>He is right, if there were an office suite that ran like Office on windows >available on Linux, it would be a no-brainer to switch.
But I think that "almost usable" is too pessimistic. I've been using Star Office 6.0 on a Windows PC, and it is quite good for my uses. I particularly use the Star Office Writer - and find that it works really well and smoothly for the general writing I do. It opens and saves in .doc format, as well as its native file format. It even works with the Track Changes capability (but calls it Record Changes - and it's under the Edit Menu rather than Tools.) The minor stumbling blocks are these different names for things, and such things as having to select the printer every time I print (it keeps on reverting back to Acrobat Distiller - does anyone know how to change the default printer?) Out of the box Writer is set up to use metric dimensions for margins, etc. It took a couple of minutes with Help to find the place to select inches. So, all in all, I consider these to be minor stumbling block - and many of them would not be any problem for someone who started off by using Writer, vs. a Word user who has to get accustomed to the differences. I've used Calc for some simple work, but much less than Writer. I've had no trouble at all with it - and it has opened/saved the .xls files I've used. --henry schaffer
