Rating: 
Summary: Yes!!! First-time, absolute, perfect mail merge success
Review: At this point, I don't even care what the rest of the book is about. I am so amazed. I set up my data source according to the instructions, no problem with that, connected to it with no problem with the letter autopilot, printed those with absolutely no problem, set up and printed the labels for the same addresses with absolutely no problem, and just got back from the post office.Might I add, I couldn't get mail merges to work with Microsoft no matter what I tried. I haven't done anything else yet, but for mail merges from Access address databases, this product and this book ROCK.
Rating:
Summary: Yes!!! First-time, absolute, perfect mail merge success
Review: At this point, I don't even care what the rest of the book is about. I am so amazed. I set up my data source according to the instructions, no problem with that, connected to it with no problem with the letter autopilot, printed those with absolutely no problem, set up and printed the labels for the same addresses with absolutely no problem, and just got back from the post office. Might I add, I couldn't get mail merges to work with Microsoft no matter what I tried. I haven't done anything else yet, but for mail merges from Access address databases, this product and this book ROCK.
Rating:
Summary: Great. A "must have" for StarOffice
Review: Great book, clearly written (and light hearted which seems sadly rare in technical books) and perhaps most valuable of all, _great_index_. You have a problem, you look in the index, you find the section you need, and then you find a clear, concise, to the point description of how to do what you need. StarOffice (version 6.0) is a great product (I'm using it on Windows, but I understand it runs on Linux and Solaris too). It's massively better value for money than anything micky$loth ever produced (it would be better value even at two or three times the price) but it's user interface is somewhat unfamiliar (well, duh, it's not micky$loth, so of course it's unfamiliar) and a little help learning your way around is worth it's weight in gold. Fortunately this multi-pound gem doesn't cost that much :) Get StarOffice, get this book, get on with your life, and find something more interesting to spend those license fees on than giving them to someone so rich he doesn't need it anyway ;>
Rating:
Summary: Excellent way to learn StarOffice
Review: I am using StarOffice at work and attempted to learn it with the manual that came with it but that did not cover the things I needed. I like the Companion better, because of course it covers more topics and because it is organized in a logical way for learning the product from the beginning. The first chapter for each application starts with simple basics like creating a new file and opening other Microsoft files, and progresses logically to the more complicated advanced topics. The instructions are easy to follow. This is not the typical book that is probably correct but confusing. It is very good for someone who is not familiar with the program. I would recommend this to someone who is learning StarOffice.
Rating:
Summary: Really well done, and easy to find information
Review: I am very pleased with this book, the "StarOffice 6.0 Office Suite Companion." It is an excellent balance of clarity and detail and while I cannot vouch for everyone I find that the "tech level" is just right for me. I am an experienced computer user so do not need a "Dummies" book, which this is not, but I do need direct, clear instructions to tell me what I want to do. Which this book provides. I was most delighted by coverage of setting up databases, which was clear and provided me everything I needed without mistaking me for a system administrator who cares deeply about views and joins. The database works for StarOffice have changed in this version and I was rather alarmed at the prospect of learning a new system, but the instructions were quite nice and I had no trouble at all linking to my Access databases. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants a supplement to the existing StarOffice manual, which is small and does not cover enough. This book also has many excellent illustrations while the StarOffice manual has almost no pictures.
Rating:
Summary: Really well done, and easy to find information
Review: I am very pleased with this book, the "StarOffice 6.0 Office Suite Companion." It is an excellent balance of clarity and detail and while I cannot vouch for everyone I find that the "tech level" is just right for me. I am an experienced computer user so do not need a "Dummies" book, which this is not, but I do need direct, clear instructions to tell me what I want to do. Which this book provides. I was most delighted by coverage of setting up databases, which was clear and provided me everything I needed without mistaking me for a system administrator who cares deeply about views and joins. The database works for StarOffice have changed in this version and I was rather alarmed at the prospect of learning a new system, but the instructions were quite nice and I had no trouble at all linking to my Access databases. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants a supplement to the existing StarOffice manual, which is small and does not cover enough. This book also has many excellent illustrations while the StarOffice manual has almost no pictures.
Rating: 
Summary: Almost as obtuse as StarOffice / OOo itself...
Review: I commend the authors for their end-to-end coverage of SO/OOo, but when I looked for a book for OOo I was hoping for something to help me get around its quirks. IMO OOo has a long way to go in terms of "intuitiveness" before it is really useful for people who have work to get done quickly. Maybe it's just me, but... Unfortunately I find that a lot of the language in this book is nearly intractable. Here's an example from "Understanding Outline Numbering" on p. 309: "...you must assign a number format (in the Outline Numbering window) to the level that will serve as the chapter number. But because only one paragraph style can be the chapter paragraph, you can only set up a running head that displays the contents of the chapter-numbered paragraph. Make sure the paragraph style you want to use for the outline numbering is set as the Level 1 paragraph style in the Outline Numbering window." Huh? One of the problems I have with the book, exemplfied above, is its constant references to doo-dads, dialogs, and other animals in the OOo zoo which, unless you've read it all forwards and backwards twice, you haven't memorized in order to be able to match nomenclature with concepts. It's hard to discern when the terminology is theirs or the program's (e.g. "running head"). So, while the book seems to be conceived as a quick reference for specific tasks, I find that I have to chase down other things in order to understand the "localized" coverage. I understand that removing the obtuse references by providing more in-line graphics would probably make this a 3,000 page tome. I feel bad for the authors b/c they seem to be in the position of having to exert a lot of energy explaining "around" what seems to be an oddly constructed program in the first place. I have not found how to avoid OOo's mad idiosyncrasies using this book. Some examples: OOo seems to insist that a table row be entirely contained on a page, despite some "don't break tables" option I recall. I use tables to format my resume, with multi-line text (e.g. previous job descriptions w/ bulleted items) occupying the cells, so it looks great when OOo insists on breaking my table so that the rows are not broken across pages. The result is lots of needless white space via forced inter-row page breaks. It should fill the whole page and break according to the lines of the paragraphs within the cells, something "natural" which Word does as a matter of course. Word also makes creating and filling up an on-the-fly outline a complete breeze. I gave up trying to figure out how to get OOo to do my "1", "1.1", "1.1.1" levels automatically. Until my wife conveyed the secret (tab!), which she apparently discovered in some lengthy, painful expedition, I was stuck with idiotic and illogical defaults. Lastly, when duplex printing multiple copies of a document with an odd number of pages, OOo has a nebulous need to start the first page of an (n+1)th copy on the unused side of the last page of the (n)th copy. So, docs come out like this (say, 5 page doc, duplex printing, 3 copies printed): Logical Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
Physical Page Sides: a b a b a b a b a b a b a b a Interstingly, that lower row looks like the sound you get when you make a constant tone while oscillating your index finger across your lips, which OOo makes you do a lot! The book spends a lot of ink in Chapter 4 "Printer Setup and Printing" trying to help you avoid this sorry scenario, but I've flipped all the switches to no avail. Printing one at-a-time and checking when they are done is just easier! These are a few examples of the "in the trenches" help I don't find here. To be fair, the authors do spend a lot of ink TRYING to help steer you clear of various oddities, but even then I find the book's style hard to follow. Most of the time I can't easily imagine what exactly they are warning me about. My point is that I can't find help to many of my specific issues in the book, which are not off-the-beaten-path uses, so what's the point? Annoyingly, I find many references in the book to "self explanatory" dialogs and wizards, which in effect tell me that I oughtn't need the book in the first place. I bought the book to go above and beyond what is available in the tool, duh. The book hasn't worked for me as either a "straight read" or as a reference. I read the first 200-or-so pages and quit, because I don't have that kind of time and I found my retention rate was too low. Read-do-read-do beats read-read-read-read-do? anytime! The fact that most of these first 200 pages cover just getting OOo "set up" ought to tell you something. I once read that "A user manual is just a large catalog of bad user interface choices." An aphorism indeed! On a positive note, I do appreciate the authors' use of explicit and implicit humor (sly references to Spinal Tap abound, I recall). I imagine one can do lots with SO/OOo, but I think it will be a while until it is well exemplified. I note the dearth of "real" examples to be found via the official sources. NB: I cannot recall finding whether the book itself was produced with SO/OOo... Different paths to learning exist, so for many this book is probably fine and deserves its accolades as found in other reviews. If learning by example is your thing, however, you would likely be better served by a "starting from scratch" step-by-step series of exercises that take you through the basics and give you opportunities to branch off at points into more advanced techniques. My goal is not to be harsh to the authors but rather to give my honest experiences. If other reviewers have had no such troubles, great!
Rating:
Summary: This is great!
Review: I got this a couple weeks ago and the only thing I'm annoyed about is that I didn't have it sooner. It's what I needed for the last three months while I was figuring things out the hard way. Finally got headers and footers working and page numbering, once I read the book. Get it, use it. Life will be easier.
Rating:
Summary: Exellent for both StarOffice and OpenOffice.org
Review: I just got this book last night. I have read only two chapters about Calc (the spreadsheet component) and I already am much more proficient at it than before. I am running OpenOffice.org under Linux, both StarOffice 6 and OpenOffice.org 1.0.1 are basically the same program, except OpenOffice does not include a database component, and StarOffice has some macros and some clip art and some other minor things that OpenOffice.org does not have, but I digress, the book points out any differences between the two suites, I have found only one in the two chapters that I have read so far. Excellent reference and tutorial for both OpenOffice.org and StarOffice
Rating:
Summary: Good stuff
Review: I really like this book because it's so normal and easy. You just look for what you need to do (not how the software works, but what you need to do) and there it is. They go over stuff that's hard to figure out on your own like how to print multiple column headings or row headings in a spreadsheet, what to check when it just won't print the way you want, how to bring in a text file to a spreadsheet (not the way you'd think), how to see the menu items that you need to do something, where in the world the settings are for all those defaults you want to change, and how to turn off all the automatic formatting. Good information on table resizing and headings and page breaks and stuff, too. The authors don't take each other seriously, either. They make fun of each other (in good fun of course) and make fun of a few problems with the product and just generally have a good time.
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