OpenOffice.org Resource Kit 239
| OpenOffice.org Resource Kit | |
| author | Solveig Haugland, Floyd Jones |
| pages | 1040 |
| publisher | Prentice-Hall PTR |
| rating | 9 |
| reviewer | Eater |
| ISBN | 0131407457 |
| summary | An essential introduction to OpenOffice.org. |
With a stable 1.0 release and spectacular cross-platform functionality, it's finally time to seriously consider putting this software to work in your company. Whether you are completely new to OpenOffice.org or just moving from its predecessor StarOffice, you'll want to take a look at OpenOffice.org 1.0 Resource Kit from Prentice Hall PTR.
The "kit" consists of a well written tutorial book and a companion CD-ROM. The book's authors (Solveig Haughland and Floyd Jones) are salty veterans in the technical training field, and it shows in the quality of the text. The CD contains the OpenOffice.org release itself, as one might expect. It provides builds for every supported platform, to include the Mac OS X developer alpha version. At the time this review was written, two minor upgrades have been made available since my book's CD-ROM was pressed. These are, naturally, available for free via the OpenOffice.org web-site. In addition to the releases, the CD includes templates, macros, and examples from the developer community. The authors provide additional templates and resources at http://www.getopenoffice.org
The first five chapters of the book are devoted to basic issues such as installation, migrating existing data, printer issues, and global setup tips. Special guidance is given to users switching over from StarOffice, or even that Redmond company's office suite. Speaking of that company, OpenOffice.org is superb at converting Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files into its own open formats. The book shows how to use the handy "AutoPilot", which can perform batch conversions of your existing data for use with OpenOffice.org's equivalent applications. Originals are kept safely intact-- AutoPilot produces converted copies. This could make a large office transition much easier, if not completely seamless.
The next six chapters cover the creation of written documents in fantastic detail. The organization of this section is quite intuitive; you'll easily learn how to create a simple letter. When you're ready to write your memoirs, you won't need to buy another book--it's all there: complex formatting options, page layout functionality, object manipulation, linking cross-references, and indexing. And don't forget office goodies like mail merges, label printing, and business cards.
Chapters 13-17 focus entirely on web-page development. Serious web designers may find this section bordering on useless, but the casual user will be able to create a home page without learning a single tag of HTML.
The next several chapters deal with Calc (a spreadsheet program), Impress (for creating presentations), and Draw ("the best drawing program you've never used," say the authors). The layout of each section follows the comprehensive example from the earlier chapters detailing OpenOffice.org's word processor, Writer. Basic topics are organized neatly along with the more advanced ones, and neither seem to get in the way of the other. Both the novice and the expert will find very little lacking from this material.
Organizations who deal frequently with databases will not be disappointed with OpenOffice.org, either. The final three chapters of the book explain how to incorporate data from any flavor database you're likely to be using in your network. Throw in an appendix on macros, and you've got one very complete tutorial masquerading as an all-in-one reference. I'm very picky when it comes to my geek shelf space, and this one gets high marks in all the important areas: comprehensive, well organized, and with a great signal-to-noise ratio.
We have learned that superior open source software alone isn't always enough to supplant the existing closed source way of doing things. However, "document it, and they will come!" The OpenOffice.org 1.0 Resource Kit will go a long way toward fulfilling that prophecy.
Reader Marcus Green sent in a review of this book as well. Here are some of his thoughts:
In addition to the document management features the book covers the more "Page Layout" style features of StarOffice such as the ability to manage columns and to place vertical text running up the page. These are features I was not even aware existed in StarOffice before I read this book.The StarOffice companion has over 1030 pages, but it is really bigger than it sounds because it is very dense. Although it has many screen shots, plenty of use is made of text based instructions. Instead of repeating instructions, the text will often point you to the page where a concept was first explained. This does break up the flow of instructions but it also means that the book contains more information than if they had repeated the text every time it was needed.
I found the section on the graphics module useful because I had not realised how StarOffice has some slightly non-standard ways of working with menus and selections. For example I spent quite a bit of time trying to get the 3d shapes menu to pop out and show all the possible shape options. It was only on a closer reading of the text of this book did I appreciate that you need to click and hold down the mouse for a few seconds before the menu pops out.
The tone of the book comes across as being created by people who like the program rather than a creation of a faceless corporation. Thus in the graphics section they have included the amusing Moose with moving fly graphic that is used for the logo of the JavaRanch website. Here is an example of the text style from the section on macros. "Macros can do things like open a file when you do a particular task, process data, or take your grandmothers' credit cards and buy $3000 worth of cat toys." It also features a section titled "Turning Off Annoying Features," which of course is about the autoformatting and word completion.
You can purchase the OpenOffice.org Resource Kit from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Too early? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't want to miss out on all the yummy 1.1 goodies and it sounds like it will be a pretty significant change.
Re:What's sad... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's sad... (Score:1, Insightful)
Microsoft Word does not import Microsoft Word correctly either
(Especially if you go from one version to another... and, in earlier versions, even if you changed from a Danish version to an English version...)
Re:Slightly OT, but related to OpenOffice: (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Hey this is great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's sad... (Score:1, Insightful)
However, rather than end on a sour note, I think constructive criticism of OO.o is useful feedback and will probably be oneday be acted upon. This is particularly the case given its not commerical in nature; downloads for free may not equal number of active users, so theres no mechanism by which users can otherwise vote with their feet. Its also the beauty of free software; one can criticise within the limits of not being an arsehole, and it won't nerf the project forever more (as may happen with a commerical package; it will just get withdrawn). The mindset in making criticism and acting upon it needs to be different and be seen to be different. So theres shortcomings but on the whole hope for the future. We don't do anyone any favours (users, developers, even businesses that could use it) by pretending all is rosey in the garden when it isn't. If you say OO.o is ready for your organisation and it turns out its not, then you aren't supporting the project and FS itself, you are causing a great deal of damage to both. The collective aim is surely excellence, and no-one ever said attaining that is easy.
Re:What's sad... (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to work for Kinko's way back when, and companies would send us documents created in Word 97, We'd open them in Word 97, and I'll be damned if Word couldn't format the stupid thing correctly. Bottom line is that people have been joking about MS Word not opening MS Word documents correctly, and they're not joking.
My experience with OO is that it will open a good 95% of what MS Office docs I throw at it. Haven't tried pivot tables or Docs with TOC's yet, though.
Re:What's sad... (Score:5, Insightful)
For instance, the version that was realized around the time of Windows 3.11 did not by default install the filters needed to load Word files from many other versions of word, particularly DOS and Macintosh. Even when the filters were installed, corruption of data was common.
More recently certain versions and installations of Word 2000 seemed to chew up my Word 95 files. Headers went missing, text was garbles, all sorts of stuff.
The reality is that MS is so obsessed in keeping monopoly though the closed and convoluted Word format, that they do not seem to care if inter-version file can be moved perfectly. Likewise, they are so obsessed with all user upgrading with every version, they do not seem feel responsible about full support of older formats.
What we need is a really inclusive formatted text file format. If companies like Sun, IBM, Redhat, and Thinkfree would just get together to come up with something, then there could be a competitive force. RTF just does not seem good enough. At this point MS is no longer selling the tool, but the file format. The competition needs to be on that basis.
Re:OpenOffice writer is not ready (Score:5, Insightful)
I like open source software. I like how it works. I like how I work when I'm using it. But using open source software is a bit of a social contract. Either pay back the developers with bug reports, or it shouldn't be important enough to complain about (to anyone).
Sometimes the bugs won't get fixed. Now THATS when you should REALLY complain!
Re:OS X Final is out...CD and review out of date. (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember, there's marketing, proofreading, typesetting, printing, binding, warehousing,
distribution, and shelving which all have to be done before you invest your time and money by buying it and reading it. Technology continually speeds up some of these steps, but it will never be automatic. It's just the price you pay for a printed book.
The web can provide you with the latest info, distro, whatever; however, it is a rare website which pours as much effort into one of its articles as a good author / editor / publisher is willing to put into a book.
Boring, Uninformative "Review" (Score:5, Insightful)
This review, in particular, almost seems like it was copied straight off of Amazon or something. Some of the quotes seem to come from a marketing firm rather than an independent critic:
Whether you are completely new to OpenOffice.org or just moving from its predecessor StarOffice, you'll want to take a look at OpenOffice.org 1.0 Resource Kit from Prentice Hall PTR.
If only there were some sort of meta-moderation for book reviews...
OpenOffice.org Resource Kit Review (Score: -1, Uninformative)
Re:Some solutions. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Table numbering, for example (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people don't notice this problem because most people never bother to change the default Word configurations. If Mary makes a Word document and sends it to Steve, and they're both using Word's defaults, it will look exactly the same when Steve opens it. However, if Mary then sends her Word document to Bob (who has spent many hours configuring Word to his liking) Bob's instance of Word will "translate" Mary's document into Bob's preferred formatting. Or rather, it will attempt to do so, with varying degrees of success.
I have personally had to tackle the problem of importing Word documents into Word more times than you can possibly imagine. I've also had to import Open Office documents into Open Office. The problem isn't that "Word sucks" or "Open Office sucks." The problem is that both programs need to find a way to properly import formatting rules on a per-document basis.
(Of course, that's easy for me to say, isn't it? I'm not the one trying to program it, am I?)
Re:Boring, Uninformative "Review" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's sad... (Score:3, Insightful)
or....
What's a résumé? Something to do with resuming a career?
It's the pretentious french name for CV, especially in the US.
In NZ, CV is the common name - hell most people probably don't realise it's short for some latin stuff.
Re:Too early? (Score:2, Insightful)