OpenOffice.org Training, Tips, and Ideas

Summary of new features in OpenOffice.org 2.3

Here’s a summary of the features from the 2.3 new features list that I considered the most useful or important to write about. This page  http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/New_Features_2.3 about the new features is an excellent guide, as well.

General

• This is convenient for anyone who prints to multiple printers, all over the world. You can load or ignore the printer settings for your documents. This means you don’t end up accidentally printing to the printer in building 4 which is on the opposite side of the country, just because you were on a business trip there last week and that’s where you last printed your document.
  

• If your document isn’t wider than the OpenOffice.org window, then it will be centered in the window, not left-aligned.
  

• Lots of locale information was added, for locations such as Tagalog, Frisian, and Hausa.
  

Writer and Web

• The HTML editor now has a preview feature. Choose File > Preview in Web Browser and the document opens in the default browser.

• I love this feature. You know how when you get a hyperlink but then want to retype it or reformat it, but clicking on it takes you to the target of the link? No more. You can select hyperlinked text all you want; you now have to Ctrl Click to open a link. This is very nice.
  

• The notes say that there is a new compatibility option on Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer > Compatibility: Do Not Justify Alignment in Lines Ending With Manual Line Break. However, I’m mentioning this because I couldn’t see it. The illustration shows the compatibility options that are there.
  

• When you open the Styles and Formatting window (Format > Styles and Formatting), you can set what kinds of styles you wanted to see: Applied, Custom, Automatic, etc. Previously, you had to reset this every time you opened a new document or re-opened OpenOffice.org. Now, thankfully, that category will stick. The setting is saved per application. However, the choice you make for Paragraph, Character, Frame, List, or Page doesn’t stick.
  
  

• When you right-click on text, you used to see Default as one of the options. Now you see Default Formatting, which is clearer. (Default Formatting is a great way to just clear out any extraneous formatting and apply the default style to the selected item.) This is a very nice feature regardless of the text; for one thing, it’s the best way to remove the hotlink from a URL.
  

• A new export filter lets you export to MediaWiki format. Choose File > Export and select MediaWiki in the file format list.

Calc

• This is a very, very smart change. By default, the print options for Calc are now set to Print Only Selected Sheets and Suppress Output of Empty Pages. If the Print Only Selected Sheets option is enabled, the Calc page preview shows only the displayed sheet and the message “There is nothing to print.” To change these options, choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Calc > Print, or choose File > Print and click the Options button.
  

• Here’s another very smart change that will screw up all my documentation. :) The SUM icon on the main Calc toolbar has changed. Now you can select the range of numbers to add, click the SUM icon, and get the total in the first cell below the selected range. Phew. But if you liked it the old way, it still works that way, too.
  

• Graphics can be linked to macros. This should help with Excel compatibility.
  

• The Excel export filter now handles the cotangent functions COT, ACOT, COTH, and ACOTH.

• Calc now supports inline matrix/array constants in formulas. An inline array is surrounded by curly braces '{' and '}'. Elements can be each a number (including negatives), a logical constant (TRUE, FALSE) or a literal string. See this link for more detail. http://sc.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=features&msgNo=230

• You can now use dynamic ranges, rather than absolute ranges defined with $, in lists in Data Validity. Choose Data > Validity, and under the Criteria tab select Cell Range from the list.
  
  

• The GETPIVOTDATA function returns a result value from a DataPilot table, so it can be used in a cell formula.
  

Mail Merge, Databases, and Forms

• The infamous checkbox on the print message when you print a mail merge document, Do Not Show Warning Again, is gone. Phew! See this blog http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2006/10/how_to_get_the_.html for why that caused problems.
  
  

• This is nice. When you choose File > Print with a mail merge document, in the Mail Merge window, you can choose to save the document as separate documents or as one document.
  
  

• Unfortunately, in Base there is still no File > Export or File > Import feature. File > Export does appear, but it’s dimmed.

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Review of Edubuntu from the School Library Journal

If you'd like to learn about Edubuntu, check out this review.

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.

 

Back in the customization window, you can leave the icon as is and just click OK, or change the icon by clicking and holding down on the Modify button and choosing Icon.

5. Get to know the choices under Tools > Options.

Choose Tools > Options, and you’ll see the big fat configuration window. Just as the items under Tools > Autocorrect were about default behavior, Tools > Options is about default settings, default values. Anything about the program, from icon size to language settings to where the program looks when you choose File > Open, is set here.

I suggest that you open the OpenOffice.org (or StarOffice as in this illutration) item at the top, then select Paths, and change the values for any paths you use a lot. Change the My Documents item, for instance, to change the default for where OOo tries to save documents. You’ll save a lot of time scrolling around in your Save windows.

To change the path, select it in the window, click Edit, and just point to the new location.

You might also want to expand the StarOffice Write item, select Default Fonts, and choose the ones you prefer.

When you’re done, just click OK.

You can turn off the Save for Autorecovery feature if you want--or increase the save interval
I find this feature entirely un-annoying, but you can turn it off easily if you want. Autorecovery means if OpenOffice.org crashes or you have to coldboot your machine, at least you'll have something recent to return to. If you're hypervigilant, increase the interval to every minute or 5; if you don't care about it, set it to every hour or just turn it off.

Choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Load/Save > General. You're looking for the Save AutoRecovery Information Every  option. Unmark it, or change the interval.

Click the thumbnail below to see a bigger image of the window.

Now OOo is more like a well-behaved pet and less likely to jump up at you, licking and biting inappropriately.

Those are not all the configuration steps you can do, by a long shot. But I like them, and students seem to like them. And they're an important set of steps in the general process of showing that OpenOffice.org does what you tell it to do.

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Top Ten Reasons to Start a Healthy New Relationship With OpenOffice.org (Repost)

(Originally posted in October 2005.)

I'm not a raving crazy open source OpenOffice fanatic. Not quite, anyway.

I do like it quite a bit, though.  I've used it for six years, about the same amount of time I've used Word and Framemaker. I've trained people on it for the last three years and have written about it for five years.

So I know about the limitations, the cool stuff, the weird stuff, and the normal stuff.

And I think it's a far better choice then Microsoft Word.

(It's not always a better choice than Framemaker, but it was never meant to be. It's far more similar to Word. See my blog on whether OpenOffice.org is a good tool for techwriters and other book publishing professionals.)

I want anyone who's frustrated with Microsoft Office, who doesn't have the money for Microsoft Office, or who just wants the features of OpenOffice.org, to understand everything the program has to offer. With Sun in charge of marketing the program, the great aspects of the program are far less well known than they should be, and so many people are out there cursing the random bulleting in Word when they could be writing documents with a program that does exactly what they ask it to. (Always refreshing.)

So here are ten reasons for anyone out there to use OpenOffice.org. They're not presented in any particular order.

Price, Price, Price

You can read all the reports from Microsoft that you want but that doesn't change the fact that OpenOffice.org is absolutely free. All updates are free. Always will be. If you personally on your own computer decide to download OpenOffice.org for free instead of buying each new version of Microsoft Office, you're spending absolutely no money. If your department switches to OpenOffice.org at work, you're spending absolutely no money.

Add Linux to the mix and you're spending maybe $100, depending on your distro.

Microsoft Office costs more. Windows costs more.

If you purchase books and training, you're spending a flat one-time amount, and it's not going to be $500 a person unless you're buying some serious one-on-one tutoring. I trained 300 people for a client in Houston over three weeks, with each person attending two day-long classes, for a total cost to my client of $15,000. That's $50 a person. That's a good price.

Document conversion can take time and money too, but that's a one-time fee, too. And with the enhancements in OpenOffice.org to the compatibility with Microsoft Office ( http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/2.0/index.html), converting your Microsoft Office documents to OpenOffice.org is even easier.

And frankly, there's a bunch of learning that users need to do with each new version of Microsoft Office. That takes training money, or else users never get the training and might not learn the new version very well.

There Are More Important Things to Spend Money on the Office Suite Software

Think about the most important things in life.

Health. Love. Family. A roof over your head. Education. World peace.

The right or privileg of using office suite software you're familiar with, or even just having everyone using the same software, is not on the list. I challenge anyone out there to rank using Microsoft Office as one of the most important things in life.

Which leads one naturally to think about schools. Police stations. Libraries. City government. State government. Federal government. What do they spend money on? Some fairly important stuff. Much of the stuff from our earlier list. They pay teachers' salaries, police salaries, allocate money for healthcare, and a zillion other things. And of course, most of them use Microsoft Office. Not for free. Take all the money they spend on Microsoft Office, replace it with OpenOffice.org, and that frees up a lot of money for important things. I'm not sure how much but I don't think I'm out of line in saying hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

Runs on Windows, Linux, Solaris, Mac, OS/2 and Other Operating Systems

You're not stuck with Windows when you use OpenOffice.org. If you're happy with Windows, then you can stay with Windows. If you're all about Linux, or Mac, or OS/2, or Solaris, then OpenOffice.org works the same way on those operating systems, too. Which makes sense, since your operating system shouldn't have so much control over what software you use.

Learning a New Program Isn't as Difficult as You Might Think

Think about writing a text document.

What do you do?

You type. You make things bold. You print.

There are only so many things you can do in a text document, and there aren't that many different ways to do them. The same applies to numbers in spreadsheets. You add, you subtract, you calculate the internal rate of return.

The point is, the differences between office suites aren't all that huge. Take a look at the main text toolbar for Microsoft Word and OpenOffice.org.

Something else I've observed in training is that a lot of people never received training on Microsoft Office in the first place. They aren't working as efficiently or powerfully as they could with the office suite they currently use. So when you switch people to a new office suite like OpenOffice.org and give them a day or two of training, they're going to be working more efficiently with the new office suite than the old one.

OpenOffice.org Is Free, Runs on All Operating Systems, So Everyone Can Use It. No More Digital Divide

With many functions of jobhunting, schools, government, and other essential functions done using the computer, it's very important that everyone be able to complete these functions. When a government agency sends out information or requires submission of information using a Word document, that's unfair and an undue burden on someone who just needs a job or needs to pay taxes. Imagine that FEMA required that all applications for assistance had to be done in Word.

Anything that we are required to do or need to do must be doable without paying $500 for the tool. Especially when something as useful and powerful as OpenOffice.org is freely available now.

OpenOffice.org means equal opportunity. You can read Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files, and create them, as well.

Small File Sizes

This seems kind of trivial, after talking about universal access to required functions. But it's something to think about. OpenOffice.org file sizes are roughly 1/10th the size of their Microsoft Office counterparts. This isn't so much an issue for your own personal computer, but think about network servers, and about email files around. Having smaller file sizes is a tremendous advantage.

Great Drawing Tools

Anyone using Illustrator, or perhaps Photoshop should take a look at OpenOffice.org Draw (File > New > Draw), especially the new 2.0 version. The prefab shapes are amazing, there are precise controls for curve points, you can export to EPS, JPG and more, you can convert any item to a curve, polygon, bitmap, or 3D, there's curved text formatting like in Photoshop...the list goes on and on. I can spend an entire weekend just fiddling happily with Draw.

Take a look at this OpenOffice.org 1.x file; it's all done from scratch within the program. Here's a thumbnail of what's in it.(And by the way, speaking of small file sizes in the previous item, the file size is 14k.)

Download bowloffruit.sxd

Solid Styles for Formatting Text and Page Layout

Styles are how you make your document do what you want it to. Styles are things like the paragraph style Heading1 which is 18 points big, Helvetica, with 12 points of space below it. Or the bulleted list style DiamondBullet that has a black diamond for the bullet character, and has three tenths of an inch from the bullet to the text. Or a page style with a footer centered at the bottom of the document half an inch from the edge, a header at the right side of the top of the document, and a left margin of an inch and a half.

Create or modify the styles you need, apply them to the text as you need, and life will be good.

OpenOffice.org doesn't randomly create new bullet or other styles and apply them to your text, it doesn't take every style you've ever created and infiltrate them into your other documents, and it doesn't get all twitchy with the formatting the way Microsoft Word does. Microsoft Word drives me up the wall. I think it's a sign of the apocalypse that something this uncontrollable is used so widely.

If you've always used Microsoft Word, take a look at OpenOffice.org. Use the styles. (Format > Styles and Formatting.) See how free of cursing and hair-pulling-out life can be.

In OpenOffice.org 2.0, a Nice Presentation Tool

The 1.x version, I must admit, was serviceable but not sexy. The 2.0 version looks a lot like Microsoft Powerpoint, has a zillion effects, and makes everything a lot easier. Check it out if you've used 1.x and been disappointed.

OpenOffice.org Doesn't Randomly Decide to Do Stuff to Your Document

You can see my blog on how to easily configure OpenOffice.org to do what you want it to do, not the default stuff by default.You control it through Tools > Autocorrect.

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The Microsoft Office 2007 Upgrade Is Going to Have a Big Learning Curve--and a Big Price. Now's the Time to Consider OpenOffice.org Instead.

(Originally published February 2006)

Office 2007 Is Just Another Upgrade...Right?
In a word. No.

This is going to be huge. Painful. Expensive. And that's before you get to the retraining costs.

Here's why.

Microsoft Office 2007 Is a Radical Redesign of the User Interface, and Will Require Plenty of Retraining

Here's the current Microsoft Word toolbar.

Courtesy of LInux Watch  and linked articles, here's a screen shot of MS Word 2003. Click to see a larger version.

MS Office 12 looks entirely different, and changes constantly as you move in the document. Click this image to see a larger version.

And again courtesy of Linux Watch, here's a screen shot of MS Office 2007. Click to see a larger version.

You can't just install this on all 500 computers at your organization and tell people there's a new version.

The Buzz on Microsoft Office 2007 Is the Retraining

Experts around the planet are leary of the radically changed new interface.

Here's an excerpt from an article on eWeek.

Heading the list of challenges facing Microsoft is the fact that Office 2007 has a new user interface, which could require extensive staff retraining at a significant cost, as well as a new file format, which has the potential to create compatibility issues, analysts such as Joe Wilcox of Jupiter Research, told eWEEK.

"When you introduce something new, it disrupts, and this increases things like help desk costs and employee downtime," Wilcox said. "So, to get to the benefits that come with this, they have to get past whatever retraining will be needed around the new user interface and any hardships around the new file format, which are always disruptive. These are two big hurdles Microsoft has to get around."

Enterprise customers such as Robert Rosen, CIO for the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases and an eWEEK Corporate Partner, agree. The new user interface and file formats pose "major concerns and will slow up adoption significantly," Rosen said. "Since we don't know enough about the benefits of Office 2007, we have not yet developed any plans to move forward."

And another quote:

Jupiter Research's Wilcox told eWEEK that if there were ever an opportunity for StarOffice and OpenOffice.org, "this might be it, going head-to-head against Office 2007, because we have a new file format and a new user interface, which means a lot of extra cost," and which could torpedo many enterprises from upgrading.

In addition, a lot of Software Assurance contracts are expiring between now and the end of July, and Microsoft will be aggressively beating the sales drum. Those businesses might well be looking at their alternatives and options before signing a new contract, he said.

Here's Paul Thurott:

For the first time ever, Microsoft has dramatically changed the Office interface, replacing the standard menu-and-toolbar interface we've known since the earliest Windows applications with a new UI paradigm based on context-sensitive ribbons and tabs."

Here are quotes from Paul's article on the new office software, from Jacobe Jaffe, Group Product Manager on the Office team.

As a personal anecdote, I have a variety of PCs, and on one of those machines for a variety of reasons, I still have Office 2003 installed. I use Office 12 essentially full time, and for me to go back into 2003 is not so good. It's pretty painful, actually."

And Paul's follow-up comment--keeping in mind that he's an expert user.

But because this requires a different skill set to accomplish, I had to relearn how to do this. Long story short, most things are easier, but some power user features will require some more work....I'm nitpicking here, of course. The truth is, the Office 12 interface is so much dramatically better than previous versions, it's hard to find fault with it. On the other hand, I am a power user who uses Office all day long, and I slightly resent having to relearn certain skills. I'll get over it.

Mark Shuttleworth (founder of the Ubuntu project, second space tourist and freedom toaster guy), makes this point, posted by Justin here.

This might not be a direct quote but it's Justin's restatement of Mark's point.

"Office 12 has had substantial UI changes, since Microsoft is trying to distance themselves from the Open Office project. End result, users will require re-training. So which is easier? Re-train users in new Office 12? Or simply, start using Open Office which quite frankly looks just like MS Office today."

Here's another blog along the same lines, Ted's Radio Blog, with a similar conclusion at the end.

"Seven different versions. Dozens of applications, with various features disabled. Nightmarish new licenses. New servers. What a mess! All this to print documents, calculate spreadsheets and do other routine office work? I think Microsoft is overreaching here. They may sell to their captive audience, but new computer users whose machines come with Corel Office or OpenOffice are going to be hard-pressed to find a reason to switch. If you haven't tried OpenOffice.org, there's no better time than the present!"

Think about all those users out there.  Switching, if they all do, is not going to be easy. Take a look at just one part of it. Think about how the people who call you, the IT support folks, are going to react. Think about Laura in accounting or Bob down in contracts.

It All Comes Back to Economics 101

You're happy now with Microsoft Office.

But things change, and the cost can grow to outweigh the benefit.

What if this:


changed to this?

Think About the Cost and Benefit of the Upgrade to Microsoft 2007. Really Think About It.
If you feel that the new UI in this version could change your world and your users' worlds,  there might be a wonderful promised land of fabulous easy of use waiting on the other side of the River of Retraining. There might be. But ya gotta cross the River of Retraining first, and some of your users are going to rock the boat.

I'm not saying you shouldn't use Microsoft Office just because they're changing the interface. I'm saying, you're going to have to retrain people. As long as you have to retrain people, why not consider all your options?

Switching from your current Microsoft software to Office 2007 will require:

• A lot of money for the software
• Training and documentation
• Time and effort to install and convert documents

Switching from your current Microsoft software to OpenOffice.org will require:

• A lot of money for the software
• Training and documentation
• Time and effort to install and convert documents

 

<>

The Microsoft Office 2007 Upgrade is more expensive in money, time, and effort than switching to OpenOffice.org.

This Too: OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office Currently Look More Similar Than Office 2003 and Office 2007
Training your users to go from Office 2003, or before, to OpenOffice.org, might be easier than teaching them the whole new Office 2007 system.

Here's the current Microsoft Word toolbar, and the toolbar for OpenOffice.org Writer. Right now, they're really similar.  Click each to see a bigger image. See how long it takes to tell which is which.

And here's an OpenOffice.org screen shot. Not that different.

Retraining Aside: Do You Need the 2007 Features?

As a commenter on this blog, George Wenger, states, "The vast majority of users in a so-called "average" business setting already have no use for 90% of the existing features of Word, let alone a whole set of new features."

Your job is to make everyone else's job easier. When you walk by the software users in the hall, you want them to say, "Hey, Jim! I can do that mail merge now!" and maybe offer a high five. 

Does Marsha in Accounting or Bob in Contracts need ribbon toolbars and a new UI paradigm?

How many of the new features does your organization actually need? Have the support staff been begging you for this one?

"We're also enabling a new mobile scenario with OneNote Mobile," Jaffe told me. "So literally you'll be able to have a OneNote notebook available to you on a mobile device, like a Windows Powered Smartphone. You can take notes on your Smartphone, or read your [PC-based notes on the Smartphone. The pages in that Smartphone notebook align to the information you have in your PC version of OneNote. They sync up through ActiveSync."

And think about these questions:
- How many complaints will you get about how everything's different?
- What will the overall attitude be like when users come in Monday morning and their desktops are different?
- How much will you spend on training and documentation to get people up and running on Office 2007.

Here's a blog on this topic: Dave Rosenberg states that Vista gives you an opportunity to really compare the actual cost and the actual benefits, and he quotes Jon Oltsik from Enterprise Strategy Group.

"

Later this year, Microsoft will throw a $500 million PR and advertising party aimed at convincing users to upgrade their PCs to Vista. This provides a perfect opportunity for the Linux crowd to persuade CIOs to evaluate Linux and compare pricing. In this way, Microsoft will likely open the door to some unintended Linux desktop momentum.

I have every expectation that Vista will be a much better OS than XP, but do users really need it? Perhaps. Then again, many CIOs may conclude that the more prudent choice would be a Linux desktop and Open Office migration offering good enough functionality, at 10 percent of Microsoft's price."

Switching to OpenOffice.org Means You Can Have Your IT Cake and Eat at Least Part of It, Too
With OpenOffice.org, you can be the kick-butt IT guy who gives your users software that might even be easier to learn than Office 2007, and saves the company money. The VP's assistant Chris loves you, and the VP loves you. Doesn't get much better than that.

If after careful evaluation of 2007, the alternatives (OpenOffice.org among others), and what is involved in upgrading, you still think MS Office 2007 is the best solution for your users' needs, go ahead and upgrade. (Keep in mind that users do not need to be "cool."  ;>  They do need health insurance.)

But it might not be, and it's important to think about your choices. If your job is to deliver the best product for the best value and have your users be able to do their jobs well, please think about the choices.

References for switching to OpenOffice.org: See this post on the process of migrating a group of users who might be resisting the process, and this post on top ten reasons to switch to OpenOffice.org (besides the one covered in this post).

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Go Ben! Energetic coverage of the goal to advertise OpenOffice.org

Ben Horst continues to hit the virtual bricks and get coverage of his effort to make sure everyone knows about OpenOffice.org. Every time I look around, someone's asking me "did you know about this?" Including people not in the OpenOffice world.

Here's the gist.

A group of grassroots activists in the OpenOffice.org community have just announced they are going to undertake a similar media campaign to Spread Firefox, starting with a free (as in beer) New York City daily newspaper called "The Metro," published by Metro International. Most penguinistas know what a huge success the grassroots Spread Firefox ad campaign was. Through ads in the New York Times and the Frankfurt General Newspaper, and the hilarious Firefox videos on the FunnyFox website (video link here), Firefox has probably gained greater popular name brand recognition in the general public than any other free open source software (FOSS) project. 

Read more.  Or click here to contribute.

It's not just sending out emails to everyone he knows, though--other efforts have failed. As the Factory City blog notes, "It’s interesting to see this effort emerge organically — especially after the initial thrust to create a SpreadOpenOffice project fashioned after Spread Firefox died on the vine owing to internal struggles over branding control. A similar project SpreadKDE made it out of the gate, but it’s unclear whether it ever took off."

Ben's currently about 75% of the way to his goal.

I'm amazed at how well Ben's spreading the news. We met at Comdex 2003  and I was impressed then with his technical knowledge, his ability to learn the Las Vegas bus system. I was impressed at how such a clean-cut, nice guy could look so  scary in an Army Surplus outfit, which was extremely effective in keeping people from bugging us on our way through some of the more alarming Las Vegas neighborhoods. ;>  But I didn't know he could get people's attention like this.

Ben, I'm tellin' ya, when you get done with this ad, do the same thing in Chicago. That's all it'll take to get Oprah to do that show I'm always fantasizing about where she gives away a free  Linux laptop to everyone in the audience.

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My Ubuntu Installs Were Incredibly Easy! (Repost)

(Originally posted March 2006)

If you've been thinking of putting Linux on one of your old machines, but you've heard that Linux installs are horrifyingly painful, PLEASE read this. That's what I used to think, too.

Not any more.

You will be shocked, delighted, and go "whoohoohoo!" all the way home.

Here's Ubuntu, running on my ooooold laptop, just as slick and easy as can be.

Ubuntu is incredibly simple to install and and use. You can install Ubuntu on an old machine (or whatever machine). Aside from the fact that nothing works 100% of the time, and wireless can be very wacky on any machine or operating system, I tell ya, installing Ubuntu will Just Work.

I repeat.

A Linux distro, Ubuntu, is incredibly slick to INSTALL and to use. You can be up and running on Linux today with no more effort than you'd expend making tea.

Now, I'm sure that many other distros are great and easy too. I understand from my techy friend and author of the first Java Certification Exams Simon Roberts who supervised but didn't actually do the install or tell me anything I didn't know, SuSE rocks and is gorgeous to boot. I understand that many of my fears about Linux installation actually are based on unusual situations like setting up wireless and really old or really new hardware. And are also just based on what I heard a long time ago that is not true anymore.

So anyway, it's probably not just Ubuntu that's easy and slick as a whistle. But I'm still very excited about this install.

I am doing everything for this post on my newly Linuxed laptop, too, btw.

Here's the story.

Me and My Linux Background: I'm So Not a Linux Head

I knew I would have to admit this sooner or later: I'm not really that knowledgeable about Linux. Not in a deep down kind of way. I have never and will never build my own distro and don't keep track of what GUI is my fave.

I'm not afraid of it or of using other operating systems--I used Solaris at Sun for three years, Mac at Great Plains Software, mostly Windows since then.

But you know, you hear these stories about installing Linux and it sounds like a quick hike up K2 would be easier. Packages. Drivers. Distros. Editing your BIOS. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH.

I installed, with the considerable help of my friend Simon, a Linux distro a few years ago. Red Hat 8 or something like that. Not horrible but not easy.

Time to try it again, though. I considered the Linspire distro but there seems to be some cost associated with it (forget that! ;>  ) and there seemed to be a lot of buzz around Ubuntu. Plus you've GOT to love a distro with this name.

What I Installed On and the Internet Setup
I bought this laptop, a Dell Latitude CPX, used for $400 from Half.com at least three years ago. I tried to check what its specs are and couldn't see it offhand, but you can figure it out generally. A roughly seven-year-old laptop. Defiitely not less.

I also installed Ubuntu on my four or five year old HP Pavilion 6835, 800 mhz machine with 300 MB memory or so.

I connected using a standard Ethernet card to my in-house standard Ethernet network. No wireless. (Wireless is a pain in the patookus on any system--at least in my experience.) The Ethernet card just went in the little slot on the left side of my laptop, and the dangly thing connected to the normal plug of the Ethernet connection. My desktop already had an Ethernet card installed.

How I Got the Install CDs

Like a breeze. very easy. I downloaded the CD from Ubuntulinux.org. But you can just order CDs too, off the web site. Totally for free, no shipping costs or anything. (Just one note--I ordered mine at least a couple weeks ago and haven't received them yet. Probably more like three weeks ago.)

How the Install Went

Like a breeze. I didn't partition the drives or do anything fancy.  I just said yes, take over the computer, leave no data behind, etc.

I had the computers hooked up to the Internet. The install went out to the Ubuntu site and got extra files it needed, with no fuss or muss dealing with the connections.

I did nothing complicated. I entered what my name and password should be. That's about as complicated as it got.

Performance

Doesn't zip really fast on my laptop, and I haven't used the desktop a lot yet since I'm dithering about my monitor options. But it's definitely good enough. It's a 7+ year old machine.

What It's Like to Use
Very similar to Windows and Solaris. I just played around with the various selections and it looked pretty easy. OpenOffice.org is there, under Applications > Office, just like you'd expect. I got on the Internet by choosing Applications > Internet. I found my files by choosing Places > Home Folder. It's all pretty logical. Most windowing applications aren't that complicated, and I find Solaris, Linux, and Windows all far more similar to each other than Macintosh.

What Else Works Besides Internet
The laptop doesn't have a CD burner, just a CD R drive, so I hooked up my USB Iomega CDRW external drive to it. I inserted a blank CD. And it just worked--a message popped up asking what I wanted to do. It was just like burning a CD on XP. I might have squealed with delight.

Printing worked fine, too. I hooked up the printer directly the USB port of my laptop. I chose System > Administration > Printing, double-clicked the new printer, answered the simple questions, and selected the printer I use. Didn't have to go hunt down drivers or anything.

And yes, the printing actually works. Just got a nice printout of this page on the printer. ;>

I haven't  set up Thunderbird or anything for email since I'm not using this machine for that. I'm pretty pumped about the printing and the other hardware and networking stuff.

Installing Linux Just Worked.
The install was a breeze. Internet and hardware just worked. The layout is logical. The software is free.

Come on in, the Linux is fine!

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Microsoft Owns Your Tube Top (Repost)

(Originally posted March 2006)

Remember that commercial for Compass bank, that shows the woman at an ATM in her closet? The ATM told her, "I'm sorry, there will be $2 fee to access your tube top."

(Honest, there is a commercial like that. I'm not just using blatant sexy illustrations for shock value to draw attention to the benefits of ODF.)

That's what the Open Document Format, or ODF, is all about. Lots of people and organizations want all documents to be in .odf rather than .doc or .xls format.

Most software you use creates documents  in a propriety format. That means that the way the software creates the files is exclusive to the people who wrote that software. You can't use another program to open your own files, or at least your choices are very narrow.  That means you need to buy software to continue to open files with those formats--if you want to be able to continue to access your own documents.  Your thoughts, your meeting minutes, your personal budget spreadsheets, etc.--all need to be rented from the people who wrote the software.

Doesn't it seem kind of odd to have to keep paying for the right to get at documents you created?. It's like paying to rent a house you own. It's like having to pay a fee to get into your own closet for your own tube top.

OpenOffice.org, Sun, and other folks think everyone, including Microsoft, should write programs that output documents in  Open Document Format. The instructions for creating programs that make ODF documents are available for anybody to use. That way, when all programs create documents in the same format, then you don't have to pay to open your documents. You can pick the application you want to use, there will be zillions of them, and some of them are free. You aren't dependent on one software program to get at your documents. OpenOffice.org uses ODF format.

Here's an article on what's going on with a group that was formed to promote ODF, and Microsoft.
http://www.hunterstrat.com/news/2006/03/07/eu-watchdogs-have-their-eye-on-microsoft-office/

Here's the web site of the fine folks of the Open Document Format.
http://www.odfalliance.org/

And here's the web site of Scott Johnson who just sums things up quite nicely regarding open source, and open document format. See the item at the end of his list.
http://fuzzyblog.com/archives/2006/03/08/the-trip-home-open-source-in-minnesota/

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Everybody Loves OpenOffice.org (Especially When They Think It's Microsoft Office)

 

This is another story about change, and tangentially a story about Stevie Nicks.

I’ve already mentioned Louis, who when switching to OpenOffice.org from Microsoft Office, simply told his users that there would be a big upgrade. No mention of a different office suite program. ;> I love that story.

Here’s another story from the other side of the country. The school district’s latest levy had failed, so they had to cut a couple hundred thousand dollars from the budget. Naturally, there was a big meeting to talk about how to do this.

The school district IT director, Randy, was taking notes during the meeting, and his notes were being projected for everyone to see.

Randy said, “So, one way we could save a huge amount of money would be to cut Microsoft Office and switch to OpenOffice.org.”

Murmurmurmur…general objections…too hard…too different….it would never work.

"Well,” Randy says, “Here’s a question. What program am I using to take notes?”

There was a rousing chorus of “Microsoft Word, of course.”

"Nope,” replied Randy, with what I can only assume was just a hint of a satisfied smirk. (I would have smirked. Randy might be a better person than me.) “It’s OpenOffice.org Writer.”

Wow! No way! But it’s so much like Word!

Randy continued. “And you know what? For the last two years, you’ve been receiving Word, Excel, and Powerpoint documents from me that I created in OpenOffice.org and saved in Microsoft Office format."

More murmuring, surprise, delight, etc.

And so they voted overwhelmingly to switch to OpenOffice.org and save a pantsload of money.

This is, by the way, took place recently in the  Seattle area, in Microsoft’s back yard.

It's yet another story showing that Change itself, uppercase, is often what we primarily fear; not the actual new thing that’s going to happen.  As the song goes, I've been afraid of changin' cuz I built my life (and my complex mail merges and spreadsheets) around you.

For those of you out there fighting the good fight and evangelizing OpenOffice.org, I think this story has some great lessons. Don’t try to convince people ahead of time. Just start using it within your IT department, or personally, and expose people to it without telling them what it is. Install it on people’s computers and let them play with it. Let the potential users enjoy sitting in the nice open source hot tub. Let them learn to like it without knowing much about it.  Let them come to the conclusion that....hey...you know, this isn't all that different, and we sure could save a lot of money switching to it...hmmm....

Try leading with the product, not with the idea of the product, or with Change.

Click here for additional tips on migrating users to OpenOffice.org, and click here for thoughts on how to make it easier for people to want to switch.

For those who are encountering resistance transitioning--I know that OpenOffice.org isn’t the same as Microsoft Office. It’s different. The Venn overlap is maybe 70%. But when you have to cut a couple hundred thousand from your budget, do you do it by cutting Microsoft Office, or by cutting salaries and books and benefits and other things that really matter? )

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Is OpenOffice the Right Tool for Techwriters and Book Production? (Repost)

   

Originally published in fall 2005.

Note: See also this article by Bruce Byfield.
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/magazine/technical/replaceframewithwriter.html

OpenOffice.org as a Techwriter's Tool for Making Books
Let's get this out of the way up front. I use Framemaker for all my OpenOffice.org workbooks and books. It's just a better tool for books than both OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Word. Framemaker has conditional text, extraordinary cross-referencing and numbering tools, solid, reliable layout features, conditional text (which I use extensively), and much more.

So if you're using Framemaker now, you like it and understand it, you use a lot of cross-references, and you do books of even moderate complexity, I say to you, don't be an open source hero. Stick with Framemaker.

If you're not sure whether you need Framemaker, read on and see what you think.

If you're on Microsoft Word, the page flow, random application of styles you never created, and cross-reference truncation has got to be driving you crazy, so I invite you to read on, as well.

(If you're interested in a full workbook about these topics, see the Professional Techwriter workbook here. )

OpenOffice.org Professional Book Production Strengths

Styles rock. They have immense power for just all the things you'd expect from styles, as well as the sequence in which page styles (master pages in Frame) are used.

Styles in general. Styles are really well implemented in OpenOffice.org. You choose Format > Styles and Formatting, you pick what kind of style to create, and you go nuts. Use styles in a standard, consistent manner and you won't go wrong.

Page styles: To specify the layout such as type of headers and footers, margins, backgrounds, etc., you use page styles. You create them the same way you'd create a paragraph or character style. Page styles are pretty solid. You apply them by double-clicking the page style in the stylist, then switching from one page style to another with a manual break or one of two automatic approaches. You can also restart page numbering with all three ways.

Switching page styles: As mentioned, you can switch from one page style to another by inserting a manual break, or automatically. One way is to set up a paragraph style like Heading1 to always start at the top of a new page, with a particular page style. (Framemaker doesn't have this.)  For instance, if you always start a new section with the paragraph style Heading1 and use the page style FirstPage, then you can make that happen automatically and never think about applying page styles.

You can also set up a page style to be applied once, then automatically switch to another page style. Just as you might set up Heading1 to automatically switch to BodyText as the next paragraph style, you can set up FirstPage to automatically switch to LeftRight as the next page style.

Automatic PDF: If your department is on a budget, don't worry about purchasing high-priced copies of Adobe Distiller. You can make PDFs of your documents automatically. Just choose File > Export as PDF, name the file, and set your options.

Master documents: Master documents are the equivalent of master files and book files. They work. They're not slick and powerful, but they work. They also don't crash and corrupt the subdocuments. They're just a bit tricky; you have to do them the right way. You have to insert a Text Item component between each subdocument in order to be able to apply formatting to the subdocuments, but it's not hard to do. To create a master document, just choose File > New > Master Document and use the tools in the window to add files, TOCs, text items, etc.

Automatic captions: You can set up OpenOffice.org to automatically insert captions for all your graphics, tables, etc. They're numbered separately and you can have whatever word you want in front of the caption: Table, Object, Item, Illustration, etc. Choose Tools > Options > Writer > AutoCaption.

Tables of contents: Tables of contents are in generally pretty good. They're linked to the headings you set up in outline numbering (see Weaknesses) and tabs are included by default. I would say they're just as powerful as Frame but easier to set up. You have a lot of formatting power through styles.

Better drawing tools: It's not hard to beat the drawing tools in Framemaker, but OpenOffice.org does it by a mile. Use a frame (Insert > Frame) to group the items, or else just choose File > New > Drawing and make a separate diagram. Then copy and paste into a frame in Writer or export the drawing to a JPG or other format. If you do flow charts or diagrams, the connector line tools alone might be worth using Writer as your book production tool. (Or alternately use Draw to create diagrams that you export to GIF and import into Framemaker.)

OpenOffice.org Professional Book Production Weaknesses

Cross references: Generally, they're solid if not all that slick to implement. However, two issues. One, there's no way, as in Framemaker, to search for broken cross-references, though the cross reference does show up as an empty gray box. Sometimes it's not even an empty gray box, it looks fine. So that's a big issue.

Also, if you want to do cross-references between subdocuments in a master document, you can't select them from a list—you have to keep track of what they are and type the name of the reference in manually. AND the cross-reference doesn't show up correctly in the individual document, it's just a blank gray box. You can see it correctly only from the master document, which is read-only. Grr.

Outline numbering: Outline numbering is actually kind of a powerful tool, and not that tough to implement. Outline numbering is how you tell the program that ChapterTitle is your top-level paragraph heading style, Heading1 is the next level down, and so on. From that you get running headers and footers, automatic chapter numbering, etc. You can also have only one paragraph style at each level, so there goes the idea of having two paragraph styles, Heading1NewPage and Heading1.

Indexes: Indexes work, but they're a little weird and it takes a while to get used to how they work.

Chapter-page numbering: You can set up chapter-page numbering, such as 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 2-1, and so on. You can apply chapter-page numbering to captions. You can have the chapter number in headers and footers. (Once you've set up outline numbering.) However, you can't have it show up correctly in the table of contents for the second level heading on down. Thus, you can either forego tables of contents, forego detailed tables of contents, or forego chapter-page numbering.

Running headers and footers: Running headers are easy, once you've set up outline numbering. Just go to the header or footer and choose Insert > Fields > Other, select the Document tab, select Type column, select the Chapter item, and choose what kind of information you want to insert. “Chapter” just means section, and you can specify what level section with the Layer field in the lower right corner.

There's just one problem. The running header or footer reflects the most recent heading. If you're writing about French Bread on page 1, and have a section title about Rye Bread halfway down the page on page 2, then the running header at the top of page 2 will be French Bread. It doesn't see anything on the current page, only what has already appeared in the document. If you had a running footer on page 2, it would show Rye Bread because by then Rye Bread would have appeared in the document.

This is an issue only with heading level 2 on down, since usually your top level heading will start at the top of a new page or document so quick switches aren't an issue. Therefore you can use only running headers for your top-level heading; you can use them for any levels but only in the footer, or you can use a separate page style for every chapter and type in all your headers and footers manually. The first and second are the best options.

Variables: Let's say you're putting together a huge document for a proposal, and the value like Contractor and Price and ContractorIDNumber appear several places throughout the book. Or you're doing a book for three different products and you want to be able to easily change the product name from BadgersRUs to MarmotMania. In Framemaker and in OpenOffice.org you can create variables to handle this. However, you can't share them across documents in OpenOffice.org, even if they're part of the same master document. You can't import them from one doc to another or from one doc to all other docs in a master document. You can do that in Framemaker.

In Conclusion...

Use styles. Use page styles. Take advantage of automatic page style application/switching. Set up outline numbering. Be flexible with your formatting requirements (notably with running headers and footers, and chapter-page numbering). Be very structured with the titles of your cross-references. Don't expect Framemaker. Do some test documents.

If all that sounds good, then OpenOffice.org could be a good tool for you and your group.

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Spending Your Money on Something Important (Repost)

Office suite software isn't really all that important.

What's important is pretty much anything else. What your organization is doing: research, services, saving lives, preserving order, education. Preserving the rain forest. Rebuilding New Orleans. Job retraining. Heck, you could argue that a good pumpkin pie is essentially more important than software.

OK, the office suite software helps you do all those things I listed and a million more. But I want to point out that our goal in our eight hours a day is not to use software. It's everything else.

All right. So now think about this.

OpenOffice.org is free.

Other office suites are not.

You switch to OpenOffice.org, and you or your organization is suddenly not spending $500, or $50,000, or $5 million on your office suite licenses.

Add up all the other people or organizations who are no longer spending that money on an office suite, and suddenly we're into some serious cash.

Think about how much your city police force spends on office suite software, and about how that money could probably do some good if it were spent on, say, salaries for additional police.

Think about what that research facility down the road spends on software. Compared to the money they spend for their equipment, maybe not much, but it's money probably better spent on upping the salaries for a few poor post-docs than on office suite software.

Think about how much money the federal government spends on office suite software. Now fantasize about how you would redirect that money if you were in charge.

(Almost makes $4,000 toilet seats pale in comparison, doesn't it? OK, toilet seats are already white, but you know what I mean.)

Amazon saved $17 million when they switched to Linux. Same principle--pay less for something that's not part of your core business.

Think about how much your state spends on office suite software for schools, and how many more teachers and books that money could buy.

A lot.

Education is one of the most important places to think about OpenOffice.org. Education is, to put it mildly, important. Plus, third graders aren't likely to complain that they're used to how Word does styles and they don't want to switch. They're open to anything new. And education isn't exactly overfunded. I live in Colorado which is either 49th or 47th in the nation in funding for education.

For educators, here's an interesting article on trends this year, including OpenOffice.org. 

For anyone thinking about upgrading to Vista, here's an important blog. Dave Rosenberg states that Vista gives you an opportunity to really compare the actual cost and the actual benefits, and he quotes Jon Oltsik from Enterprise Strategy Group."

So just think about the value. Think about how much money you're spending on your office suite, and what you could do with that money that would be more important.

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TechTarget Article: Google Spreadsheets Review

I've written an article for TechTarget on the new Google spreadsheets. Here's part of it.

"My first reaction was, "Oh, cute," and "Looks like a good design." It seems like the GUI designers stood up inside the box and looked at what was outside. The design is not revolutionary, but it avoids, at the least, a retread of the client-based spreadsheet GUI. The designers used different types of widgets to provide the navigation and options. There are three tabs for different types of functions: drop down buttons for key features like Saving, buttons for standard toolbar features (Cut, Copy and Paste) and a few plain old links for common features like New and Open."

Essentially, I think it's great for some, and others will never take a second look. Click here to read the whole review.

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