Preface

StarOffice™ 8 is a full-featured office productivity suite with powerful standalone applications that can also open, edit, and save Microsoft Office documents. Whether you are writing a letter, performing complex calculations, creating a presentation, or creating a drawing, you'll find that StarOffice 8 meets your needs.

This StarOffice 8 Getting Started Guide helps you to install and to use the StarOffice productivity suite. StarOffice 8 includes the following applications:

• Writer — a text editor for writing letters and for creating web pages

• Calc — a spreadsheet application for calculations and charts

• Impress — a presentation application for colorful slides

• Draw — an image editing application for your line art

• Base — a database front end that keeps your records straight

• Math — tool for designing and inserting graphical formulas into your documents

Who Should Use This Book

This book is a basic reference for people who want to install and to start using StarOffice 8 right away. If this guide does not answer your questions, check out the online help that is available in each StarOffice 8 application.

How This Book Is Organized

Chapter 1 provides an overview on the installation of StarOffice 8.

Chapter 2 describes how to start StarOffice 8 and explains what you see on the screen.

Chapter 3 describes the different applications in the StarOffice 8 office suite.

The Appendix lists the main keyboard shortcuts that you can use in StarOffice 8.

The Glossary provides definitions for terms that you might not be familiar with.

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Note –

The figures that are used in this Guide use the Microsoft Windows XP default theme. The items that are shown in the figures might appear differently on your computer.

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Related Books

The following books provide supplemental information about topics in the StarOffice 8 Getting Started Guide and the online help for StarOffice.

• StarOffice 8 Administration Guide for the system administrator, on multiple installations

• StarOffice 8 Migration Guide for the system administrator, on converting from other applications

• Sun Java Desktop System Configuration Manager, Release 1.1 Administration Guide for the system administrator, on user and application policies

• StarOffice 8 Developer's Guide for the developer, on remote control of and by the application

• StarOffice 8 Basic Guide for the user with programming skills, on writing macros

Accessing Sun Documentation Online

The docs.sun.com^SM Web site enables you to access Sun technical documentation online. You can browse the docs.sun.com archive or search for a specific book title or subject. The URL is http://docs.sun.com.

Ordering Sun Documentation

Sun Microsystems offers select product documentation in print. For a list of documents and how to order them, see “Buy printed documentation” at http://docs.sun.com.

Typographic Conventions

The following table describes the typographic changes that are used in this book.

Table P–1 Typographic Conventions

Typeface or Symbol	Meaning	Example
AaBbCc123	The names of commands, files, and directories, and onscreen computer output	Edit your .login file.
AaBbCc123	What you type, contrasted with onscreen computer output	machine_name% su Password:
AaBbCc123	Command-line placeholder: replace with a real name or value	The command to remove a file is rm filename.
AaBbCc123	Book titles, new terms, and terms to be emphasized	Read Chapter 6 in the User's Guide.