I once had a real old version of StarOffice before Sun bought them. Worked but looked horrible. Had a Clunky feel. Once Sun bought them out they opened the code to any contributors hence OpenOffice.org. The look, feel and functionality has been improved considerably. The clunky feel of the old StarOffice is now history. I use OpenOffice almost exclusively and I even own a copy of M$ Office 2000.

[newood2]

If you're in the military, AAFES has MS Office 2007 for $80

[Ken Massingale]

Thanks for all the helpful replies. I appreciate it.

[Sawduster]

Less unhelpful help than MS has.

That has been my problem with the last several versions of MS Office, I think going back to Office 2000. The wizards are too set in stone to be of use in about 9 out of 10 situations for me.

I picked up a cheap used laptop to send to my daughter whose husband is serving in Iraq as the desktop she had crashed and burned. I downloaded and installed OpenOffice on it as well as AVG and Spybot. I've also been playing around a little with OpenOffice on my own laptop at home and it is probably a lot more than I'll ever make use of.