From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Oct 30 14:27:58 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA15780 for questions-outgoing; Thu, 30 Oct 1997 14:27:58 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (gregl1.lnk.telstra.net [139.130.136.133]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id OAA15775 for ; Thu, 30 Oct 1997 14:27:54 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from grog@freebie.lemis.com) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) id IAA03636; Fri, 31 Oct 1997 08:57:42 +1030 (CST) Message-ID: <19971031085742.07824@lemis.com> Date: Fri, 31 Oct 1997 08:57:42 +1030 From: Greg Lehey To: Doug White Cc: FreeBSD Questions Subject: Re: ApplixWare vs. StarOffice References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.84e In-Reply-To: ; from Doug White on Thu, Oct 30, 1997 at 11:52:28AM -0800 Organisation: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, Oct 30, 1997 at 11:52:28AM -0800, Doug White wrote: > We're drifting a bit here but what the heck ;-) > > Anyone out there tried ApplixWare and StarOffice and have any opinions? > I'm in desperate need of a word processor and don't want to clog my laptop > with MicroSlop Word while I'm trying to sell it. > > My previous experience with the StarOffice betas was not enjoyable. The > installation was confusing and some features were broken for the English > case, such as the SmartQuotes. (There are no separate `` and '' > characters in the X font set, but it does have the German << and >>.) These aren't German. I think they must translate into `` and '' (or the Real German ,, and ''). But you can turn them off. > I also had trouble with it crashing intermittiently and with > graphics artifacts and a generally unstable interface. I find this too. > ApplixWare is cheap for students ($80!) and apparently has a nice word > processor and spreadsheet modules. That's still $80 more than Star Office. > Presentation graphics is nice but not necessary. The word processor is > the priority. > > Thanks for any insight or recommendations to forward to -chat. :-) My wife uses StarOffice and loves it. I hate it. I suspect that I would hate ApplixWare and Microslop Wart just as much: I don't like the interface. It's full of irrelevant pictures which I can't make any sense of, and it doesn't seem to offer the functionality I need. But I'm not the typical word processor user. The German magazine c't did a test of Microsoft-based word processors a while back, and gave StarOffice better marks than Wart (but it downgraded Wart because of significant bugs). Greg