On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Henry Schaffer wrote: > >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
I'm using OOo. I've not printed with it recently, but as I recall, the File menu chooses the printer, and the icon normally just prints. > dimensions for margins, etc. It took a couple of minutes with Help to > find the place to select inches. OTOH I just thought OOo was being clever. It's nice sometimes to find software that is configured properly for the rest of the world. > > 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. Have you tried the database facility? For those using OOo, there's an article about using databases (if you can call MySQL database software) with OOo. The facility is there, thought I had never noticed. -- Cheers John. Join the "Linux Support by Small Businesses" list at http://mail.computerdatasafe.com.au/mailman/listinfo/lssb
