OpenOffice.org Training, Tips, and Ideas

Welcome back, user-defined motion paths in OpenOffice Impress 2.3

Back in the good old days of 1.x, you could draw a line, then draw an object, and make the object move along whatever line that was. It was great.

Then the lovely redesign of Impress came, and that user-defined motion path feature got lost along the way.  It was a sad time.

However, now in 2.3 it's back! It works slightly differently, but it's great. In addition, you can edit the existing motion paths like the stars, etc. Here's how it works.

Draw an object, then under Custom Animation’s Motion Paths tab, select any one of the first three effects.

Your cursor will change so that it will draw the kind of line you selected. Draw the path that you want the object to follow. Then run the presentation to see the effect.



To edit existing motion paths, just apply a standard motion path like Eight-Point Star or Diamond. The path will appear in the slide. Click on the path and expand it; you’ll get another path (there’ll be two diamonds, for instance). Delete the old path, and you’re good.

---

---

Removing a white background, or switching any color to another color

This is a useful if well-hidden feature, in OpenOffice Draw and Impress.

Let's say you've got some lovely  graphics for your business, and you're going to put them on your web site.

So you add the logo, the first one, to your web page. But! Hey, what's up with that? There's a white background that didn't show up before. And you're not about to change the pink background.

So to get rid of the white background, here's what you do.

1. Create a new Draw document and insert the graphic.  (File > New > Drawing, then choose Insert > Picture > From File and find your graphic.

2. To see things better, put a colored object behind the graphic, or make the background colored. To change the background, choose Format > Page, Background tab, and instead of None, select Color from the list. Select any color and click OK.

3. Choose Tools > Eyedropper.

4. Click on the graphic. Then click in the first checkbox on the left.

White is the default source color. However, if there's a different background color, or just to practice, you can then move your mouse over the white part of the graphic and click on it to select the color you want to get rid of.

5. Select Transparent in the corresponding dropdown list on the right. Again, this is the default.

6. Click Replace. The white will be replaced by Transparent.

7. If you didn't get rid of enough white, increase the tolerance to 20% and try again. Keep going as necessary; sometimes you need to do 50% or more, up to 99%.

8. Select the graphic and choose File > Export. Select the format you want: PNG, JPG, etc. Click Export, and enter any additional options if prompted.

Now you can insert the new picture wherever you need it.

Now, what happens with other pictures, when you try to replace one color with another color? It all depends on the picture. Here's what happens when I replace a light lavendar with a darker lavendar in the cupcake graphic. The following illustration shows before and after. It works better if you have something very structured where there are no gradations of colors.

---

---

Taking Your Microsoft Office Templates, and Making Them Available in OpenOffice.org or StarOffice

If you have a bunch of Microsoft Office templates that you love, you can just choose File > Open in OpenOffice.org to use them. However, if you want them to be available when you create a new presentation, or available from File > New > Templates and Documents in OpenOffice.org, you need to do two things: convert them to OOo format, and put them where OOo expects to find them.

Converting Your Microsoft Office Templates to OpenOffice.org/StarOffice Format
You need to convert them to OpenOffice format. Choose File > Wizards > Document Converter. Follow the wizard through to create a converted set of copies of the templates.

Step 1.

Step 2, then just follow the wizard as prompted.

Pointing to Templates to Use: Approach 1
(Use Approach 2 if this doesn't work)
Now, choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Paths. Select the Templates line.

Click Edit, then click Add, and add the path to the templates you want to point to. (Click this image to see a larger version if you like.)

Click OK, and OK, and OK  again.

Now you'll see the templates when you choose File > New > Templates and Documents.

Pointing to Templates to Use: Approach 2 (Usually Need to Do This for Impress)
1. Copy the directory of converted copies.
2. Paste it into this directory:
openoffice\share\template\en-us (or whatever your language is)
3. If they don't show up in the wizard, restart OpenOffice.org and your computer if necessary

If You Only See One of the PowerPoint Templates That You Converted, in the OpenOffice Wizard
See this entry.

For More Information on Templates
For more information on templates, see this post, which includes this information.

---

---

Darkening the OpenOffice Impress or Draw Grid, and Changing the Increments

I was going to blog about this straight-up, but then I thought, hey, I've got this already in my book. So I've posted an excerpt from the book, a three-page PDF of the instructions for using the grid, plus darkening the grid and increasing the number of increments. 

The instructions are for Draw but apply to Impress as well; when you choose Tools > Options as in the instructions, just choose either Draw, or Impress, whichever application you want to modify the grid for.

Download grid.pdf

---

---

A Useful Hack for Storing Text or Editable Pictures You Need to Reuse, in OpenOffice Impress Presentations

My friend Ben Horst wrote to me with a question about how to store editable content in a presentation that you reuse periodically. Like a few buttons formatted a particular way, text boxes, anything that can't easily be drawn and formatted and has to look a certain way.

My answer was, well, kind of a hack, but I think it's useful enough to point out.

What Doesn't Work, But Is Useful For Other Things

In Writer, you've got Autotext, a very nice way to store text or graphics that you need to reuse. (Create the text or graphics you need, choose Edit > AutoText, hold down the button with the arrow and choose New. Also name it and create a shortcut. Then click OK. Type the shortcut followed by F3 to insert the text in any document on that computer.)

But not in Impress.

Throughout the application, you have the Gallery where you can store gifs, jpgs, etc. But this isn't any good for storing, for instance, text boxes.

The Hack I Came Up With
If you've got editable things you would like to conveniently access in a presentation, just store them in either the Handouts view or the Notes view.

Click the Handouts tab at the top of the work area, and just add whatever you need. This of course assumes you don't need to give handouts of this presentation. In this illustration there's a text box and a smiley face shape.

Or use the notes view. You can use plain text as shown or the same graphical elements as shown in Handouts view.

The items in those views don't show in the normal view.

So store your reusable stuff in one of those views, then copy and paste from there to wherever you need it. It's not a perfect solution but it works.

Note: If all you need is reusable attributes, remember styles.

---

---

Google's Doing PowerPoint

Looks like Google is heading toward the Powerpoint/Impress area.

http://www.themoneytimes.com/articles/20070418/google_adds_presentation_to_its_apps_suit-id-103333.html

Creating Keyboard Shortcuts in OpenOffice, including Assigning Keyboard Shortcuts to Styles, a GREAT Feature

One of the complaints people have when switching from any software package to another is that the keyboard shortcuts that they're used to don't work anymore.

However, in OpenOffice.org you can set your keyboard shortcuts pretty much any way you want. You can even assign shortcut keys to styles. This means that:

• You can blow through formatting quickly without using the Styles and Formatting window
• You can set up styles, put them in the default template that your users use, then just give them all quick reference guides that might look like this:

         

        Text with hanging left indent   In WordPerfect was [whatever]  In OpenOffice Ctrl F4
        Heading indented from left and right   In WordPerfect was [whatever]  In OpenOffice Ctrl F6
        Back to normal text   In WordPerfect was [whatever]  In OpenOffice Ctrl Q

Assigning a Keyboard Shortcut to a Task

1. Create or open a document in the program where you want to apply the shortcut. You'll be able to choose that program, such as Writer, or all of OpenOffice.org, as the context in which the shortcut will work.

2. Choose Tools > Customize, Keyboard tab.

3. Select the program, such as Writer, or OpenOffice.org, at the top.

4. Use the Category and Function lists at the bottom to select the feature you want to assign a shortcut to. You have to be willing to spend some time looking but you'll eventually get a sense of where things are.

5. Find the keyboard shortcut, in the Shortcut Keys list in the top half of the window, that you want to assign. If it's already assigned to something, that's fine. Select the keyboard shortcut you want.

6. Click Modify. The shortcut will be assigned to the item.

7. If you want to remove a shortcut key from an item, select it in the Keys list and click Delete.

8. Click OK.

Assigning a Keyboard Shortcut to a Style

You might find it easier to just use a keyboard shortcut for styles, than to double-click them in the Styles and Formatting window. (Format > Styles and Formatting.)

To use a keyboard shortcut for a style, you do pretty much the same thing.

1. Create or open a document in the program where you want to apply the shortcut. You'll be able to choose that program, such as Writer, or all of OpenOffice.org, as the context in which the shortcut will work.

2. Choose Tools > Customize, Keyboard tab.

3. Select the program, such as Writer, or OpenOffice.org, at the top.

4. In the Category list, scroll to the bottom and select Styles. Expand the + next to it and select the category of style: Paragraph, Page, etc. Then in the Function list select the specific style. Select the shortcut you want from the Shortcut Keys list and click Modify.

5. Click OK.

Remember, the style has to be in the document where you use the shortcut key, otherwise of course it won't work.

Giving the Configurations You've Made to All Users

Shortcut keys are stored here in XP:

openofficedirectory\soffice.cfg\modules\swriter (or another module) \accelerator\en-us\default.xml

If you want everyone to have the same shortcuts, you can modify that file, then copy it to other machines or user directories. This is the directory on XP; different for Vista. (Grrr.....my impression of Vista is, OK, it's pretty because it looks like Mac, but I am sure sick of the blue screen of death.)

In Vista, it's

\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\OpenOffice.org2\user\config\soffice.cfg\
modules\swriter (or other module)\accelerator\en-US\current.xml

If you're having trouble finding the location, just make a change, then search your system for files that were recently modified, or contains a word in the change you made.

Here's what it looks like.

xlink:href=".uno:StyleApply?Style:string=HangingIndent&
FamilyName:string=ParagraphStyles" accel:shift="true" accel:mod1="true"/>

---

OpenOffice Impress Issue: Applying Formatting to the Wrong Master Page

I posted about the disappearing master page Wednesday. Today I'll talk about the wackiness surrounding creating two new master pages at once.

Now, this isn't that big an issue. Basically, the rule is, just create one new master page at a time. Create it, apply it, save the presentation, maybe go get a cup of coffee or eat lunch. Then if you need to, go ahead and create another new master page from scratch in that same presentation or template.

Why?

Because when you've got two or more new master pages being created at once, some of the formatting, especially the bullets, of the second one you create will be applied to the first one.

Yep.

Let's say you're here under View > Master > Slide Master happily editing away. You've created one and formatted it, then you immediately create another one.

There's the new blank master page

You choose Format > Page, Background tab and choose a nice background for the master page.

So far so good.

Now you get crazy and apply pretty new green bullets to the 2nd master page.

But -- hey, the new bullet formatting didn't take effect. Not on this slide, at least.

That's because the new bullets got applied to the first master page. Somehow Impress thinks you're still working on that one, likely because it hasn't been applied to any slides.

Dangit.

So: Whenever you create a master page, choose View > Normal, apply the new master page to at least one slide, and save. Then you can go back and create another new master page. This still doesn't work perfectly -- the bullet formatting, when I tried it, didn't show up in the second master page. However, it didn't get applied to the wrong master page, and it did show up when I applied the 2nd new master page to a slide.

Again, as mentioned in the previous post, save everything as a template.

---

OpenOffice Impress Master Pages: The Disappearing Act

Impress is....well, it's not always as solid as the other OpenOffice.org applications. However, there are ways to deal with it.

I'm going to post about two particular Impress issues: the disappearing master page, today, and on Friday, the wackiness surrounding creating two new master pages at once.

Master pages are the backgrounds for your presentations. A template or presentation might have one or more master pages in it.

All right. So you want to create a new master page. Go ahead, but you need to care for it very very carefully. Here's the short version. Create a new master page under View > Master > Slide Master by right-clicking in the lefthand pane, creating a new master page, and designing it. Then choose View > Normal to go  back. Now, you MUST apply that new master page to at LEAST one slide, or your wonderful new master page will go Poof. (Not always, but enough for it to be a big issue.) Also, choose File > Templates > Save and save whatever document you created the master page in.  Then the master page(s) in that presentation will be available in all future presentations you create or edit.

Now, here's the detail.

Just Creating a Master Page From Scratch

You're dying to create your own master page from scratch, to format presentations exactly the way you want. Here's how.

1.  Open or create your presentation or template.

2. Choose View > Master > Slide Master.

3. Now you're in the master page view.

4. Right-click in the left hand pane and choose to rename the default  new master page. Not required but it's nice when you have a lot of them later.

5. Give it a name and click OK.

6. It's renamed.

7. All right. Format your master page, go nuts. Choose Format > Page, Background tab to change the background color. Add graphics, right-click on each and choose Arrange > Send to Back to put them in the background behind the text. Whatever you want.

8. Choose View > Normal to go back to normal view.

9. You see your master page.

The Disappearing Act

10.  Now, what if you now think, hey, I like this thing I designed, but for the first few slides that I have here, I'm going to apply this other master page. You might do this by right-clicking on another master page over there in the right-hand pane, like the nice green one, and choosing Apply to All Slides.

11. Guess what. Your beautiful master page that you worked so hard on is gone. Yes, even if you saved the presentation.

How Do You Prevent the Disappearing Act?

You MUST apply that new master page to at LEAST one slide, and keep it applied. Or your wonderful new master page will go Poof. (Not always, but enough for it to be a big issue.) So even if you don't intend to apply your new master page to the first slide, keep it applied there until you apply it to other slides.

Also, as soon as you've created your master page, choose File > Templates > Save and save whatever document you created the master page in. 

Then the master page(s) in that presentation will be available in all future presentations you create or edit.

---

Doing Equations, Formulas, Pi, Etc. in OpenOffice Writer and Calc -- And Impress, Updated February 2007

Updated February 2007 for Impress -- see end of post.

Sooner or later, no matter who you are, you're going to have to talk about pi. Or you're going to need to talk about squaring lambda. (Mmm....squaring lambda.....) Or you'll need to have a+b+c divided by 2.

How do you do that in OpenOffice?

The first step is to just go to the old reliable Insert menu. Anything out of the realm of plain text, just go to the Insert menu.

Just Using the Special Characters Window

Now, if you just want a Special Character, pi or lambda or something, you can choose Insert > Special Character.

Find the one you want. If you select several you'll see them all displayed at the right side of the window and they'll all be inserted.

Then just click Insert. The character will show up.

It's a pain to scroll through all that again and again so make an AutoText entry for it. See

http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2006/03/automatic_text_.html

Using the Formulas Features

If you need something more complex, then instead, choose Insert > Object > Formula.

You get an editing window at the bottom, a box for the equation in the document, and a little shortcut window floating off to the side.

Now,  you can use the little shorcut window. Click an item above the line, then click an item below the line and that inserts some placeholder stuff for you in the editing window.

   

But frankly I find it not that helpful since just writing the formulas is reasonably easy once you memorize a few tips.

• Use the Formula Reference Tables online help list to see how to enter formulas. Basically, do it how you think it would work. Use the OpenOffice.org Math Examples online  help list to see examples. These are really good. Just press F1 while you're in the editing window; you can type the titles of these topics into the Find or Index window.

• Use ^ for exponents, as in 3^2  which would be three, squared.
• Use sqrt for square root
• Use % in front of the written version of a symbol, as in %pi

So here are a few formulas. They're pretty easy to figure out. Click each image to see a slightly larger version, if you like.

a + b / $pi

a + b over $pi

(a + b) over $pi

If You Don't Know How to Write Out a Character Like %pi or %rho

Click the Sigma icon at the top to add a special character.

You can just scroll  through and select something from the list, and insert it.

Or you can add something yourself if you don't see what you need.

Optional: Add your own symbol   

To add something you don't see, click Edit.

Find what you want, by scrolling and manipulating all the dropdowns. Then name it, and click Add, not Edit.

The new symbol will show up in the symbol list.

Click in the document to stop editing the formula.

If you want to get back into the formula to change it, double-click the box the formula is in.

Formatting the Formula

All right. You've got a great formula. But it's really small. Or you'd like a different font. You change these by selecting the formula in the editing window and click on the Format menu.

Choosing Fonts gives you this window. You get to choose the font by the type: variables, etc. Click and hold down on the Modify button to change any font.

Select the font in this window, then click OK all the way back out of the windows.

That's About It

Insert > Object > Formula. Type what you want and use the online help and the brief tips I gave you.

Click in the document when you're done, and double-click the equation box to start editing again.

To format, select the text in the editing box and find the Format menu.

To add a symbol you don't know, click the Epsilon icon at the top of the window and select one--or click Edit to create your own.

Doing All This in Impress

I'm using 2.1 in February 2007 and it works just fine.

Click in a bulleted item and choose Insert > Object > Formula.

You can also paste the formula object from Writer to Impress. Don't paste it into a bullet in this case; just paste it into a layout with no bullets.

Double-click to edit, as usual.

Double-click the formula object to get into edit mode. Use the Format menu or make other changes.

---

Template for Jeopardy-Like Quiz in OpenOffice Impress

An important part of learning is the review, and the more fun, the better. I use a vaguely Jeopardy-like review game in class to go over whatever we've covered that day. I have a template and make up the questions during lunch or break to address the content for that day.

I use Interaction for the squares in the first slide that go to each slide that has the question and answer. (Right-click on an object and choose Interaction, then select Go to Page or Object,  and select the slide to go to).

Here's what it looks like.

So if you'd like to create your own quizzes, here's what to do.

Download the Template in Presentation or Presentation Template Format
If you want to be able to choose File > New > Presentation and have the jeopardy template show up as an option:
1. Download this file. Right-click on this link and choose to save the link target to your computer.
2. In OpenOffice.org, choose File > Open and open it.
3. Choose File > Templates > Save, select a category, name the template, and click OK.
4. Choose File > New > Presentation, select From Template, and select the category you saved the template in. Click Create.
5. Make your changes and save the presentation

If you just want to open the file, fiddle with it, and save a version as your own copy:
1. Download this file (presentation format) or this file (template format). Right-click on this link and choose to save the link target to your computer.
2. In OpenOffice.org, choose File > Open and open it.
3. Choose File > Save As, save the document as a .odp file.
4. Make your changes to it. Save the presentation.

Entering Your Content

Just type the category you want at the top of each column of numbers, and then the appropriate category,  question and answer in each slide.

Modifying the Appearance
1. Choosing View > Master > Slide Master.
2. Change the formatting.

• To change the background color, choose Format > Page, Background tab, and select a new color.

• To change the color of any of the text, just select it, and choose Format > Character to change any formatting. You can also use the dropdown font and font size lists on the toolbar, and the A-shaped font color icon.

• To change the bullets, select the bullets and choose Format > Bullets and Numbering. Select the format you want (Graphics tab is a good one) then click OK.

4. Get back out of the master view by choosing View > Normal.
5. Change effects.

• To change the slide transitions, click on the Slide Sorter tab. Then click the Slide Transitions item in the right-hand pane. Select the slide or slides to change the transition for, and from the list at the right, select a different transition. Click the Normal tab to go back to normal view.

• To change how the bullets come in, in normal view click the Custom Animation item at the right side of the window. Select the effects that appear in the white box in the lower right corner. Expand the top-level effect and select each one. Click Change then select a different effect.

6. Change the color of any of the objects in the first slide.

• To change the color of any of the objects that are in the background, select them BY DRAWING AROUND THEM WITH YOUR MOUSE. If you click on them, they will run the Interaction.  So draw around them with your mouse, then from the dropdown lists at the top, select Color, Gradient, Hatching, or Bitmap, then the fill of your choice.

7. If you want to change the text inside any of the squares. Just double-click in the text itself, not in the square, and retype.

8. If you want to change what any of the objects do -- when you click each they currently go to a particular slide with a question and answer. If you want them to go to a different slide, or perform a different action, follow these steps.

• Select the object by drawing around it with your mouse pointer, not by clicking on it.
• Right-click on it and choose Interaction.
• In the window that appears, either select a different slide for it to go to when clicked, or from the dropdown list select a different action and enter any additional necessary information. For instance, one of the options is to open a particular file. You would then enter the path to the file.

---

Something Slightly Annoying in Powerpoint Presentations That Affects Using Them in OpenOffice.org Impress

Note March 2007: Tip from a reader, John:

------------------------------------

I had problems with templates until I read your tip - however, once I understood the problem, I did find a slightly easier
way to title them correctly.  It's not the OO Converter that inserts PowerPoint Presentation as the title.  The converter picks up the title from the original PowerPoint file.  Therefore, BEFORE you run the conversion, locate the template files in the MS Office folder and do the following for each one:

Right click on the file/ select Properties/ select Summary - in the title field, Powerpoint Presentation will be highlighted.  Just type in the title that you want for this template and click on OK.

When you have done them all, then run the OO Document Converter and they will be converted with the correct titles.

--------------------------------

It was interesting to figure it out, but the end result is more work for us all.

Here's the deal. In theory you can run the Document Converter (File > Wizards > Document Converter) to convert all those lovely Microsoft Office templates you want to use in OpenOffice. The wizard creates converted copies. You then copy those copies to openoffice\share\templates\en-us\ and they show up in all your template windows. (If necessary, restart the program and/or the computer to make them show up.)

All of that works just great with Writer and Calc, and the converter works just fine for everything, including Powerpoint/Impress.

But here's the deal.

The Powerpoint templates each have a different filename, of course. blue, red, bluefancy, etc.

But they all have the same TITLE, the name that appears in the upper left corner when you're looking at the document. The TITLE is different than the FILENAME. The TITLE of every Powerpoint template, at least in the versions I've looked at, is empty and the converter assigns the value PowerPoint Presentation during the conversio. So the converted templates end up all having the SAME TITLE.

Why does this matter? Doesn't the template organizer in OpenOffice.org use the file name?

NO. IT DOES NOT.

DAMMIT.

The template organizer in OpenOffice.org uses a document's TITLE.  (In OpenOffice.org, you set it under File > Properties > Description, Title field.)

So that means that when you copy a bunch of templates to the template directory, all with the same TITLE, the organizer gets horribly confused and won't let you get to more than one.

So here's what the converted templates look like when I just copy them to my  openoffice\share\templates\en-us\ directory. It's all fine right here.

But when I take a look at the templates organizer, File > Templates > Organize, then this is what it looks like.  Only ONE template, and with the default TITLE that the converter put in.

And likewise here's what it looks like in the wizard.

So what do you do when you want to take a bunch of Powerpoint templates and use them in OpenOffice.org?

You get an intern, or you get a couple beers and an extra hour or so, and you do it one step by painful step. The same way you'd do it with a normal OpenOffice.org that you want to make into a template.

In OpenOffice.org, open the Powerpoint template. Choose File > Templates > Save. Select a category, specify the TITLE in the Name field, and click OK. All the titles must be unique.

Rinse and repeat.

If you have a quicker version of this, or if you didn't encounter this problem, let me know!

---

OpenOffice Templates: Making Them, and Making New Documents Based on Them (Writer, Calc and Impress): Reposted January 2007

This is embarrassing. I have a huge blogapalooza on styles but left out templates.

I shall remedy that immediately.

All right. Let's say you have the following:

• A bunch of styles you need to have when you create a document.
• Some canned text, like your signature or a graphic logo, that you use in a lot of documents
• Or you're just darned picky about how you want your documents ;>

You are an excellent candidate for using templates. Templates are documents that store styles, text, graphics, general formatting—whatever you want. You create a document, save it as a template in the Template Place, then point to that template when you want to create a new document using what it's got. (“Styles and canned text...that's what it's got....remember that.”)

And it really couldn't be easier.

Making a Template

Open a new document.

Put in it what you want in the template. Styles, graphics, text of every kind and variety. Whatever.

Then choose File > Templates > Save.

Specify My Templates unless you have another idea for a category.

(To create a new category, click the Organizer button, select a category in the button that appears, right-click on it and choose New. An untitled category will appear. IMMEDIATELY start typing the name of your new category. Click somewhere else in the category list when you're done typing. Click Close.)

Type the name of your template like Meeting Minutes.

Click OK.

Now you've got a template.

Using a Template

You need to create a new document using that template.

Choose File > New > Templates and Documents.

Select the Template icon on the left.

Open the category you chose like My Templates. You'll see your template.

Click Open and you'll have a new untitled document based on that template.

The Coolest Part—Making That Template Come Up When You Create Any New Document

Choosing File > New > Templates and Documents is fine but what if that's your template you use all the time? You can make it come up when you just choose File > New > [type of document] by setting it as the default template.

Choose File > Templates > Organize.

Open the category your template is in, in the left side.

Right-click on the template and choose Set as Default Template.

Click Close. You're done! Choose File > New > [type of document] and you'll see the effect.

To switch back to the normal original boring blank document, repeat the steps but this time choose Reset Default Template > [type of document]

Pointing to an Existing Directory of Templates

If you have a bunch of templates, Microsoft or OpenOffice.org, set up OpenOffice.org to know where they are. Then you can get to them as above by choosing File > New > Templates and Documents.

Converting, If You Want to Point to Microsoft Format Templates
First, if they're in Microsoft format, you need to convert them to OpenOffice format. Choose File > Wizards > Document Converter. Follow the wizard through to create a converted set of copies of the templates.

Step 1.

Step 2, then just follow the wizard as prompted.

Pointing to Templates to Use
Now, choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Paths. Select the Templates line.

Click Edit, then click Add, and add the path to the templates you want to point to. (Click this image to see a larger version if you like.)

Click OK, and OK, and OK  again.

Now you'll see the templates when you choose File > New > Templates and Documents.

---

Redocking the Slide Pane in OpenOffice Impress

Note: This is a repost, for two reasons: A) it's still not searchable through Technorati and B) it's been a year, so I figure it's now at "classic" status. ;>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I just found a very byzantine solution to an annoying problem.

I'm doing training this week and was finishing up my slides for an Impress class and accidentally undocked the Slides Pane. It was floating all over the place and I couldn't dock it again.

I understand that in some versions you can just drag the Slides Pane back to the edge and it'll redock. Sometimes you can hold down Ctrl and drag it back, and it'll redock.

But not with the December 2.0 update of OpenOffice.org.

I finally found the solution in one of the users@openoffice.org mailing list archives.

You have to hold down Ctrl, then double-click the gray area next to the word slides in the slides pane. Not the top title bar Slides but the second time Slides appears.

See this screen shot. I'll do a better one when I'm done with the training class but you'll see what to do when you click on this thumbnail and look at the big screen shot. You have to hold down Ctrl, then double-click the circled area. This will dock your pane again.

Phew.

---

---

Share Your OpenOffice Impress Slides: Sharepoint, O3Spaces

OpenOffice.org Calc and Writer have the usual editing features that let you send files out for edit and get redlined comments back from anyone who reviewed it.

However, not so much for Impress presentations. Not within OpenOffice, anyway.  Fortunately, there are a few ways around this, including SlideShare. They support OpenOffice.org Impress files as well as PowerPoint. You can share, tag, and get comments back.

http://slideshare.net/

You can also take a look at this extension for OpenOffice Impress. O3Spaces works by providing users a single web-based team environment, with built-in search capabilities and an optional Java-based Desktop Assistant.

Their web site says "O3Spaces technology enhances OpenOffice.org and StarOffice with an integrated solution for Collaboration, Document Management and Document Retention within teams and small businesses. O3Spaces provides the OpenOffice 2.0 and StarOffice user community with a professional out-of-the-box extension for team and project collaboration, O3Spaces means an affordable and integrated alternative for MS Office Sharepoint."

Read more.

http://linux.wordpress.com/2006/11/23/openoffice-extension-rivals-sharepoint/

http://o3spaces.org/

 

 

---

Using OpenOffice Impress for Storyboarding

I met Martin Hardee at a friend's party this past weekend, and, since it was a group of Sun employees and Sun escapees, the conversation naturally turned to work. (After a rolicking discussion of wines, gossip, Camaros, and other fun-loving topics, of course.)

Martin mentioned that he likes Impress for doing storyboarding. He has some interesting blogs on it on his Sun blog; check'em out.

Design Comics: An 0.9 Version You Can Use

"Here's how we're progressing on our project to create Comic-based storyboard templates for web designs. I've put together an example comic book storyboard using StarOffice slides and telling the story of buying ballet tickets from an imaginary web site (actually a real site but I changed the name to protect the guilty).  If you don't already have it, you can download StarOffice or OpenOffice to view and edit the slides."

Read more on this blog

Other blogs:

Examples of Comics in Designing Customer Experiences

How Customers Can Help You Develop Concepts via Comics

 

---

Making OpenOffice.org Work the Way You Want It (Repost)

 

(Originally posted in October 2005.)

Note: Here's a related article I wrote for TechTarget.com.

What's better, software that does what it thinks you want, or software that does what you tell it to?

If it's rocket-launching software, and I don't know much about rocket-launching, I guess I would let the software do what it wants. However, I know what I darn well want my office suite software to do. I know how I want it to behave. I know what features I want and I know, for instance, that I do not want it suggesting to me what word I am typing and offering to help me finish the arduous task of typing it.

OpenOffice.org has its default behavior and default settings just like any other software but is very cooperative in letting you customize those behavior and settings the way you want them. Which is refreshing. You just have to tell it how to behave.

So I've put together a list of the top  customizations I think are the most helpful and/or powerful. I make sure that everyone in my classes learns these by lunchtime, and review them afterwards. When the software behaves the way you want, that makes everything better.

(By the way, this is a little bit off topic, but I wanted to mention that the scroll graphic at the top of this blog is a drawing shape in OOo 2.0.  I'm a bit of a giggly schoolgirl when it comes to the OOo drawing tools, especially the new 2.0 features.)

1. Turn off the word completion.

I hate word completion, and it’s really easy to turn off. Choose Tools > AutoCorrect and click on the Word Completion tab. Make sure the Enable Word Completion option is unmarked, and click OK.

2. Turn off any automatic formatting that you don’t want.

Would you let people live in your house who you didn’t know? Then you don’t want automatic formatting going on that you don’t understand. Choose Tools > AutoCorrect and click on the Options tab. Unmark everything except the top option, Use Replacement Table. Then go back through and see if you really want anything.

(You can unmark the Use Replacement Table option too....but that table is handy, as you'll see in the next item.)

3. Use the automatic formatting to create handy shortcuts.

The same tab where you turned off word completion has a really great feature for creating shortcuts. Let’s say you type the word supercalfragilisticexpealidocious a zillion times a day, or your name and title, or anything kinda long. You can set up a shortcut for it. It's a much more reliable approach than word completion.

To do this: Choose Tools > AutoCorrect and click on the Replace tab.

A. In the left-hand field type your shortcut like sig and in the right-hand field, type the word you’re tired of typing all the time.

B. Click New, then click OK.

C. Click the Options tab and be sure that both checkboxes for the top item, Use Replacement Table, are marked. That just means "use the stuff in the Replace tab."

D.  In your document, type the shortcut, followed by a space, and your word will appear.

Note: You can also delete anything in the Replace tab that you don't want.

4. Display the icons that you want.

There are a zillion icons in OOo as with any software and you probably don’t use all of them. There’s also that dandy little result of having to click on the black arrow to get to the icons you want, while the ones you do want sit there taking up space and, quite frankly, smiling a bit smugly. So take off the ones you don’t want, leave room for the ones you do want, and add some other ones.

First step is to take off the ones you don’t want. Click on the dropdown arrow and choose Visible Buttons. Find the icons you don’t want, like double spacing, and select them. That’ll remove the checkbox by them, and that removes them from the toolbar.

Now add the icons you want. The first thing to try is to click the dropdown arrow again and choose Visible Buttons. If the icon you want is there, select it and it’ll appear.

If the icon you want isn’t there, click on the dropdown arrow again and instead of Visible Buttons, select Customize Toolbar. Find the toolbar you want to add icons to. Click Add, and in the window that appears just keep looking through the categories on the left til you find the feature you want in the list on the right. Select it and click Add.