4 stars (a nice office suite) - I have been using StarOffice since version 5.2, it's a great product.
SUN provides a trial version of Staroffice 8. It's always a good idea to try something before you buy it, especially if you are new to it. Sun also sells a downloadable version of StarOffice 8 at $69.99.
If you are a student or a teacher, you can download StarOffice 8 for free from SUN's education software programm. Actually that's how I get my StarOffice since version 5.2.
StarOffice 8 is based on OpenOffice 2 with a little bit more features, including more fonts, more clip art and 60 days of free support. If those are not important to you, you might just want to download OpenOffice 2.0 since it's totally free.
Here is my experience of using StarOffice.
1. There are many non-Microsoft office softwares, none of them is 100% compatible with Microsoft Office. But the compatibility is more than enough for home users who do not heavily use Macro or scripts. I use StarOffice at home, Microsoft Office at school, I don't have any serious problem to use one to open files created by another.
2. SUN does not provide a full user manual for the downloadable version when I wrote this review though a simple getting-start guide is available at their website, I don't know if it's included in the retail package. That's too bad for new buyers since the features and functions can easily overwhelm anybody. But if you used StarOffice in the past, you should have no problem. I still use the manual of version 7 for version 8 since most of it does not change much. The manual for OpenOffice 2.0 applies for StarOffice 8 too. I just downloaded the manual. It's still in draft version, but looks pretty much complete.
3. StarOffice 8 is a solid package which covers everything for home use.
4. The PDF export function is great.
My overall experience with this software is more than satisfactory. |
