MS Office and StarOffice

[dungscooperdave]

I just got Linux not too long ago, but I've been loving it ever since (my only regret is that I didn't try it out sooner). In fact, I love it so much, I'm hoping to create some converts :D. My sister's a law student and is on her laptop 24-7, and I was hoping to put Linux on it. I'll probably do a Linux/Win2K dual boot with Linux as the default. But here is my main question. The two main programs that she uses are IE and MS Office. I know finding a replacement for IE is no problem, but how about MS Office? Is StarOffice 100% compatible with MS Office, i.e. if someone from school gives her a MS Word document with a bunch of fonts and tables and bullets and numberings, will SO be able to load all these and then save whatever modifications she makes in the MS format? Also, what about spreadsheets and other office things? She could also just Wine MS Office. What do you guys recommend?

StarOffice
--------------------
Pros
------
1. Linux native. Don't need to emulate or anything like that.
Cons
-------
2. May or may not be 100% compatible with MS Office.
3. My sister has never used Star Office, and it will be another program she has to take time to learn in her already tight schedule.

Wine-ing MS-Office
-------------------------
Pros
------
1. 100% compatible with itself. duh
2. My sister doesn't have to learn anything new.
Cons
-------
1. Has to be emulated, and as a result, she might not be able to use all the features of the programs and it might run somewhat slower than what she's used to.

Any of your thoughts would be great. :D

[mtbtreker]

Star office will convert everything. So will openoffice.org. Ocasionally there will be a small formating difference. ie a paragraph not indented etc.

[dungscooperdave]

So which do you prefer?
Star Office or open office?

[Hayl]

they are (basically) the same product. sun released the source code to star office, open office is the free version. star office is not free.

not everything will convert 100% perfectly from MS Office but it is pretty close.

[dungscooperdave]

(Cybr099)
they are (basically) the same product. sun released the source code to star office, open office is the free version. star office is not free.

(Me)
:confused:

Is there any advantage to Star Office over Open Office then?

[Hayl]

not really. i think star office may come with a ms access clone.

[dbfruth]

If she is going to create powerpoint type presentations she will probably want StarOffice. OpenOffice has the presentation program (Impress) but it dosen't come with any templates like Star Office does.

[dungscooperdave]

I don't think she does much with power point, but I might get her Star Office anyway. How much is it? I think Star Office came with my Mandrake 8.1 Distro, which was only $30 at Best Buy. Sounds kind of cheap for an entire OS, tons of utilities, etc., and a set of office programs. Maybe it didn't come with the complete version of Star Office.

[mtbtreker]

star offce comes free wth suse or does wth ver 7.3 not sure on eght o

anyone notce a problem wth my typng
my laptop now has a few dead eys under lnux but n wnbloze everythng es fne.

sorry lll try and fx

[Penrich]

Originally posted by dungscooperdave
(Cybr099)
they are (basically) the same product. sun released the source code to star office, open office is the free version. star office is not free.

(Me)
:confused:

Is there any advantage to Star Office over Open Office then?
After releasing the code, Sun then closed back up, so the paths forked. Thus, Open Office 1.x is not quite the same as SO 6.0. Not sure about all the differences tho, as I havent used SO (nor OO enough as yet)

[hlrguy]

StarOffice 5.0 is free, I use it and it is about 97% compatible with MS Office. The occasional format problem, drawings overrunning noundaries. I would think that 6.0 is even better.

hlrguy

P.S. All mymanagers use M$ Office, and there is never anything that I can't read.

You will need a broadband connection OR patience and a Lincu restartable downloader to get it from

http://www.waldherr.org/soffice/

[dungscooperdave]

Anyone know if there's a version of Corel for Linux kicking around somewhere?
I have the Corel Office Suite (vs 8 ?) for Windows. Is there anyway I can get it for Linux? Also, since I already have it for Windows, is there any way I can get the Linux copy free?

Just wondering...

[divakar]

100% compatibility is not possible as long as MS Office code is not open, I guess. One of the compatibility issues I have come across is with the cross-reference feature in MS Word. Documents with cross-reference citations do not translate well into OpenOffice Writer. Numbered paragraphs also do not translate well. So, depending on how different StarOffice is, these may be issues with So as well. No idea about this, but legal documents do contain lots of numbered paragraphs with cross-references, don't they? At least that's the impression I have of the Income Tax Act I saw once.

I have read some articles on the net about crossover office. This is a variation of Wine and is supposed to enable you to install MS Office CDs directly on Linux. If this really works as advertised, you can use Linux without the need to learn a new office productivity suite.

[wapcaplet]

Who needs 100% compatibility? Hell, I've only ever used about 2% of MS Word's capabilities. :)

If most of what she is doing is basic text documents, Star/Open Office should work fine.

You might consider installing all of the standard Windows Truetype Fonts (.ttf) too. I was having all sorts of weird problems with importing MS Word documents until I did this. Things like em/en dashes, bullets, double quotes, and other font-related stuff tends to depend heavily on the fonts you have available to X, especially for importing.

[dungscooperdave]

I've been having this weird problem trying to Wine MS-Word. Everytime I go to save a document, it tells me I'm out of disk space. I'll have to play around with it some more.