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Freeware Solutions: An Office Alternative

Sun's StarOffice gives you Microsoft Office compatibility and a load of features--all for free.

Linda Grubbs

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Looking for an alternative to Microsoft Office? Want to save a few hundred dollars? If you're pinching pennies or if you just don't word-process or crunch numbers enough to justify the cost of Microsoft's suite, consider Sun Microsystems' StarOffice. Not only is it free--completely free, not just free for personal use--it's also available across multiple platforms, supporting Windows 9x and 2000, OS/2, Linux, and Solaris operating systems. StarOffice is easy to use, and it includes most of the features you'll find in other suites.

StarOffice is Internet savvy. It includes a Web browser, an e-mail client, and more. Its scheduling application lets you collaborate with others, track tasks, plan events, and sync with Palm-based PDAs. And of course, StarOffice includes a word processor, a spreadsheet, a presentation creator (think PowerPoint), and a database. Unlike most application suites (including Microsoft's), StarOffice presents all these tools to you in one window. In other words, instead of loading Word to write a letter and Excel to work up some figures, you just open the StarOffice program and select the sort of task you want to work on. This approach may seem a bit alien at first, but it's easy to get used to.

On the following pages, we'll show you how to grab your own copy of StarOffice, set it up, and get to work on new documents and existing Microsoft Office documents. Make sure you've got around 250MB of disk space, and click the link below to dive in.

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