I really thought that I had posted this article, but I have not seen it in a quick page through.
It is a big, big article with most of what I recommend about setting up and switching, with the primary focus on individual users. But it applies to transitioning groups, as well.
See also this blog post, which has some really specific info about how to distribute clip art to many users on a network.
This is huge. Thanks to TerryJ on the users@openoffice.org alias for pointing the way.
So you're an IT director. You want to make things easy for your users (and thus easy for your team so they need to answer fewer questions). One way to make things very easy and simple for your users is to create templates.
Now, you could create a template and just set it as the default template so that users get that template when they choose File > New. But if you have multiple documents they need to make, you probably don't want to do that. Or you can do that, but you have more than one template you want to offer.
You could just put your templates in a nice centralized location for your users. However, some users don't view it as all that convenient or obvious to choose File > New > Templates and Documents, the pick the right category and the right template.
Here's how to make it easy, and thus likely, for users to use the templates you provide for them, and thus for them to not even enounter problems, or encounter tasks that are harder than they need to be.
Make a menu and attach templates to menu items on that menu.
Now, this means more up-front work for you, but then it's done.
A) Make your templates and put them in a central network location. Be sure they're in template format, not document format.
B. Create a new menu.
Choose Tools > Customize, click the Menu tab, click New, then name it and click OK.
C. Now you just need to add menu items that point to the templates.
First, create the macro.
1. Choose Tools > Macros > Organize Macros > OpenOffice.org Basic.
2. This window will appear. The macro I already created is listed there. In this example I'll create another one that does the same thing.
3. In the Macro Name field, type the macro name like OpenTemplate.
4. Click New.
5. What you now see in the macro editing area will depend on what was there last. I'm not incredibly familiar with the macro window but I know that what I did worked ;> so you should be able to follow these directions successfully.
Regardless of what else is in there, you want to have the following. Find the part that says
Sub macroname
End sub
and put your macro in the middle. Leave all the other macros that are there.
6. Now you want to write the following macro. There are variations here but this is what I did that worked.
I show an example first, then syntax.
Example
Sub OpenTemplate
Dim sUrl as String
sUrl = "file:///C:/openofficemacros/sampletemplate.ott" ' note you must use url format
If NOT FileExists( sUrl ) Then : Msgbox( "No file named " & sUrl ) : Exit sub : End If
StarDesktop.loadComponentFromURL( sUrl, "_blank", 0, Array() )
End Sub
Now the syntax
Sub name of macro
Dim sUrl as String
sUrl = "file:///path to file you want to open"' ' note you must use url format
If NOT FileExists( sUrl ) Then : Msgbox( "No file named " & sUrl ) : Exit sub : End If
StarDesktop.loadComponentFromURL( sUrl, "_blank", 0, Array() )
End Sub
7. Click the Save icon and close the macro.
8. If you choose Tools > Macros > Organize Macros > OpenOffice.org Basic again, you'll see the macro name. Here the original one I wrote and the one I added for this example are both shown.
9. From here, you can either:
Select the macro to use and click Assign
OR
Close the window, then choose Tools > Customize, and in the Menus tab, select the menu you created.
10. Click Add next to the empty list for menu items
11. In the window that appears, expand the Macros category at the bottom, and select the macro you wrote.
12. Click Add.
13. Close the window.
14. Select the item, click and hold down on Modify.
15. In the window that appears, rename the item however you like and click OK.
16. Click OK in the Customize window.
17. Now choose the menu and the menu item.
18. The document you created appears. If you created it in template format, then it will be an untitled copy of the document.
D. Copy the configuration to other computers.
1. Copy the macro to the same location on other computers.
2. Copy the configuration file where the menu and menu items are stored to the same location on other computers. It's called menubar.xml; there are several depending on what the menu is for. Here's where it is on Windows for a Writer menu; for Calc it would be scalc\menubar\menubar.xml, and so on.
<openofficeinstalldir>\soffice.cfg\modules\swriter\menubar\menubar.xml
Here's what the content looks like in the menubar.xml file.
<menu:menu menu:id="vnd.openoffice.org:CustomMenu1" menu:label="Use These Templates">
<menu:menupopup>
<menu:menuitem menu:id="vnd.sun.star.script:Standard.Module1.OpenTemplate?language=Basic&location=application" menu:helpid="vnd.sun.star.script:Standard.Module1.OpenTemplate?language=Basic&location=application" menu:label="Use this for meeting minutes"/>
</menu:menupopup>
</menu:menu>
See this link for the original explanation.
An em dash is the nice long one that you insert between thoughts.
Methods for creating them vary from one word processor to another. To create them in OpenOffice.org Writer, I recommend that you use the Autocorrect window. Choose Tools > AutoCorrect, Options tab. Select both checkboxes next to Replace Dashes. (Aside from the first option in the window, this is pretty much the only selection in the Options tab that I recommend.)
How does it work? It takes two regular hyphens that you type using the keyboard and turns'em into an em dash.
So you type this, using the - key that for me is to the right of the zero and left of the = and +.
and then you type the next word (still no change, it's still two hyphens from the keyboard)
but then when you press the spacebar, the substitution happens.
At this point you can copy and paste the em dash anywhere you want, or just keep using the -- approach.
Now, if you want to type something else, like any of these things
you'll want to use the Replacement tab of the same window. I cover that info as well as another approach to longer-text shortcuts here, but here's the basic set of steps.
1. Choose Insert > Special Characters and find the symbol you want. This can take a while since there are a zillion but scroll around, change the selections in the dropdown lists at the top, and you'll find what you want. Select it in the window and click OK.
2. The symbol will appear in your Writer document. Select it and copy it.
3. Choose Tools > AutoCorrect and click the Replace tab.
4. In the left field type one or more letters that are NOT a word (i.e. you won't be typing them on their own to appear as is) and in the right field paste the symbol.
5. Click New. (The New button will then change to display the word "Replace".) The substitution will appear in the list.
6. Click OK.
7. Now in your document when you want the symbol, type the shortcut that you specified
followed by a space. When you type the space, the substitution will happen.
If it doesn't happen, choose Tools > AutoCorrect, Options tab and be sure that the Use Replacement Table option at the top of the list is marked, with both checkboxes. If it's not, mark both checkboxes and click OK. Then type your shortcut again and a space, and the substitution will work.
There's a nice little extension for OpenOffice.org that lets you quickly upload your document to your googledocs account. Click here to get it.
Installing the extension gives you this toolbar, as well as a Google Docs menu.
Click it to get this window; just enter the appropriate information.
Your document will be automatically uploaded to your account in Google. It works pretty nicely.
Installing extensions is pretty easy. Download the extension. Then choose Tools > Extension Manager. Select My Extensions and click Add.
Find the extension file you downloaded, an installation process runs, and you’ll see Enabled next to the extension. For some extensions, you’ll need to restart. Look for a new menu, new menu items, new toolbars, or all three.
