So what is

StarOffice 5 for Linux is comparable to Office 97 for Windows except for Access. In fact StarOffice 5 will read and write Word and Excel files without any conversion. So you can create a Word doc at home on Linux and continue working on the doc at work. As well as being a Linux version of StarOffice, there is a Win 95/8 version. If you have a network with some Win 95/8 and Linux boxes, you can share documents as the document formats are the same. I have personally created some documents with the Win 95/8 version and saved them on the Linux server via Samba, then edited the same document seconds later with the Linux version without as much as a blink of a problem !!!.

StarOffice 5 personal edition is FREE. I have been using it for a few months now and it is one of the convincing factors for me to shift to Linux as my desktop PC operating system of choice.

The StarOffice motto is "do everything in one place". This means everything !. Documents, e-mail, spreadsheets, slide shows, create web pages, and databases.

I could waffle on 'till the cows come home !!! I believe that for an application to be enjoyable to use, it must be easy to use and also look exciting to use.

Why not have a look at some more screen shots and see for yourself. StarOffice also integrates well with KDE.


StarOffice main desk top with KDE Image is 1024 x 768 - 32 Kb	StarWriter - full featured word processor Image is 1024 x 768 - 54 Kb

This spreadsheet could be an xls file ... Image is 1024 x 768 - 40 Kb	Wysiwyg web page editor - great ! Image is 1024 x 768 - 238 Kb