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Rating: 
Summary: A book for the simple minded.
Review: Finally they made the perfect book for the computer geek. No more text, just two pictures per page; while it still looks like a book on the shelve. One can just click through the examples and in no time will be able to handle StarOffice for the everyday use. A precaution has to made because StarOffice 5.2 is now out and has many more features and some changed menus, so that a few examples in the book don't work as expected. Anyone who does not like to read, read this book.
Rating: 
Summary: As limited and simplistic as the Windows version
Review: I gave Brian another chance, hoping the Linux version of his book would be techier, somehow. But it's still the same simplistic (as opposed to simplified) approach. For example, I couldn't find anything on how to set up printing in the Linux/Solaris window. (Printing is fairly important to me.) This extremely complex window isn't covered anywhere; I had to blunder through on my own to figure out how to do duplex printing and to figure out all the printing options. "Linux" isn't anywhere in the index, even. Yes, there are nice pictures everywhere, and what it covers it covers nicely. But as with the Windows book, this book mostly documents the things you could figure out on your own. It seems to have taken the approach of "Leave out all the hard stuff." Leaving the hard features out of the book doesn't mean you won't encounter them (late at night, before a deadline) in StarOffice.
Rating: 
Summary: Good book
Review: I have to agree with the authors who rated this book highly. Reading the reviews (there's actually only one) that didn't rate it highly, the complaint seems to be that it doesn't provide enough depth. It certainly doesn't provide a lot of depth, but personally, I've found that it provides as much depth as I need to get normal things done, and for the price, I don't see how you can ask for much more. And on the subject of providing "enough information," it should be mentioned that the information in this book is layed out VERY CLEARLY. This is the second book in the "Fast and Easy" series that I've tried, and I've been consistently pleased with their format.
Rating:
Summary: Good book
Review: I have to agree with the authors who rated this book highly. Reading the reviews (there's actually only one) that didn't rate it highly, the complaint seems to be that it doesn't provide enough depth. It certainly doesn't provide a lot of depth, but personally, I've found that it provides as much depth as I need to get normal things done, and for the price, I don't see how you can ask for much more. And on the subject of providing "enough information," it should be mentioned that the information in this book is layed out VERY CLEARLY. This is the second book in the "Fast and Easy" series that I've tried, and I've been consistently pleased with their format.
Rating:
Summary: Be productive with StarOffice 5.1, "Fast & Easy".
Review: Like the title suggests, "Fast & Easy". This a great manual for starting out with Sun's StarOffice 5.1. It is an illustrated manual that guides you through every monule of StarOffice 5.1 by using easy to understand examples. It's like using an illustrated tutorial. You learn how to work with and customize the desktop. There is excelent coverage of using and integrateing StarWriter, StarCalc, StarBase, StarImpress, StarDraw, StarMail, StarDiscussion & StarSchedule. I never new StarOffice could do so much till I got this book. If you are new to Linux and you want to get to know what you really have available to you on the production side of your office, get this book and learn how to use StarOffice.
Rating:
Summary: For the beginning StarOffice user...
Review: This is an excellent resource for the person who is new to the StarOffice Suite. This book provides excellent writing and illustrations to demonstrate the basic principles of using StarOffice 5.1 The book covers all of the basic techniques of using: StarWriter (Word Processing), StarCalc (Spreadsheet), StarBase (Database), StarImpress (Presentation), StarDraw (Graphic Design), StarMail & StarDiscussion (Mail and News Reader), and the StarSchedule (Scheduler). StarOffice 5.1 software runs native on the all-major operating systems and this book's topics cover ideas that can be applied across the operating system board. What works on StarOffice for Linux will probably work for StarOffice for Windows - there is very little difference between the specific OS versions. You need not buy a separate book for each OS you run. This may not be the best StarOffice book out there - but it is perfect for the new user and is probably the best new user guide. Unlike other new user guides - the material is not written for `Idiots' or `Dummies.' It is written by professionals for professionals and doesn't have jokes on every other page, but what it does have that other books do not are colorful tutorials - which almost guarantee the user success. I recently loaded up StarOffice 5.2 and this book will still be useful for anyone who uses this for the upgraded version. It probably won't be necessary to buy a new book with the new version. For advance users of StarOffice or similar Office Suites, or the user who needs more then a basic knowledge of StarOffice - this book will provide very little for you. There are several other books out there that cover StarOffice, macros and "tweaking" in greater detail.
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