Sun paid close attention to feedback from StarOffice software users around the world when designing this new version....The result is a productivity suite that's extremely powerful yet easier to use than ever.
StarOffice 8 Software to be Released This Summer Improved Microsoft Office Compatibility and Overall Usability Enhancements
StarOfficeTM 8 is expected to be released this July and promises better usability, improved Microsoft Office compatibility and enhanced manageability. With this upcoming software, Sun reports that users will be able to exchange files across platforms more easily.
"Sun paid close attention to feedback from StarOffice software users around the world when designing this new version," says Iyer Venkatesan, Sun product line manager, Client Systems Group. "The result is a productivity suite that's extremely powerful yet easier to use than ever."
Key new features expected with its summer release include:
Usability:
Enhanced toolbars and menus: Toolbars will be detachable and movable, permitting more customization for the user. They also will be context-sensitive, presenting the user with all necessary tools for a given task. Menus have been streamlined and shortened for ease of transition for users of other productivity suites.
New look-and-feel for the StarOffice Impress presentation software: Will offer a new interface, including a multi-paned GUI that makes building a slide show easier, faster and more intuitive. Will have improved compatibility with Microsoft PowerPoint as well.
Redesigned front end for the StarOffice Base database software: Also offers a new interface improving usability. It will include wizards that help create forms, reports, queries, tables, views and relations.
Interoperability:
Dramatically improved Microsoft Office compatibility: Password-protected Word and Excel documents and spreadsheets; tables, paragraphs, table spaces, floating objects, page breaks and column breaks in Word documents; large Excel spreadsheets and formulas in Excel spreadsheets; and PowerPoint AutoShapes
Support for WordPerfect
Enhanced PDF export functionality: Users will be able to set the quality level for exported images or employ lossless compression. PDF export also will support hyperlinks, tables of contents, document outlines and notes.
Manageability:
Support for four platforms: SolarisTM Operating System, including SPARCR, AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon processor-based systems, Linux and Microsoft Windows.
Setup for each platform uses each operating system's most popular package type.
Support for 11 languages: Brazilian Portuguese, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
Easier multi-language installation: During setup, the administrator can select which languages should be installed and the user can switch between these languages during operation.
The beta version of this software was available for download, but has closed as of April 7, 2005.
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Sun paid close attention to feedback from StarOffice software users around the world when designing this new version....The result is a productivity suite that's extremely powerful yet easier to use than ever. 
StarOffice 8 Software to be Released This Summer
