OpenOffice.org Training, Tips, and Ideas

Printing Handouts in OpenOffice.org Impress

Note: See also a related article I wrote for TechTarget.com on creating presentations in OpenOffice.org 2.0.

Visitor Steve Ford had a question recently.

hello,
my instructor at school uses powerpoint slide presentations. i can't figure out how to print 4 to 6 slides on to 1 page.  my screen shows what i want to print, but when i print the screen all i get is 1 slide on the paper. 

Steve's question is in regard to one of the most unnecessarily complicated tasks in OpenOffice.org. The quick answer to his specific question is this:  with a presentation open,  choose File > Print, then click the Options button. In the upper-left Contents quadrant of the Printer Options window, make sure only the Handouts option is marked. Then click OK and print from the Print window.

Here's the full answer, however, to how to print handouts from soup to nuts in 1.x and 2.0 versions of the software.

 

Printing Handouts, 2 to 6 to a page, in OpenOffice.org 1.x and StarOffice 7 and before
First, create your presentation and get it how you want it.

Specifying the Number of Slides Per Page

Choose View > Master > Handout or click the Handout View icon on the right side of the work area.

You'll see the layout window where you can see how many slides you'll have on  a page.

Choose Format > Modify Layout. You'll see the Modify Slide window where you can change the number of slides on a page. Select a different number if you want and click OK.

Setting Up and Formatting Handouts

The default page layout is Landscape. If you want Portrait (vertical), choose Format > Page and select Portrait, then click OK.

 

Back in the main layout window, drag the slide placeholders to different locations if you want to change where they are.

If you want horizontal lines for people to take notes on, you'll need to use the line tool to draw a set of 3-4 lines by the first slide yourself. To make them even after you've drawn them, select them all and choose Alignment > Right (or Left, or Center).  Click the image to see a bigger version if you want.

To distribute them evenly after you've drawn them, select them all and choose Distribution. Choose Vertical and Center. Then copy that group of lines when they're how you want them (might want to group them first), and copy the lines to the other slides on the page.

When you're done, it should look something like this.

If you want a page number at the bottom of each piece of paper (not every slide), use the Text tool to draw a text box at the bottom of the page, and type the word page if you want. Then choose Insert > Fields > Page Number to add an automatically incrementing page number.

Printing Handouts

Now that you've done the setup, you're ready to print.

Choose File > Print.

Click the Options button.

In the Contents section of the Printer Options window, make sure that only the Handouts option is selected.

The default is for Drawing to be selected and that's all. That means you get one big slide per page. You absolutely must select Handouts here to print handouts. If you leave Drawing selected, your printer will also spit out a printout of your presentation with one slide on every page.

Click OK in the Printer Options window to save the changes and close the window.

If you want to print just a subset of the pages, in the Print window, select the Pages option and type 1, 1-6, etc. The page count refers to slides, not pieces of paper. Also, if you want to print slides 1-6 and 13-18, you need to type a semicolon between the ranges, as in 1-6;13-18

That's all! That last part is the secret. Getting to the layout window was too complicated, and setting up the note-taking lines was a bit of a pain to do manually, though at least those lines will stay there now that you've done them. But the last part, marking Handouts, is the main tricky thing that is really hard to find.

Printing Handouts, 2 to 6 to a page, in OpenOffice.org 2.0 and StarOffice 8
It's a lot like printing handouts in 1.x. Read through that section if you haven't already. I'm going to go over the few differences here.

Specifying the Number of Slides Per Page

This is simpler and different than 1.x. In your open presentation, just click the Handouts tab above the slide view.

In the slide layout view that appears, you want to look to the right and find the Layouts tab.

Now choose the number of slides you want per page.

Setting Up and Formatting Handouts

This is the same as 1.x. See the 1.x setup and formatting section.

Printing Handouts

This is the same as 1.x. See the 1.x printing section. As before, be sure to select just the Handouts option in the Printer Options window.

 

Applying and Creating Arrows in Draw, Including Unfilled Arrows, and "Arrows" From Special Characters

Sure, you like the nice little triangles and double arrows in the list of arrowheads you get with OpenOffice.org. They're nice. They point.

But sometimes you need a little something extra. Something fun, something for your schematics, something for your UML diagram (UML is a little tough to do, more on that in other blogs), something you just need.

Here's how to create your own arrows, or line ends (I'll be using the terms interchangeably).

First, though, the basics. How do you apply them? How do you get the line ending, the arrowhead, of your choice, onto a line?

 

 

Applying Arrows and Making Them Big Enough to See

You have a line. You want to put an arrow on the end or you want to change it. How do you do it?

First, draw the line with any of the line or curve tools on the Drawing object bar. Be sure it's selected.

Then apply the line end. The quick way is to click on the dropdown list at the top of the work area, and just select what you want for each end of the line.

However, the default size of the line ends is really small. You'll usually need to make the end bigger. So select your line, choose Format > Line, and in the far more powerful window that appears, select your line end styles. Select the size, and while you're at it you can change line styles too. Click the image below to see a bigger version of the window.

 

Loading the Extra Arrows

The arrows that OpenOffice.org comes with are stored in .soe files, usually in your openoffice.org\user\config directory. There are two by default; you can only have one loaded at once.

NOTE: You can put all your line ends that you create yourself in a separate one, if you want. More on that later.

The style files are arrowhd.soe and standard.soe. Standard.soe has hardly any. Arrowhd.soe has a bunch more. To load a different style file, choose Format > Line, click the Arrow Styles tab, and click the Load Arrow Styles icon.

In the dialog box, select a different style file and click OK.

 

Creating a Basic Arrow

Here are the rules. You can create a line end with any character, polygon, contour, curve, or line in OpenOffice.org. This means most of the shapes in the drawing toolbar, like the puzzle piece, though some like the smiley face won't work. However, basically if you just draw anything using the drawing tools, it'll work.

All of these will work as line ends.  The first three will end up filled.

If you find yourself with a shape that you think should work but doesn't, or just a shape you want to use of the wrong type, convert it to the correct type. Select it, right-click on it and choose Convert, and select Polygon, Curve, or whatever works for you.

You can also use the line tools to draw filled shapes, like the angled straight-line tool that I used to draw this clumsy-looking crown shape (drawn with grid showing).

When you draw a shape, you might want to have the grid on so it'll look reasonably regular. Choose View > Grid > Display Grid, and Snap to Grid as well.

 

So let's assume you've got your shape. I'm going to use the crown. Draw the shape right-side-up, by the way.

 

Select the shape and choose Format > Line. Click on the Arrow Styles tab. The Add button should be enabled; if it isn't, you don't have the right kind of shape drawn. Click the image below to see a bigger version.

 

Click Add, and name the line end something. (The line end will be saved in the currently loaded .soe file.) Click the image below to see a bigger version.

 

Click OK, and you'll see a preview of what the shape is like. Click the image below to see a bigger version.

 

NOTE: Line ends are always filled unless you go to great lengths to avoid that. I cover that later in this post.

 

Click OK.

 

Now the shape will show up in the lists with the other line ends.

 

Creating an Arrow With a Special Character (or Any Letter)

If you want an arrow that's shaped like the greek symbol for pi, you can do it.

Use the text tool to draw a text box.

Click inside the text box and choose Insert > Special Character. Find the symbol you want and click OK. (Or just type a Z or a W or whatever character you want.)

Make the character bigger if necessary with the font size dropdown list, and change the font as well if you want.

Select the text box, and then just create the line end as I described above.

You can't use a word as a line end, by the way, just a character.

Here's a couple lines with the pi ending and another special character.

 

Creating Your Own .soe Line Styles File

If you want your own styles in a separate file, here's what you do. Before you start creating, just choose Format > Line, click the Arrow Styles tab, and click the Save File icon. Name the file something like mystyles.soe and click OK.

That new styles file is now loaded, with the default arrow styles from the standard.soe file. Now just create your line ends as you would normally.

 

Draw a Line With an Arrow in the Middle

You can't actually do a single line with an arrow in the middle. But you can do two lines, with an arrow at the end of the first one. To make sure they don't separate when you move them, use the connector lines.

Here's the connector line palette.

Here are two connector lines, creating the impression of one line with an arrow midway through.

Creating Unfilled Arrows

Thanks to the clever folks in this discussion, I discovered that you can fool Draw into thinking something's closed. Well, it is closed, but you do it all a little differently. This approach is a bit of a pain in the tookus but it works, and once it's done, it's done.

Display the grid; choose View > Grid > Display Grid.

Use one of the two straight-line drawing tools; the squarer one is better.

Draw a triangle for this practice run. Start drawing a normal triangle, but instead of connecting after the third line, double back as shown.

Then complete the triangle so that it's actually a very long thing rectangle bent twice to form a triangle.

Click the Edit Points icon on the Drawing toolbar at the bottom of the work area.

Zoom into about 400%. (Choose View > Zoom.)

Drag each of the two points of the disconnected end toward the other line, so they're almost but not quite touching.

Zoom back out. Click the Edit Points icon again to turn off that function.

Now just create the line end as you normally would.

Here's a picture of the triangle, and a line with the line end applied.

Note that with unfilled shapes, you get the line intruding into the shape very slightly. (Mark Center in the Lines window to change it from definitely intrusion to very slight intrusion.)

 

In the Name of All That Is Holy, Use Graphics Styles

Once you've got a line that you like, with the ends you like, the size you like, with the line width and type you like, etc. that you're going to reuse, SAVE IT.

NOTE: Graphics styles are like the paragraph and character styles in Writer, and combine all these attributes as applicable. Your specific arrows that you create are also called arrow styles, and are saved in the .soe file that's loaded when you create it. But when you're combining a bunch of line and arrow types and widths and sizes, then those attributes are stored in a graphics style in the Styles and Formatting window. That's what I'm talking about here.

Select your line  and choose Format > Styles and Formatting. Click on the New Style From Selection icon with the green + sign.

Name the style something and click OK.

Now, the next time you want that kind of line, draw the line, select it, choose Format> Styles and Formatting, and find the style you created in the list. Double-click the style name. All that painful formatting you did last time will be applied instantly this time.

Styles you create stay in the document you're in. To get a line style from another Draw document, just copy a line with that style, or use templates (which is a whole nother topic).

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That's all there is to applying and creating your own line ends! Simple, huh? 

 

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Fun With Fontwork in Draw

 

Fontwork is a feature that lets you create curved, angled, wavy, and other kinds of text. Use it for CD labels, for festive banners, for anything where text needs to look interesting and follow a particular angle or line.

Fontwork previously was.....interesting. Doable, but interesting and just a little twitchy. And not a lot of labels in the window, so it was kind of hard to figure out.

But it's a whole new, simpler, slicker, more wizardy approach this time in OpenOffice.org 2.0.

1. Click the Fontwork icon on the Drawing toolbar.

2. In the window that appears, double-click the style you want.

3. A piece of text with that style will appear in your slide.

4. Double-click the Fontwork text, select the black plain text that appears, and type the text you want.

5. Change the font if you like as usual, with the font dropdown list at the top left of the work area, or with the Character window.

6. Change the font size by holding down the shift key and dragging a corner handle, as you would a graphic.

7. Format the text color and line width, not with the normal text controls, but with the line and area fills.

8. In the Fontwork toolbar that appears, use the controls to change the entire style of the text, change letter height, text justification, and other options. If you don't see this toolbar, choose View > Toolbars > Fontwork.

9. Use the yellow handle to change the angle of the text.

If you didn't use the old 1.x Fontwork, trust me...this is soooo much better.

George Ou's Performance Benchmarks and Some Missing Test Parameters

George Ou ran some benchmarks and it seems OpenOffice.org is a little out of shape compared to the seemingly speedy Excel.

I'm not a programmer and have not done a lot of benchmark tests so am accepting the info in George Ou's article for the sake of this post.

That said, part of the memory issue is possibly that OpenOffice.org is one program with the capacity to create and run all the different document types--Writer, Calc spreadsheets, Impress presentations, Draw diagrams and drawings, etc. I love being able to choose File > New > Text Document, then File > New > Spreadsheet, then open a presentation, without having to start up a new program every time.

For an apples-to-apples comparison, it might be a good idea to start up Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Visio, and then compare memory usage to OpenOffice.org.

I'd like to see benchmarks on that.

I'd also like to see benchmarks on Powerpoint, Word, and Visio. 

Anyway, all other topics aside, buying more memory is still way cheaper than buying Microsoft Office. ;>   (And using OpenOffice.org Writer is still cheaper than the baldness treatment drugs required if I used Word....you know, which makes me curse and pull out my hair....)

$100 laptops

Note, January 31 2006: See this update on the process re Microsoft's attempt to get in on it.

This is absolutely fantastic.

I don't usually do "this is cool! go here!" posts but this is  really important.

Here's a blog on it, a news article,  and the MIT web site.

Here's someone who's actually used one  and his review, Andy Carvin.

This is what the story is about.  Everyone talks about the digital divide but nobody does anything about it, to paraphrase Twain. Well, MIT and others are doing something about it.  MIT has unveiled its $100 hand-cranked  laptop computer to the United Nations technology summit in Tunisia. It's hoping to make a bunch more, for the poorest people in the world.

It's running Linux, of course, and I can only assume OpenOffice.org and something like Firefox are also loaded.

The machines are bright green, which is fun, and have wireless.  Plus there's some kind of mesh network for peer to peer, and they crank so you can somehow generate electricity. Kind of like the mythical tv-electricity-generating exercise bike that I think somebody should invent.

Kofi Annan is all about it. When Kofi weighs in, that's important.  "It is an impressive technical achievement, able to do almost everything that larger, more expensive computers can do. It holds the promise of major advances in economic and social development. But perhaps most important is the true meaning of 'one laptop per child'. This is not just a matter of giving a laptop to each child, as if bestowing on them some magical charm. The magic lies within - within each child, within each scientist-, scholar-, or just plain citizen-in-the-making. This initiative is meant to bring it forth into the light of day".

The goal is to provide the machines free of charge to children in poor countries who cannot afford computers of their own.

Governments or anyone who wants to donate will  pay for them; children will own them.

Here's a question--will Bill Gates get involved in this, since he's allll about charitable donations in third world countries? I'm thinking, look for some sort of response out of the northwest.

Brazil, Thailand, Egypt and Nigeria are on the list to receive the first chunk of laptops.

The computers operate at 500 MHz, but since it's running Linux that's not the problem it would be with Windows.

The screen is from a  portable DVD player and you can use B/W or color.

It's slated to be ready in a year or a bit more, when people have ordered and paid for 5-10 million computers.

This is going to have a huge effect on society, possibly politics, very likely women's rights--it's going to be huge.

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3D Extravaganza With OpenOffice.org Draw

I love the 3D shapes. They're not new in 2.0 but a lot of people don't use them, plus you can convert lots of stuff to 3D, like text. So here's what I think are the juiciest, most fun, most useful parts of the 3D features.

Note: I don't know Phong from Gauraud from a hole in the ground, so I'm going to skip over the 3D Settings toolbar. Also, they don't seem to be working right now.

The Prefab 3D Shapes

Here's your 3D palette. Just click the 3D icon on the Drawing toolbar.

 

(On the Basic Shapes palette of the Drawing toolbar, remember you have these shapes. They're not really 3D but they might be what you want sometimes.)

Rotating and Changing Shape Angle

Green handles on a 3D object let you change proportion and size, as usual. Click on an object once to get the green handles. Click again and you get the red handles. Grab one of the red handles and move it; you'll soon get the hang of it.

Here are the red handles.

Then rotate.

And you get this.

Converting Polygons to 3D

You can get some interesting results by drawing a rectangle, circle, anything really, and converting it to 3D. Select the shape, right-click on it, and choose Convert to 3D (NOT 3D Rotation Object).

Here's how to do the conversion.

This is what you get, for a few different shapes.

 

 

Converting Graphics to 3D

It's not always what you want, but you can convert any raster graphic like a GIF or JPG to 3D the same way. Insert it by choosing Insert > Picture > From File and find the picture. Then right-click on it in your Draw document and choose Convert > to 3D. Here's a sample of the original, and the 3D version (the picture is from skiing at Copper last winter).

 

 

 

Converting Text to 3D

This is a fun effect.

 

1. Use the text box to type some text, and make it the font you want.

 

2. Right-click on the text box and choose Convert to 3D. (NOT to 3D Rotation Object.)

 

 

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You'll get this; black doesn't work that well so you'll change the color.

3. Apply different colors.

4. You can get particularly interesting effects by using a bitmap fill.

 

5. Rotate it or change the angle the same way you would a regular object, with the red handles.

 

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Combining 3D Objects

I did the bowl of fruit in the graphic at the top by putting the objects in the same group. You'll see Enter  Group and Exit Group options when you right-click on 3D objects. I like to do it using the keyboard.

 

1. Draw two or more 3D objects.

2. Select one and cut it (Ctrl X).

3. Select the other one and press F3. (Or right-click on it and choose Enter Group.)

4. Paste the first object (Ctrl V).

5. Move the pasted object over to the other object.

 

Note: Solar System, anyone?

I trained some actual rocket scientists recently, and they were quite interested in the 3D shapes. Not that you can model, to scale, the solar system in an 8.5 x 11 document, but you can definitely get some moon action, and other space-related representation. If you're not a rocket scientist, there are a lot of other round things to model--if you're a teacher, they've got to come in handy sooner or later.

 

 

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Spreadsheet Printing Tips: Hiding, Squishing, Printing Headers, and More

(First posted November 2005)

Calc spreadsheet printing can be tricky. Which is too bad, because there are some fairly powerful features. Here are some questions people used to ask me a lot at when I worked at Sun. Between horrified peeks at my under-water stock options, this is what I told them.

My spreadsheet won't print the way I want. What should I do?

There is a powerful  and quite easily accessible tab that lets you do a bunch of stuff with printing. Choose Format > Page and click the Sheet tab. There, you will find many useful settings such as what direction to print in (all the way down then start again, or all the way across then start again), and which items to print (grid, formulas and much more).  Possibly the most useful, however, are the scaling options at the bottom which let you make the whole thing fit onto a specified number of pages or let you scale the whole thing up or down a bit.

 

The Page tab of that window can be useful too with more everyday settings—margins, page size, and centering the cells left-right and top-bottom within the page. Use the Table Alignment option for that last feature.

I really don't want to show McNealy the figures in column G. How do I hide that?

It's not tricky—not this approach to hiding, at any right. Select the whole column by clicking on the letter, then right-click and choose Hide. To show again, select the two columns on both sides, right-click, and choose Show.

No, I mean I want to show them in the spreadsheet while I'm working with them, I just don't want that column to print.

Oh, why didn't you say so? This is simple too. Select whatever cells shouldn't print, and choose Format > Cells. Select the Cell Protection tab. Mark the Hide When Printing option and click OK. (Remember to turn it back on again when you want them to be printed.) However, note that this won't make the cell spaces themselves go away. So hide the heading that goes with the data, and be prepared to answer questions about why that space is empty.

How do I print just specific rows or columns of my spreadsheet?

It's quick and easy, just not obvious.

1. Select the rows or columns that you want printed. It has to be rows or columns, the shape must be rectangular.
2. Then choose Format > Print Ranges > Define.
3. Choose File > Page Preview to be sure you got what you want, if you want to check first.
4. Then just print; only items defined in print range will be printed.

If you made a mistake defining the range, repeat the step with the right range and the new range will replace the old range. Or just select the old range and choose Format > Print Ranges > Remove and start over.

If you need multiple print ranges, it might be best to consider using one of the hiding features.

I need the headings across the top, Budget and Forecast and all that, to print on every page. How do I do that?

In the previous task, the window had fields where you could pick rows to repeat. You just use those fields.

1. Choose Format > Print Ranges > Edit.
2. Click in the Rows to Repeat (or Columns to Repeat field for columns).
3. Just use your mouse to select the rows to repeat.
4. Repeat with the other field if you want both columns and rows to repeat.
5. Click OK.

Here's a picture of the key point. Click to get a bigger graphic.

 

Choose File > Page Preview to check if you want to verify before printing.

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A Grand Day Out With Draw: Shapes, Prefab and Creating Your Own

It's a gorgeous morning, I'm sitting in my office drinking some damn fine Constant Comment (milk, two sugars), the sun is starting to shine through the clouds, and I'm listening to NPR and Scott Simon. Bush's approval ratings are at an all-time low. My cat Winston is sitting on a corner of my desk, not on my Esc key. Life is good.

What better time to indulge myself and talk about my favorite part of OpenOffice.org, Draw?

Don't get me wrong; the others are nice. I like to drag formulas down through cells and see the right numbers pop up, and I like to Paste Special more than just about anyone you know.

But Draw...with Draw I could spend a weekend and not notice the time pass.

I've gotten a lot of questions lately about Draw, and I haven't covered it much so far on this blog, so this week and perhaps this month :> will be Solveig's Draw Series.

Other upcoming topics will be hardcore, or at least medium core, UML diagrams; and using Draw and Draw features with Writer.

2.0 Prefab Shapes

I touched on this a bit on my post on the new 2.0 features. Here's a more detailed look, including the flow chart shapes which I often forget are there but which are going to be great for, well, flow charts and other diagrams.

All of the following are on the Drawing toolbar at the bottom; if you don't have it, choose View > Toolbars > Drawing. If you can't get to some of the shapes I show here, click on the small black triangle at the right side of the toolbar, choose Visible Buttons, and select anything without a checkmark by it.

Here are the new Basic Shapes. For whatever reason, they're separate from the also-available Rectangle and Ellipse shapes, so this isn't your only source for the ultra-basic shapes.

Here are the new Symbol Shapes--moons, stars, flowers, etc. Stuff that was a little hard to draw before, no matter how much you like Bezier curves.

The Block Arrow shapes should come in handy for various diagrams, or signs.

And here are the fabulous flow-chart shapes.

Here are the callout shapes, making cartoons and much more a lot easier.

And finally, for teachers and anyone else who needs lots of stars and ribbons and award-looking graphics, here are the star shapes.

If there are shapes you need that you don't see, go to www.openoffice.org and submit a request for the next version. Or for a more immediate result, find the shape you need in another document or on the internet, and use the Gallery to store it and keep it on hand. (Tools > Gallery, click new Theme, click the Files tab and point to any graphics file on your computer. When you have shapes there, you can drag them into your document.)

Drawing Your Own Shapes and Closing the Shape So You Can Fill It

There are infiniate shapes, so you might not see everything you need there. If you draw your own shape with the freeform line tool or Bezier tool, one thing you'll probably want to do is to close it up so you can color it blue, or fill it with a gradient. Otherwise it's just a line with no ends. Here's how to do it.

1. Draw your shape and make sure it's closed.

2. Click the Points icon on the Drawing object bar.  (If you don't see the toolbar, choose View > Toolbars, Drawing.)

3. Be sure that the shape is selected. In the toolbar that appears, click the Close Bezier icon.

4. Select the shape again if necessary and select a fill from the dropdown list at the top of the work area.

In another blog, I'll go through how to make your own shapes for arrows and other shapes at the ends of lines. Fairly useful for UML and other diagrams.

 

 

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Things That Can Be Confusing At First, Explained

Starting to use a new piece of software, especially when you're used to a different one that you loved that was mercilessly taken from you by Earl the IT guy, can be a little confusing.

Here are a few of the things new users encounter the most, from troubleshooting and a little confusion to frequently asked questions about how to make the software do what you want it to.

Don't worry about the JRE unless you're making databases.

The install for 1.x will ask you where your JRE is. If your reaction is to think, well, maybe you left it in your other pants, or that Dallas was cancelled years ago, don't worry about it. Just say you're not using one. If you end up wanting one later, you can get it from Sun (java.sun.com) or for OpenOffice.org 2.0 you can download the Windows version with the JRE built right in.

To be honest....*you* told OpenOffice.org to “take over” your Microsoft files.

In some versions of OpenOffice.org 1.x, the default was to have Windows automatically associate OpenOffice.org with your .doc, .xls, and .ppt Microsoft files. So that when you innocently double-click one of those files, expecting Microsoft Office to pop up, now OpenOffice.org does instead.

That is because you merrily clicked OK when the installation asked you whether you wanted that.  (Or Earl the IT guy did when he installed it.)

In OpenOffice.org 2.0, it is not the default, though you get the same window asking if you want that asociation.

If OpenOffice.org is starting when you double-click your Word, Excel, or Powerpoint files, and you want to change it so Microsoft Office starts, here's how. The steps vary between versions of Windows so if it doesn't match exactly, keep in mind the principles are the same.

1. Open My Computer or your Windows Explorer.
2. Under the Tools menu, choose Folder Options.
3. In the window that appears, click File Types.
4. In the Extensions column of that window, find the .DOC extension that has OpenOffice.org or StarOffice next to it.
5. Select that line in the list.
6. Click Change.
7. Another window will appear. Find Microsoft Word.
8. Click OK.

If you need to do Excel files and Powerpoint too, repeat steps 4-8. However, instead of DOC, find XLS and change it to Micorosoft Excel, and find PPT and change it to Microsoft Powerpoint.

Sherry in Accounting can't open your OpenOffice.org file

You've heard that Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org are compatible, that Microsoft can open OpenOffice.org documents and vice versa.

Well, yes. But Microsoft Office is a bit uncooperative, so you need to do an extra step to make up for it. When you send an OpenOffice.org document to a Microsoft Office user, you need to save your OOo document in a Microsoft Office format. Then send that document.

So for instance, let's say you've got a budget.odt document, or budget.sxw document, in OpenOffice.org.

1. Choose File > Save As.
2. In the Save As window, click the Save As Type list and find Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP.
3. Click Save.
4. Then write your email and attach that new budget.doc file. Send that file to the Word user.

If the person you're sending the document to doesn't need to change the document, just needs to read and/or print it, it's best to send a PDF. You'll never have any formatting problems between OOo and MS because everyone can read PDFs.

Just click the PDF icon on the object bar, name the file something like budget.pdf, then attach that document to your email.

Why are Word documents screwed up when you open them in OpenOffice.org?

OpenOffice.org 2.0 took a lot of steps to help documents go between the two applications a whole lot better. They did some low-level coding, they changed the default margins of new documents (sometimes it's the simple things), and generally did a whole bunch of work to make transitions easier.

Here are some things you can do when that's just not enough.

• Turn on the marks that show how the document was created. Choose View > Nonprinting Characters. If you see a bunch of carriage return marks (the backwards P), a bunch of extra tabs, or anything else that seems weird, delete them and reformat. The issue is typically not incompatibility, just different settings for how far apart tabs are and other settings. (Using lots of tabs will usually get you into trouble anyway, so try to use indenting or just paragraph formatting under Format > Paragraph to indent text or do other formatting.)

The following illustration shows tabs and carriage returns.

• Text boxes can come over weird periodically. If you've got a text box that you want connected to a graphic, do this. Choose Insert > Frame, click OK, and resize the frame to fit the graphic and text box. Then cut and paste the graphic inside the frame, and do the same with the text box. Rearrange them as necessary. Then the text box and graphic will stay together.

• Check the wrapping with graphics that aren't doing what you expect. Select the graphic, right-click and choose Wrap > No Wrap or Wrap > Page Wrap. Drag the graphic nearer to where you want it, and try adding a carriage return (blank line) above and below the graphic.

• Switch bullets to graphics, not fonts (normal bullets). Fonts can be a little weird. Select the bulleted list, choose Format > Bullets and Numbering, click on the Graphics tab, and select the bullets you like.

Where are the reveal codes?

For WordPerfect users, reveal codes are life. But with OpenOffice.org, asking for reveal codes is kind of like asking where the woodpile is. You don't actually need them since you don't have a woodburning stove. Or most of the same problems you have with WordPerfect and Microsoft Office formatting. To make something bold, just select the text with your mouse or the keyboard arrow keys, and click the Bold icon. To take off that formatting, do the same thing. If formatting is being really weird and not obeying you, select the text and choose Format > Default and start over. The key point is, select all the text you want to format, apply the formatting—and you're good to go.

Why aren't there any templates for OpenOffice.org?

There are a bunch, they're just not installed with it.

Here are some:

http://documentation.openoffice.org/Samples_Templates/User/template/index.html

Here are others:

http://ooextras.sourceforge.net/

If they're in zipped or tarred format after you download them, unzip them or untar them.

Then find where OpenOffice.org was installed on your computer, and go to the openoffice.org\share\templates\en-US\ directory. (Or instead of en-US, which indicates the language, you might find en-CA, or another directory for your language.) Copy the template files to that directory. If you want you can create a directory inside en-US such as book_templates, downloaded_templates, etc. Then choose File > New > Templates and documents, and you'll see the templates you added.

Also note that OpenOffice.org can open all your Microsoft Office templates. So just convert them to OpenOffice.org by opening them or using the batch convert tool (File > Wizards > Document Converter), then put them in the same directory noted early.

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Calc Quickies

When I have an advanced class that races through the material and gets done early, hungry for more, this is what I teach them.

Quick Fills: Formulas

If you use Excel you know that if you drag a formula, or just about anything, down with that little handle in the lower right corner, you can get what you want without having to type it in.

Same with OpenOffice.org. If you want to have a formula appear in 45 cells of a column, just drag down.

This illustration shows the whole series of steps; click to get the big picture.

Quick Fills: Things That Are Always in Order

Let's say you need one column that start with 1901 and go through 2005. You could type it in, or, since OpenOffice.org knows about numbers and years and all that, you can let the program do it.

Just type 1901 or whatever the starting year is, and drag down.

You can try this for things that aren't in order--just type for instance Beer, Pizza, Ice Cream, select those cells, and drag.

This also works for months, days, and anything else under Tools > Options > Calc > Sort Lists.

Can you make your own sort lists? Excellent question! Of course you can.

NOTE: In StarOffice 8 and OpenOffice.org 2.0, there is no Tools > Options > Calc. It just doesn't exist. The Help says it's there, and it should be there, but it's not. It does work in 1.x and StarOffice 7. So keep looking for it, and try it in 1.x or 7.0.

Making Your Own Sort Lists That Work With Dragging and Sorting

SEE NOTE ABOVE.

These are great. If you have a group of people or departments who need to be listed in a certain order, not alphabetic, or if you just want a quick shortcut for typing, use sort lists.

1. Choose Tools > Options > Calc > Sort Lists.
2. Type the items you want in the order you want them.
3. Click Add.
4. Click OK.

Now you can type the first item in the last and drag down or across in Calc to get the whole list, or use them when you sort.

Complex Numeric Fills

If you want to fill a column or row with something complex like a specific increment or a geometric increment, you'll want to use the fill window.

1. Select the range of cells you want the fill to be in.
2. Choose Edit > Fill > Series.
3. Select the values you want, like the starting value and a specific increment of 7.25.
4. Select the options you want, like Linear or Growth.
5. Click OK.

Selecting From a List

Let's say you're writing up a budget with lots of different rows, but the value in the Department column is always going to be Research and Development, Technical Publications, or Marketing and Advertising. And not in a predictable order so that sort lists are an option. You could type it all repeatedly, you could copy and paste, or you could use the lookup list option.

1. Click in the first cell in the column where you have repeated values.
2. Type Ctrl + D.
3. Select the item you want.