Openoffice.Org 1.0 Resource Kit [With CDROM]

by Floyd Jones and Solveig Haugland

OpenOffice.org Resource Kit features an official distribution on CD For Windows, Linux, and Solaris platforms and great extras like macros and the MacOS developer distribution. Includes a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0131407457
• ISBN13: 9780131407459
• Release Date: March 2003
• Publisher: Pearson
• Length: 1048 Pages
• Weight: 3.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 7.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Lucid, comprehensive, and enjoyable

Knowing that it's mostly intelligent, clear-thinking people who will be willing to venture outside the for-your-own-good totalitarianism of Microsoftland, the authoress efficiently plots you a straight-line course to mastery of the product. She doesn't waste your time telling you where to find the File menu, or, at the other extreme, how to parse the source code. Her revivifying doses of occasional wit are actually amusing - unlike the Borscht Belt shtick found in the "For Dummies" volumes. And there's no bullstuff either. One section is aptly titled "How To Turn Off Annoying Features". And when she finds the DirectCursor feature more of a menace than an asset, she tells you in plain words to avoid it. Even the page layouts are refreshingly sane and uncluttered. I'm actually reading the thing cover-to-cover, believe it or not.Best computer instruction book ever?

Excellent Replacement for MS Office

With Microsoft about to make another snatch at your wallet with its release of MS Office 2003, it's more than ever worth knowing that you don't have to succumb, you don't have to shell out the $149-$499 Bill Gates plans to charge you in order to maintain the 76% profit margin he earns on the sale of his software suite. You can, instead, order The OpenOffice.Org 1.0 Resource Kit for $28 and receive a superb office suite, complete with a well-written 1,000-page manual that covers all of the integrated programs. Or, if you have broadband, you can go straight to the web site in the title and download the entire suite for free!I discovered the OpenOffice.org software about a month ago and downloaded it on my office computer. My professional responsibilities call for heavy use of a word processor and light use of a spread sheet. I was able to download, install, and run OpenOffice.org without a hitch and found that these two functions, at least, are superb replacements for the MS Office software I had been using. Since my home computer has only a dial-up line, I ordered The OpenOffice.Org 1.0 Resource Kit for that and again had perfect success loading the suite from the included CD-ROM. I recommend the latter approach, in fact, even if you do have broadband, since the thorough, lucid manual will allow you, in short order, to make fuller use of the software than before. I am myself, for example, making much better use of the OpenOffice.org spread sheet than I ever made of Excel because of the detailed instructions in the manual.The software and the manual have both made a believer of me. OpenOffice.org seems to me the most usable software yet to come out of the "open source" movement (I have hopes for Linux but they haven't yet been fulfilled). I have used OpenOffice.org to open and revise MS Word documents and Excel spread sheets and to save them in both the compact, efficient XML file format and the baggier MS Office format for the use of colleagues. As a private user in a professional setting, I have been completely satisfied with this software and guide. As a result, it gives me great pleasure these days to look at Bill Gates' absurd prices for his now-obsolete product and to know that this is money I never need to give him again. So if you're looking for a complete, full-featured suite of the common office programs, you have a choice: You can spend less than $30 for this book and CD-ROM, or you can spend hundreds for MS Office. My advice: spend the $30, keep the hundreds.

Wonderful resource

So far this book has answered all but the most detailed questions I've had. And those are usually answered in posts to one of OpenOffice.org's mailing lists - some by Solveig herself. I was pleased to see the database section expanded from the authors' previous StarOffice 5.2 Companion.The authors give an honest description, warts and all, of the most useful operations of OOo.

Got OpenOffice.org? This should be your next purchase!

If you have discovered the freedom, flexibility and cost-savings of open source software--namely, OpenOffice.org's office suite, then your next purchase should be this book. There is documentation on the web but who wants to go searching for answers when you can have a printed resource within arm's reach.This tome covers all of the component programs in the suite and turns over every stone to deliver to you all of the info needed to become proficient--or attain power-user status. It's up to you!After you download or purchase the low-cost CDs of this otherwise free, open source program, buy this book. It's simply a natural extension of the office suite!Here's to saving money for all of us! Cheers!

Software, great book, good choice.

I bought ten of these kits for the people in my office, since we're switching the local rec center over to OOo. I really like it. It's one-stop shopping for the book and CD, and it's got a good range of information for the sysadmin (me) as well as people who are just running some spreadsheets. I heartily recommend the troubleshooting section of the install chapter. I also sat down my users and ran them through the tutorials in the book, and they're getting going with the product pretty well, esp considering they're not real intense computer people. It's a pretty fun book too, easy to understand without having to interpret.This is a really good price. My own opinion is, nobody should be bothering to get the StarOffice product anymore, unless they're a huge business and really want support. StarOffice and OpenOffice.org are virtually the same (just some missing templates basically). This resource kit is really the best choice if you're looking to get something beyond a free Openoffice.org download and trying to figure it out on your own. There's a lot of docs on the openoffice site but wrangling them all together and finding what you need can take some time. The book index is good so you can find stuff pretty easily.I've used Haugland's StarOffice book, which is also excellent, at a previous job, and the OpenOffice book you get with this is quite similar. So just a note, if you already have the Staroffice 6.0 Companion, you don't need this book, but when you're telling your friends to ditch Microsoft, tell them to just get the OpenOffice resource kit and they'll be good to go.