ON TEST OFFICE SUITES
StarOffice 5.2
STAR
TURN
TIM SCHÜRMANN
The new version of Sun s
StarOffice 5.2 office suite, which
is free of charge and now
open source, has been around for
a few months. It has many
improvements, but does it have
what it takes to tempt office
users away from Microsoft Office
and Windows?
Figure: The long-awaited According to Sun, StarOffice 5.2 incorporates more version 5.1. It s still an integrated package with its
new version of StarOffice
than 100 improvements. However, as the version own dedicated desktop. This makes StarOffice feel
is finally available
number suggests, these changes are mainly very different to every other office package, and it s a
improvements, nolt new features. solution that confuses newcomers and irritates old
As usual, the installation procedure uses the hands alike. It s rumoured that Sun will revert to using
wizard with which users of StarOffice 5.1 will separate, standalone applications for StarOffice 6.0:
already be acquainted. An automatic migration if so, this will be a very welcome move.
option is supposed to help you transfer your existing Experienced users of StarOffice will find that
settings from the earlier version. Unfortunately, dur- Sun has extended several of the existing functions
ing our test, neither toolbar nor menu modifications so that they can now be used more efficiently. For
were transferred from StarOffice 5.1. example, the AutoComplete function, which was
introduced in StarOffice 5.1, has been extended to
other parts of the package. As soon as the first
The changes in general...
characters have been entered in file dialog boxes or
One thing StarOffice shares with its Windows coun- internet address entry fields, for example, the rest is
terparts: it s a big piece of code and takes a long time added automatically. Where there are several possi-
to load. Once started, things look much the same as ble options a simple press of a button is enough to
30 LINUX MAGAZINE 2 · 2000
OFFICE SUITES ON TEST
run through all the possible entries. The extended ry functions are easier to use than the
context menus and the improved navigator in the equivalents in WordPerfect. In particular,
word processing program are claimed to help make the graphics displayed by these func-
the package more user-friendly. tions are much clearer. However, in the
Spell-checkers for many languages are included test on larger documents, the proce-
with the package but you can now incorporate dure under WordPerfect proved to be
additional languages, even dictionaries from exter- more user-friendly as a helpful tool bar is
nal suppliers. Buyers of the CD version of StarOffice permanently displayed.
5.2 gain another advantage besides that of avoiding Fonts in StarWriter are now dis-
a 100MB download: the CD contains additional lan- played in the drop down font list box
guage modules which can t be obtained over the usinng the actual font so that you can see
Internet. However, the proofing tools don t stretch exactly what each one looks like. Howev-
to a grammar checker, something that only Word- er, this function doesn t go as far as the
Perfect Office 2000 provides. real-time preview from WordPerfect
StarOffice woos new users with its improved Office 2000, which shows the effect in the docu-
and extended file import and export filters, which ment itself.
are said to guarantee complete compatibility with The formula editor has also been improved. If
Microsoft Office 97 or 2000 documents. As we you have a good command of the associated com-
found during our test, Sun has in fact managed to mand language you no longer have to use the for-
achieve the best import results of all the office pack- mula editor window when entering formulae. You
ages we have tested. StarOffice smoothly imported can now enter the formula command directly in the
our Office 97 test files, which have never before text document.
been correctly processed. The only flaw was the
position of a few of the images. If a file contains
The rest of the action
Visual Basic code StarOffice simply ignores it. There
On balance
are no tools to assist the convertion of this into A notable new feature of StarCalc is the euro con-
StarOffice s own script language  StarBasic , so verter, which is now available in the Autopilot. The price/performance ratio of
users who need to must go to the trouble of doing Adabas D has also been licensed for the integrated StarOffice is and remains
it manually. database StarBase. Unfortunately, this alternative unbeaten. With its wide range
No matter how good the ability to import search engine isn t a direct component of StarOffice of functions this office pack-
Microsoft Office documents, the benefits are wast- so you will have to download a package of about age almost matches up to the
ed if you can t keep the same fonts. StarOffice s 10MB for this module from the StarOffice website. considerably more expensive
TrueType support could do better. These fonts can The vector drawing program StarDraw now WordPerfect Office 2000,
only be printed after you have converted them to supports transparency and can create graduated which itself lacks a few facili-
Type-1 format. The other office packages offer a colour fills. This puts the module used to edit ties that StarOffice has. How-
more user-friendly option in the form of an external bitmap graphics in the shade. The image editing ever, Sun urgently needs to do
TrueType font manager. tools in this module urgently need to be extended. something about the user
On the other hand, the presentation program interface, and in particular the
StarImpress is still unbeaten under Linux in respect integrated desktop, which
X-Server shut down
of its range of functions. many users will find far from
We found one still unsolved fault. Any attempt to As with StarDraw, StarImpress also supports intuitive.
open the 3D-Convolver (which conjures a three- transparency and graduated fills. This is also the The long application load
dimensional object out of a two-dimensional object) only presentation program under Linux that is able times are also annoying. Start-
in StarDraw resulted in a black screen and immedi- to produce animations similar to the animated GIF up takes longer than it does
ate termination of the whole X-Windows system. images. Output options have also been greatly for WordPerfect Office 2000,
Like its competitor Applixware, StarWriter extended, particularly as regards network capability. which is not exactly a speed
now incorporates  text components which are It is now possible to export a presentation as a demon. Most of the enhance-
here known as  AutoText . This function allows  WebCast . To do this you first store the necessary ments in version 5.2 improve
you to associate a passage of text with an abbrevi- files on a server in HTML format. The presenter then on the details and allow for
ation. When the relevant abbreviation is entered controls the presentation from his computer, deter- more efficient use of the pack-
into the document it is replaced by the corre- mining when a new slide should be displayed in the age. Overall, StarOffice 5.2 is
sponding text. This can make things considerably viewers internet browsers. an excellent office package.
easier for users who frequently need to use stan- A small, standalone program by the name of
dard text passages such as those recurring in busi-  StarOffice Player has been developed which can %
ness letters. be used to play presentations on computers on
Sun seems to have borrowed an idea from which StarOffice is not installed. This can also be
WordPerfect and added an option to create differ- downloaded free of charge. Finally, it s worth men-
ent directory forms such as content directories or tioning that the e-mail program built into StarOffice
glossaries. StarOffice even allows you to create a lit- has been greatly improved by the addition of an
erature directory which takes its data from the rele- integrated PGP coding feature. However, this
vant database. For smaller documents these directo- requires a Java environment to be installed. %
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