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Chapter 4

here's something you can't do with Word or the rest of the Office package,
but you can do with OOo: you can legally install it on as many computers as
you want. You can even give it to your friends.

NOTE

If you or your company prefers a traditional relationship with a software vendor, you
can purchase StarOffice from Sun Microsystems for $75.95 for a single copy or $50 per
copy for 150. StarOffice is an enhanced version of OpenOffice.org, with additional
translation filters, fonts and clip art, a manual, and a database (see www.sun.com/
software/staroffice/6.0/index.html).

A frequent criticism of open source software is that you have to pay for

support, but you can get free support for OOo if you subscribe to its free
mailing lists. This support is as detailed and as accurate as any you can get
from most paid technical support services.

If you know Word, you can be comfortable with OOo Writer in just min-

utes (see Figure 4-7). OOo Writer matches Word feature for feature and even
beats Word in some areas. For example, the Stylist floating palette for setting
formatting styles is more convenient than Word's style catalog and extends to
more than just paragraphs and characters. OOo Writer also offers text frames
and lets you use styles with them, making it far easier than Word to set up
multiple columns or a newsletter layout.

Figure 4-7: OpenOffice.org Writer looks just like Word and matches it feature for feature.

I've spent many frustrating hours with Word trying to make different head-

ers and footers work properly in a long document. But you can control headers
and footers far more easily in OOo Writer, because these elements are text

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