StarOffice 7, GNOME-Office 1.0 Released

An anonymous reader writes "Abiword 2.0 has been released. Finally the Linux desktop has a quality word processor that is faster to load than OpenOffice.org and includes proper footnotes. It also no longer uses its own font directory. At the same time Enchant 1.0.0 has been released, a cross-platform abstract layer to spellchecking. Enchant has been proposed to be a Freedesktop.org standard." That's not the only news, though: Abiword 2.0 is part of the just-released GNOME-Office 1.0, which, as riggwelter writes "coordinates GNOME2 versions of AbiWord, Gnumeric, and GNOME-DB, the database interface." Sun's StarOffice has just reached version 7, as well: read on below for some more information on that, including a first-look review.

Jim Hall writes "I just noticed that Sun Microsystems has released StarOffice 7. I've been using the StarOffice betas for a while now, so I have been eagerly awaiting this release! StarOffice is, of course, based on the ever-popular OpenOffice.org. StarOffice 7 software adds functionality to enable export to PDF, and to the Macromedia Flash format. It also introduces the new StarOffice Configuration Manager, the StarOffice Software Development Kit, a macro recorder, and support for assistive technologies, as well as for complex text layouts. Multi-platform running on Linux, Solaris OS and Windows. Only US$79.95 to buy your copy for home (free for edu, plus cost of media+shipping.) Now is a great time to show this to your boss and pitch that 'MS Office to StarOffice' conversion project."

An anonymous reader writes "NewsForge has a 'drive-by' 'quick-peek' look at the new StarOffice up on their site."

One suggestion on office software for the Free Software desktop: Casually re-start a friend or co-worker's Windows computer with Knoppix and show them you can open their Word files with OpenOffice.org. Mention their machine is moderately safe from Word-borne viruses until they reboot into Windows.

Comments

No macros and they JUST got footnotes?

[Dancin_Santa]

That can't possibly be right.

On another note, I've been trying to pick up some Linux programming in my spare time and am completely confused. I come from a Win/Apple background where the system APIs are fairly straightforward and well documented. In contrast, Linux APIs are pretty much non-existent.

I assume that the standard C library exists, but once I try to do any windowing, I am faced with half-documented APIs from a multitude of sources. Gnome, KDE, etc., it's all very confusing. The worst part of it all is that the documentation is virtually nonexistent. Sure, there are blurbs here and there, but you'd be lucky to find a documentation system that links together related APIs, clearly enumerates all parameters and their meanings, and displays the data in a readable manner.

It makes me wonder how anyone gets anything done with this proramming environment.

If I run KDE, will I be able to run Abiword?

Re:No macros and they JUST got footnotes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Qt. It has superb documentation, examples and tutorials.

And as long as you're not producing proprietary software it's free. Okay, you have to sign your soul over to Canopy but you probably weren't using it anyway. That's kind of free.

The old debate...

[Iscariot_]

I'm sure everyone is tired of the old debate of GNOME vs. KDE, or StarOffice vs. KOffice, but I have a question of sorts...

Wouldn't it be better if theses camps to together? I mean, they're both basically competing with Microsoft (who has massive amounts of money to spend advancing their products), so why compete amongst themsevles? I like bits of both KDE and GNOME really. But I'd be in heaven if they got together to create a single desktop solution with the perks of both.

What do you think?