Sun StarOffice 7

Great functionality at a fraction of the Micro$oft price and with cross platform support everyone can use the same office environment. Well done Sun!


Star Office beats MS Office   November 19, 2003
34 out of 37 found this review helpful

Currently I am using the Star Office 7 Beta - Have found it to be exceptional, I have no negative comments at all.

We moved our whole company to Star Office 6 last year, 90 % of our users are low end computer knowledge, but everyone made the transition - with no retraining and minimal support questions (compared to the questions we had when going from Office 98 to Office 2000)- improved network performance do to XML - and 90 to 95 percent of the old office files came over without a problem (those that we did have problems with were because of special MS fonts)

To give you and example of size differences one file under MS Excel was 18 Meg once converted to XML format in Star Office was 2.89 Meg. and when you are sending it on a network that is a BIG difference in performance. (the user did the conversion with no help - and everything worked - the 28 worksheets in the workbook, the linked fields, all calculations everything worked!)

I am going to wait for the upgrade option but the Star Office package is Great!!! We are going to upgrade though. (I provide technical support and software integration)


Great product at a Great Price!! (ignore the bogus reviews!)   November 16, 2003
33 out of 38 found this review helpful

Microsoft can try all they'd like by posting false comments here, but Sun's StarOffice beats MS Office, hands down. For the price, I was expecting a half-baked office suite. Instead I found all the power of the OpenOffice.org product with added features and, most of all, great SUPPORT. I have removed MS Office from all our computers at work and home and will never look back. We can easily share files between platforms and have no problem opening MS Office documents. True... StarOffice 6 was a disappointment - but 7.0 is suprisingly quick, stable, and chock full of new features that we count on - like being able to create PDF files! This is way cool. I'm never gonna buy MS Office again - it's way too expensive.


So much +/- Half truths about this offering here!   December 5, 2003
Tcat Houser
32 out of 32 found this review helpful

Years later, Open Office & Star Office are getting better. They now offer a end user friendly database. I still keep a copy of MS Office for some uses. And Sun's office offering on the Mac blows the heck out of MS Office on the Mac. Many languages and Operating Systems are supported. That is the update as the year 2007 is starting to go into history. My orgional review follows.

Ok. Bottom line. I came here to save money on Buying StarOffice7 after running the Beta.

I cannot believe the half-truths in this thread. Please allow me to kill a few.

1) It needs Java. BS. It asks if you have Java installed which is only required on a few advanced features (mostly database).

2) Same a OpenOffice. BS. It is built ON OpenOffice which Sun supports. I have both options on my laptop (plus MS Word). StarOffice has things they license that is not in OpenOffice.
A (much) better spell checker (even that is not as good as MS Word), Thesarus, and a SQL database (like a real SQL not a user friendly Access database).

3) No Outlook. MS Office is not Outlook. Outlook is Outlook Eveolution = open source Outlook.

That aside, some heads up points.
Must purchase for each platform (Windows/Linux). Good news is I can buy one of each for multiple computers I use.

Slow startup compared to MS Office. Excellent File compatablity, and the comment about much smaller native file sizes is true. Gets very slow on REALLY HUGE (20MB+ documents).

Get your feet wet with OpenOffice (free). Move to StarOffice for saving $$ on licencing for many people who are power users and need the extra/better tool add-ins.

OpenOffice has no phone support. Active end-user community via email. Some decent 3rd party training starting to show up.

Keep legal on some MS Office seats to test complex documents against X-Office (star/open). I'll go away now and give my $ to Amazon. Best price out there.


what a find!   November 2, 2003
31 out of 34 found this review helpful

Loved it. The new look and feel is great, it's even easier to use, and the startup time is a lot better, at least on Windows. I especially like the export to PDF function - I'm a professor, and this is a great way to share documents and know that they'll look right at the other end. It does everything I need as well as Office, or better. My one request to Sun: add a "Format Painter" function to the presentation tool. All around - what a great piece of software, and great value too!