OpenOffice.org Training, Tips, and Ideas

Quick Guide to Creating Automatic Tables of Contents

I've got this post with a PDF from my workbooks on how to create tables of contents. However, I wanted to also make one that's just here in the web site, and with fewer details.

This is  a table of contents in Writer. Never, ever create one from scratch. It is so much easier to create one automatically.

Note:
- The gray part doesn't print; it's just there to indicate that there's something automatic happening.
- You can change how each level looks just by modifying certain styles; more on that later.
- If you make changes to the document, then right-click on the TOC and choose Update, the TOC will automatically reflect the changes in the document. Page numbers will be correct, etc.

Creating a Table of Contents: Step 1, Select and Apply Paragraph Styles

Writer knows what to put in the TOC based on what paragraph styles you tell it to look at. Paragraph styles like Heading1 etc. should be applied to the headings in the document. So plan and apply the paragraph styles that set up the structure of the document.

Paragraph styles are here; choose Format > Styles and Formatting. You can use existing ones such as Heading1 through Heading10 (recommended) or create your own.

For instance, in this document I decided that the first heading (chapter) would have Heading1 paragraph style applied;  the second level down would have Heading2 paragraph style applied, and so on. So in this illustration, the heading Types of Bread has the Heading2 style applied.

So that's what you do.

• Decide what paragraph styles you'll use on the top-level headings, the second-level headings, and so on.
• Apply those styles to the headings.

To apply a style:

• Click in the heading
• And either double-click the style name in the Styles and Formatting window, or if it's there, select it in the dropdown list on the left.

Do that to every heading in your document. This is of course less of a pain if you do it as you write the document rather than all at once afterwards.

Note: If you apply Heading1, Heading2 etc.  and don't like how they look, right-click on a heading with the style applied and choose Edit Paragraph Style.

In the window that appears, just make your changes and click OK.

Creating a Table of Contents: Step 2, Set Up the Table of Contents

Click in your document before any of the content. Then choose Insert > Indexes and Tables > Indexes and Tables. This window will appear.

First, check the number of levels you want to include. If you don't want all of them, change the Evaluate Up To Level setting.

Then be sure that the Outline checkbox is marked. Click the ... icon next to it.

In this window, specify the paragraph styles you selected and applied  in the previous major step, then click OK. If you used Heading1 through Heading10 it should already be set up correctly.

Then click OK in the main tab and your TOC will appear.

Creating a Table of Contents: Step 3, Modifying the Table of Contents

If you don't like how the TOC looks, modify the styles used to format the TOC. Right-click on a line in the TOC that you don't like and choose Edit Paragraph Style.

In the window that appears, change the settings, then click OK.

The TOC will reflect those changes.

To update, edit, or delete the TOC, right-click on it.

Is That All There Is?

Definitely not. See this blog for more info including how to make the TOC hotlinked. But you're well on your way.

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Doing an email mail merge without most of the overhead of the OpenOffice Mail Merge wizard

I'm afraid the Tools > Mail Merge Wizard has never been one of my favorites. Too complicated.

I always train people to just "roll their own" when making a mail merge document.

http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2007/01/mail_merge_in_o.html

Everything you can do in the mail merge wizard, you can pretty much do in the roll-your-own approach, especially since you can now print all documents to a single file and then open that and customize it as you like, before printing on paper.

Printing

and viewing/editing the file output. (Click to see the bigger version; you'll see different values in the two letters.)

BUT

One thing you can't do in the roll-your-own approach is do an email mail merge.

Do you really want to go through the complexity and muscle aches of using the Mail Merge Wizard? No. And you don't have to. You're going to mix and match.

Step 1. Create your email the way you want it with the roll-your-own approach.

http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2007/01/mail_merge_in_o.html

Save it. Keep it open.

Step 2: Set up email configuration. In Writer, choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer > Email. This setup worked for me. Key settings are smtp.comcast.net and port 587. You just need to do this once. If you have security on your email, like requiring a password to send, you'll have to click the Server Authentication button and enter additional information.

Step 3: Choose Tools > Mail Merge Wizard. Choose Current Document, or else browse to your document, and click Next.

Choose Email and click Next.

Select the database you're using and the table. Click OK and click Next.

Keep clicking next til you're here. Fill it in by selecting the field from the database that has the emails in it, and anything else you want.  Click Send Documents.

You'll see the progress window (in this test I only sent two emails).

 

And you're done!

The received email looks like this. Note that I sent it in email format, but with the extra carriage returns I put between the lines in Writer, it looks a little spacey here. You'll want to experiment with and adjust how you format the original Writer documents and what format you send in.

Sorting mixed 5- and 9-digit zip codes in OpenOffice.org Calc or Microsoft Excel

Every advance leads to benefits and to problems.

The 9-digit zip code is great for delivery accuracy. But they aren't required. So you have mixed 5-digits and 9-digits.

Now just try sorting your address info by zip code when there's mixed 5s and 9s. Here's what you get when you sort a standard address list by zip code.  It's like cattle and sheep, they don't mix.

What do you do?

There are three things you can do:
1 - Enforce a 9-digit zip. Everyone without four digits gets -0000 whether they want it or not.
2 - Put a ' in front of every zip code. It doesn't print but it forces the zip code to think of itself as text. (This also helps with not losing leading zeroes.)
3 - Split the column into two, so you have the zip in one column and the four-digit extension in the other. This is kind of like the forcing-9-digit solution.

The explanations follow but if you want to root around in an example spreadsheet, here's a spreadsheet with options 2 and 3.

Solution 1
Solution 1 is self-explanatory.

Solution 2
Just type a '   a regular apostrophe on the keyboard, to the left of the first character of every zip code. It doesn't show but it forces text format.

See? The ' is there in the entry field but it doesn't show in the spreadsheet cell.

Typing ' into thousands of cells takes a while. So you can search and replace. There might be a better way to do this but this at least doesn't suck.

Click in the Zip Code heading in your spreadsheet, then  choose Edit > Find and Replace. Click More Options and fill out the window as shown, searching for ^0, caret zero, and replacing with '0, apostrophe zero.

You'll need to do this once for 0, then for 1, then for 2, and so on. (I've tried to figure out a faster way, plus submit any suggestions.) 

Either replace one at a time if you're cautious, or go nuts and replace all. You might want to select the whole column of zip codes, too, and select the Current Selection Only checkbox.

When you're done, and when you sort that data, the zip codes sort correctly.

Solution 3

You can split your data into two cells with the LEFT and RIGHT functions. I'm throwing in IF too because sometimes you'll want the right-hand four digits (the extension) and sometimes you'll want 0000. (Or just leave it blank, whatever you want to do.)

This is what I want to achieve.

And this is how I get it. The formula for the first column, where I extract the first five digits, is simple.

The right-hand side is a little more complicated since you're dealing with variable-length zip codes. But basically you're saying if the zip code is just five digits, then create a new 4-digit extension, "-0000" (or just "0000" depending on how you want to deal with the dash). And then if it isn't just five digits, then you want to see the right-hand five digits of the zip code (including the dash) or the right-hand four digits (if you want to leave out the dash and put it in manually somehow).

Then you just drag down those formulas to all the zip code cells.

If you want to turn those columns into normal text, just copy them, choose Edit > Paste Special, choose to NOT paste formulas, and click OK.

The pasted results are nothing but numbers.

Now when you sort, you just need to be sure to do it by two levels, first by the main zip code, then by the extension. BE SURE that you set the Ascending or Descending the same for both.

And you get your results, sorted correctly.

Here's a spreadsheet with options 2 and 3.

When in doubt, right-click.

When in doubt, right-click.

The right-click context menu gives a very nice list of many of the operations you can do with the selected item. Not everything, of course, but it's a good place to start. (Click to see a bigger version.)

Expanded List of Tips for Tweaking Word Documents or WP Documents That Don't Look Perfect in OpenOffice Writer

I realized that I don't really have all the tips for compatibility between OpenOffice.org Writer and Microsoft Word in one spot. Here we go. These aren't all of the things you could ever try but they're my classics.

• Before converting the document, see what you can do about creating it well in a way that will convert well. If you create documents well, they'll convert well.
• If people are having problems with your document, find out if they really need to edit the document at all. If they just need to print it or have it on hand, then use File > Send > Document as PDF and all formatting problems are moot. Ditto if the problem is on your end -- if you don't need to edit the document you've received, then ask for a PDF version.
• Don't overlook the idea, with legacy documents, of A) keeping a couple licenses of Word around so you don't have to bother converting 0r B) contracting out the conversion work.
• Check the page formatting. Choose Format > Page and adjust the page size, margins, and page orientation.  Make the page margins smaller  if you're having trouble fitting everything onto the right number of pages.
• If text formatting is decidedly odd, select and choose Format > Default to remove formatting and start over.
• Change the font and/or font size. Select the text and choose a different font and font size from the dropdown lists at the top left of the toolbar.
• If graphics are behaving oddly, right-click on each and choose Anchor > To Page. Then reposition the graphic. You might also want to slightly shrink the graphic so it will fit better, or increase the size.
• For lists, select the list and click the numbering or list icon to turn off all numbering or bullets. Then reapply the list or bullets by clicking the same icon again.

• Adjust the default tabs. Choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer > General. Set the tabs slightly smaller or slightly larger and check the effect.
• Adjust the default fonts. Choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer > Basic Fonts (Western). Specify the fonts and font sizes that fit best in your documents.

• Check the fonts that are used with your printer and operating system. You might want to set up font substitution. Choose Tools > Options > General > Fonts, and use the online help to apply the replacement table. Replace fonts you can’t use with fonts you can.
• Choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer > Compatibility. If the printer metrics option at the top isn’t on, select it. Try changing the other settings in the window and see if those items help.

If you find that you have a set of formatting changes that works well going to Word and back again, make that your default template. Then every time you create a new Writer document, it will have those attributes.

• Create a document with the correct formatting attributes.
• Choose File > Templates > Save.
• Save the template in My Templates and call it Conversion.
• Click OK.
• Choose File > Templates > Organizer.
• In the left-hand pane, expand My Templates and select the Conversion template.
• Right-click on that template and choose  Default Template.

• If you want to go back to the normal default template later, open the Organizer again, right click, and choose Reset Default Template > Text Document.

Undocking the Gallery

READ THE WHOLE POST BEFORE YOU DO THIS.

The Gallery is a nice tool for easy access to clip art or any graphics. Here are a couple blogs on it.

http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2007/09/getting-a-pictu.html

http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2007/04/adding_graphics.html

Here's a tip from Dave Richards -- you can make the gallery float, so that you can position it in a more convenient place in your work area.

What the Gallery Generally Looks Like

Choose Tools > Gallery, and you get the clip art and categories on your system. (You can click on each of these images to see a bigger version.)

Adjusting the Amount of Space for the Gallery

You can make the gallery take up less, or more, room, by moving your mouse over the small dotted portion of the border, as shown. When you mouse turns into a double-ended arrow, drag up or down.

Then the Gallery portion is smaller or larger, depending on your adjustments.

Floating the Gallery

However, if you'd like your Gallery to be a floating pane like some of the other windows in OpenOffice.org, you can do that. Click and hold down on the gray part at the top, and drag down into the middle of the document.

When you see a rectangle with a gray dashed border, release. The Gallery will be a floating pane.

You can resize and move the pane as you would normally for any floating pane.

Redocking the Gallery

Now, here's the question -- how do you get the Gallery back to where it was, docked at the top?

Not easily. ;>

You can drag the Gallery easily to the left, right, or bottom, and redock it there. Just drag toward the border and when you see the gray dashed border again, release and the Gallery will be docked.  (To turn off the Gallery, just choose Tools > Gallery again.)

You can redock the Gallery at the top, it's just really tricky. There is a very small area where you can position the Gallery floating pane and the gray dashed border will appear. Here's the area where it is. Drag the Gallery through it slowly; dragging down usually works better for me than dragging up.

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Fun with OpenOffice Draw: Creating Text Boxes, Converting Text to 3D, and Formatting 3D Text

It's been a while since I sat down with some big sheets of paper and my crayons, and just colored. (I had that 64-color set of crayons with the extra-glamorous sharpener on the back....got it for Christmas my sixth birthday, I think, and I LOVED it. Sky Blue was my favorite.)

What I do these days, though, although the old set of crayons is actually on my shelf of cute collectibles along with my Star Trek popup book and a picture my parents the day they met, is to waste many fun hours with Draw.

One of the hidden but dramatic and fun features in Draw is the ability to create and twiddle around and format text in 3D.

Creating the text box

Find the text tool on the Drawing toolbar.

Click it, then move your mouse to the work area and draw a text box.

Immediately type in the text box

Converting the text box to 3D

Click on the text box where the border is, so that you get the green handles as shown. Then right-click on the border between or on the green handles and choose Convert to 3D.

The text will be converted.

Apply a lighter color if it's black so that you can see it better.

Modify the text by dragging one of its handles, so that the proportions are better.

To rotate the text in 3D, click in the middle of the text once; you'll see round red handles as shown and the mouse will change when you position it over a handle.

Drag a handle to move the text in 3D.

Click off the text, then once on again if you want to get the green handles back so that you can resize or re-proportion the text.

Applying standard fills

You can apply colors, but also gradients, hatchings, and bitmaps to the text. Think of it as a shape now, not text (you can't retype it at this point).

Here's a gradient.

Here's a bitmap.

Applying official 3D formatting

To apply 3D formatting, generally you should have a plain color applied, though there's no real cut-and-dried rule. Right-click on the text and choose 3D Effects.

Select from the many options, then click the green Apply checkmark to apply effects.

To export your text so you can make it into a GIF or similar graphic, see this post.

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Issues with Insert External Data

Some people are having problems inserting data from a CSV or TXT file into a spreadheet, using Insert > Link to External Data.

http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=1834

If this doesn't work for you, try Insert > Sheet From File instead.

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Help Digg the Great Story about OpenOffice.org 2.3!

There's a great story about OpenOffice 2.3 in EWeek. Give it a read, and Digg it to help draw attention!

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Rough Draft: Video Tutorial of Creating a Database and Simple Mail Merge

This is not fancy. There are a couple goofs. But it is accurate, and it's a video. Let me know how you like it!

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I realize the size is quite big -- one thing that isn't obvious because of that is the navigation tools way at the bottom. (I'm pretty sure that they show up for everyone; I hope they're not just appearing for me somehow because I have Captivate installed.)

Using regular expressions in OpenOffice Calc filters -- phrases like "contains" rather than equals, less than, etc.

Life just isn't cut and dried. Sometimes when you're filtering you don't want to just say "give me all the people whose last name is Hanson." You want Hanson, Hansen, and Hansengaaardennn (those Dutch really go for the jawbreaker names).

You'd like to filter out everyone except those whose names contain "Hans".

Here's how to do that. Select the item in the Comparison Field from the dropdown list in the standard filter, then type what you want in the other field. Click More, and select Regular Expressions, then click OK.

Example of what you want	What to enter in the Condition field	Syntax for what to enter in the Value field	Example of what to enter in the Value field
Begins with Hans	=	^x.*	^Hans.* (you can also skip the ^, I've found)
Does not begin with Hans	<>	^x.*	^Hans.*
Ends with Hans	=	.*x$	.*Hans$
Contains Hans	=	.*x.*	.*Hans.*
Does not contain Hans	<>	.*x.*	.*Hans.*

Here are some examples. Let's say you want all names that start with Hans, but not all names that simply contain Hans.

Here's the data.

Select all  the data, or just click in the headings, and choose Data > Filter > Standard Filter. Make the window look like this.

Click OK and you get this; Bob Montrahans is not included. (It's not because of the case.)

Here's a different example. I want names that DON'T CONTAIN the series of letters Hans.

Data

The window with the restrictions:

And the results.

Here's some information from the OOo wiki about regular expressions.

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Using the Advanced Filter

In the Standard Filter you only have three slots for info.

That's a bit limiting. So the Advanced Filter lets you enter up to 8 criteria.

Using the Advanced Filter

Here's your data. Click the image to see it larger.

Now, here's how you enter your critera. Copy your headings and paste them somewhere else in the spreadsheet. Then type the values you want. Click this image to see it larger. I've entered Fargo for the city, ND for the state, and =>5 for the Years of Service. Note that they are all on the same row.  This means they are ANDed together.

Click in the data (not the criteria but the main data) and choose Data > Filter > Advanced Filter. In the window, click in the right-hand field and draw a box around the area where you typed the criteria. Click OK.

You'll see the results. Click the image to see it larger.  ( Simon being the first name for both is just a coincidence.)

Now, if you want OR logic, just enter the values in your critera section on different rows, like this. Click to see a larger version of the image.

These are the corresponding results. Because of the OR, you get a lot more results. Click the image to see a bigger version.

Removing the Filter
To turn off the filter, it's the same as with the standard filter. Click in the filter results, and choose Data > Filter > Remove Filter.

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Using the Standard Filter

The Autofilter is a quick way to restrict what you're looking for. If you need some more flexibility, though, you need to move on to the Standard filter or the Advanced filter.

Maybe you have people from 12 states and you want to see the ones from Ohio OR Montana OR New Jersey. Or you want to see people with five or more years of service. Or you want to see anyone with more than three overdue library books who is also from Denver, because you're traveling to Denver and you want to drop by their houses and scare the heck out of them in person.

These are a challenge for the AutoFilter, so you move on.

Here's how to use the Standard Filter. Let's say you've got this data.

Click somewhere in the data and choose Data > Filter > Standard Filter.

In the window, enter your data. Note that any ORs will open up the results more than you might expect. Here's a filter.  Either from MT or OR, and with 5 or more years of service.

Here are the corresponding results. Note the person from MT with only 1 year of service, but there's no one from OR with fewer than 5 years of service. The logic is
"anyone from Montana"
or
"anyone from Oregon who also has 5 or more years of service."

As with the AutoFilter, you need to click in the filter results to take away the filter. If you don't click in the filter results, as shown, the Remove Filter option is dimmed.

Click in the filter results, as shown, and choose Data > Filter > Remove Filter to get rid of the standard filter.

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Using the AutoFilter: A useful if slightly twitchy tool

Sooner or later, you're going to get a huge spreadsheet with way too much data to scan visually.

How do you, ahem, filter out what you don't want to see?

One way is to use the AutoFilter.

AutoFilter Basics

Let's say you've got this spreadsheet of employees.

You'd like to just take a look at those from Montana, or those with a particular number of years of service. Something like that.

Click somewhere in the data, and choose Data > Filter > AutoFilter.

You see arrows by all the headings.

Click on one  of the arrows, and choose to view all records containing one of the values, or all records containing the top 10, i.e. the ten most frequently occurring values in that column.

Here are the results for selecting one value for one column.

If you choose another value in another column, then you get rows that have the selected value for BOTH columns.

Here, I get rows for people who are in Montana, AND in Kalispell. Which works out fine since Kalispell is a city in Montana.

 

However, if I choose to view records for people from Montana, and from Portland (a city in Maine and in Oregon but NOT in Montana), I get nothing.

To go back to viewing all the values, select All from the list.

Then you get to view all the records again, once you've selected All for any columns you restricted.

When you're done and want to get rid of the little arrows, click somewhere in the data, and choose Data > Filter > AutoFilter again. There'll be a checkmark and when you select AutoFilter, it will go away.

There's the data the way it was before you started.

Issues With AutoFilter

Here's where things get a little twitchy. What if you try to turn off the AutoFilter and you have not selected a cell somewhere within the AutoFilter results?

You get this.

When you get this, click OK and click somewhere in the data.

Then choose Data > Filter > AutoFilter again. You won't see the checkmark, but that's OK.

Then choose Data > Filter > AutoFilter yet again. This time you'll see the checkmark.

And then the arrows will disappear and you're back to normal.

I also recommend liberal use of the Undo feature, Ctrl Z or click the Undo icon. You can undo at least 20 and possibly more depending on how your system is set up.

Can You Delete Rows When in the AutoFilter Without Deleting the Intervening Data?
I'm glad you asked. Yes, you can. Here's a demo.  Look at the range from row 15, Dan Montbatten, to row 20, Beth Jerlin. They're both from Montana.  In between you've got Jon, Marcus, and Kyle.

I'm going to view only people from Montana, which includes Dan and Beth but excludes the three rows between.

Now I'm going to delete Dan and Beth.

And they go away. However, Jon, Marcus, and Kyle are still there.

 

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Things that don't work when you save Writer documents in Word's .doc format

OpenOffice.org has a feature that lets you automatically save documents in Microsoft Office format. Save Writer as Word, save Calc as Excel, etc. This lets your users send out documents to the outside world without having to remember to save in MS format first.

Choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Load/Save and use the lists in the bottom half of the window.

Likewise, you can save an OOo document in MS format by choosing File > Save As, or by choosing File > Send > Document as [microsoft format for that document type].

However. There's a but. It's not a huge but, but it's significant.

In some versions of OpenOffice.org, the following features don't work when you save a Writer document in Word format. It's not just the automatic saving, it's saving in Word format through File > Save As, as well. So the only way to get around it is to save as PDF (click the PDF icon on the toolbar or choose File > Export as PDF).

This isn't a complete list; please add your own through comments. I just tested all of these on the standard 2.3 release.

Mail merge prints field names, not content. If you save your mail merge document in Word format, then print, all you'll get is the names of the fields, like Firstname, rather than the data, like Bob.

Background graphics disappear. If you choose to put a graphic in the background of a header footer or page, under Format > Page, the graphics will disappear when you save in Word format.

Custom frame, page, and list styles get screwed up This one is an issue because page styles are the basis for doing so much really good, powerful stuff. (I hope this is on the list of things to fix, and/or not a problem in other builds.) I just tested, in 2.3, a file I'd created with custom page styles to automatically switch from a page style with no page number on the first page footer to a page number on subsequent page footers.

If you insert page breaks between page styles with Insert > Manual Break, and the  Break With feature in the Text Flow tab of a paragraph style, do preserve more formatting than the Next Style feature in the Organizer tab, which preserves nothing.  The headers and footers are preserved in the first two approaches, as are page borders and jumps from page 2 to page 66.  Landscape versus portrait is also preserved.

However, no background formatting is preserved, and the page style names are changed to Default for the first one, Convert1 for the second, and so on.

If these are issues for you, please vote to have the following bugs prioritized as things to work on. (I'm actually having trouble bringing up the OOo issue tracker right now; I think these are correct but I will check them later.)

http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=78723

http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=73533

http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=11522

http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=22635

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Fixing problem OpenOffice files by unzipping, mixing, and matching

One of the great things about OpenOffice.org is that you can open corrupted Word files with it. Or Word files that are just too big to open in Word, open fine in OpenOffice Writer.

However, every so often you will get a rogue OpenOffice file that just won't behave. It crashes constantly, or behaves in other ways that just don't make sense.

In that case, the best approach is surgery.

OpenOffice file formats can be unzipped to reveal their components. Once you see their components, you can take copy different components from a different uncorrupted file and replace the corrupted ones in your problem file. Zip it all up together again, and whammo, your file works.

I'll show an example in Writer but the same principles apply to Calc, Draw, and Impress.

So you have your file. Let's say this is the file you're having problems with. It's got a couple styles, a picture, and of course content.

I like to make a copy of the problem file, just to make sure I can always get back to the original version. So I create a copy, give it a different name, and change the extension to .zip. (Or gzip, or whatever works for you on your operating system.)

Then unzip the .zip file, and you'll get a directory of component files and directories.

Here's what's inside that new directory.

I'm not going to go into painful detail about all of the content. But content.xml contains the content, styles.xml contains the style definitions, Pictures contains the graphics, and so on.

Here's a snap of part of the content.xml.

And of the styles.xml.

And the Pictures directory. Note that the file name is different than the inserted picture.

So here's what I do. If I have content but don't care about the styles, pictures, whatever else in the problem document, I:

- create a new totally empty OpenOffice document of the same type (Writer, Calc, etc.)

- change the extension to .zip and unzip it

- copy the content.xml file from the problem doc directory into the new empty doc directory, replacing the empty doc's content.xml file

- zip up the new empty doc directory

- change the .zip extension to .odt, .ods, or whatever

- and open it up again, using this as the new version of the problem document

If you have pictures and styles in the problem document that you need, then just copy the Pictures and Thumbnails directories, and the content.xml and styles.xml files, into the new empty doc directory, replacing the corresponding directories and files.

It's a techy but quite effective way to redo a document.

Would it be better to just copy and paste the content of the problem document to another new empty document? Not always--nasties have a nasty way of accompanying the content. But sure, try that first, and if that doesn't work, then do this.

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Google Docs Extension for OpenOffice

There's a nice little extension for OpenOffice.org that lets you quickly upload your document to your googledocs account. Click here to get it.

Installing the extension gives you this toolbar, as well as a Google Docs menu.

 

Click it to get this window; just enter the appropriate information.

 

Your document will be automatically uploaded to your account in Google. It works pretty nicely.

Installation

Installing extensions is pretty easy. Download the extension. Then choose Tools > Extension Manager. Select My Extensions and click Add.

 

Find the extension file you downloaded, an installation process runs, and you’ll see Enabled next to the extension. For some extensions, you’ll need to restart. Look for a new menu, new menu items, new toolbars, or all three.

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Another way to tweak labels, and save the format

In this entry I talked about a fairly straightforward but manual way of giving your labels a little room to breathe.

In this entry, I'll go through how to use the Format tab to tweak a particular layout, then save it for re-use.

When you create labels, you of course choose File > New > Labels. You select your type and layout here, then add your content, and then click New Document.

You get something that looks like this.

Now, what if you then print and everything is too high, too low, too much to the left, etc.?

Well, you just adjust it, then save that adjustment as a specific format you can select next time.

When you're in the Labels window, click the Format tab.

Here's what all the measurements mean. I suggest starting by changing the left and top margin, then get into changing the pitch if necessary.

Horizontal pitch

The distance from the left of one label to the left of the label to the right of it. If you want to actually increase the distance between columns of labels, i.e. if labels get increasingly (or decreasingly) cut off as you go across the sheet, change this.

Vertical pitch

The distance from the top of one label to the top of the label below it. If you want to actually increase the distance between rows of labels, i.e. if labels get increasingly (or decreasingly) cut off as you go down the sheet, change this.

Width

Just the width of the actual space for the label content.

Height

Just the height of the actual space for the label content.

Left margin

The distance from the left side of your sheet of labels to where content begins. If all your labels are getting cut off on the left, adjust this.

Upper margin

The distance from the top of your sheet of labels to where content begins. If all your labels are getting cut off on the top adjust this.

Columns

The number of columns. You don't need to adjust this.

Rows

The number of rows. You don't need to adjust this.

Examples

Here's a normal sheet, next to one where I increased just the top margin. Click the image to see it larger.

Here's an example where I increased the vertical pitch by a half inch. You wouldn't want to increase it that much, but I made it big to make sure you could see the effect. Click the image to see it bigger.  Note that on the right, you only are at the 5th row while at the same place on the left, you're at the 7th row.

Once you've got the label adjustments where you want them, click Save in the Format tab. Name the label in the window that appears, and click OK.

Then when you create labels again, that saved format will be in the list.

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Sun Report Builder Extension

Anyone who's worked with the OpenOffice.org Base report writer knows that it's....a first generation product. It works but it doesn't have huge features. So I’m particularly glad to see some work being done with reports, in the new Report Builder extension from Sun.

http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/    for all extensions

http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/reportdesign   for the Sun Report Builder

The Report Builder extension looks like it has a lot of powerful features, though not exactly easy to see how to use. I’ve spent a few hours with it and one thing that bugs me a bit is that the tab for selecting the data source for the report disappears if you click on something else first. Ease of use aside, though, it does have quite a feature set, including grouped records, sorting of records, different alignment of text fields, and calculations.

I'm going to have to spend a lot more time with this to really figure it out and give some procedures, but here's a short tour of the basics.

To use the Sun Report Writer extension, download and install it first. (Tools > Extension Manager). Then open the .odb database file for the database you want to create a report for. Choose Insert > Report, and you’ll see the report writer interface.

 

This is the tab that disappears too quickly. Select Table or another type of data, then select the actual source. Once you make that selection, the Add Field palette appears; use it to drag fields onto the appropriate section of the report.
   

Click the Sorting and Grouping icon on the toolbar to get this window where you have a lot of control over how the fields and the report behave.

 

When you’ve dragged fields onto the report, set options, inserted page numbers, and done other formatting, save the report. The report will show up in the Reports area of the main editing windows of the .odb database file.

 

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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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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.

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Question: Novell and Excel Macros?

I have heard various statements or rumors about the Novell version of OpenOffice.org being able to convert Excel macros to OpenOffice.org format. Can anyone comment on this, with personal experience? It is of course a fabulous thing to be able to do, if it's possible.

Solveig

Sun, StarOffice, Calc, and Forks

Thanks to Scott for tipping me off to this.

Here's  something interesting. The question: what happens when contributors and, I'll just say publishers, want different things?

The result seems to be that Openoffice.org, as Linux did, is going to have different versions. Perhaps not for the same reasons.

Kohei Yoshida wrote a long post on the history of Calc Solver, which is an optimization solver module for the Calc component of OpenOffice.org. After three years, they don't agree on some aspects of the licensing.  Now Michael Meeks has announced ooo-build (previously just for build fixes) is now a formal fork of OpenOffice  to be located at http://go-oo.org/.

The fork looks pretty interesting as it includes several things that have not make it into the official build.

Intrigue in the OpenOffice.org world.  In ten years will there be as many versions of OOo as there are of Linux?

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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.

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A fabulous way to do list numbering. Note: with great power comes great responsibility and a little extra setup work.

OpenOffice Writer numbering is powerful but it lacks at least one very important feature. Well, two. Here's the first.

First Problem

To restart the list at 1, you have to do it manually. You have to click on something like this, click on the first item:

6. Badgers
7. Toads
8. Owls

and click the Restart at 1 icon on the numbering toolbar

to make it look like this.

1. Badgers
2. Toads
3. Owls

NOTE However that this restart attribute is NOT available when you create a style. You can't create a style that restarts at 1. So it's a manual-only attribute. This can be annoying. Especially since importing new versions of the style you're using can wipe out the restart setting.

Second Problem

The numbers are inserted automatically so you can't click between the number and the text to insert a tab, or just format the number directly, or whatever. You can do this all through the numbering setup window, so it's not a huge issue, but sometimes it's nice to just grab hold of something and format it.

Here's what you might want to do if these are problems for you and you're up for something completely different.

I really like it. It's powerful and reliable.

The solution comes from my colleague Jean Weber, at www.jeanweber.com.  She has an excellent book on Writer, including high-end complex issues like this.

Here’s the link to the OOo doc, to which she contributed. http://documentation.openoffice.org/manuals/oooauthors2/

Here’s a link to her book on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/OpenOffice-org-Writer-Free-Alternative-Microsoft/dp/0596008260/sr=8-1/qid=1163013762/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-0539644-5923228?ie=UTF8&s=books

Here’s a link to the file you’re going to be using to solve this problem. http://documentation.openoffice.org/manuals/oooauthors2/0214WG-WorkingWithFields.pdf

What you do is, you create a numbering series of your own that has nothing to do with the normal numbering.

I’ll leave the particular details to Jean’s guide; go to the section called Defining your own numbering sequences. Here’s what you need to accomplish.

1. Create a single number range for every level. For instance, if your top level is regular Arabic, your second level is Alphabetic, and your third level is lower Roman, then create a single number range for each of those called Arabic, Alpha, and Roman (or one two and three, or Larry Moe and Curly, or whatever). Choose Insert > Fields > Other, click the Variables tab, choose Number Range on the left, and the rest is pretty clear. Jean's guide provides lots of nice detail for this.

2. Create paragraph styles with the indenting you want, one style for each level. The paragraph styles are what will take care of the indenting. You also need to set up the correct tabs since you’ll press Tab between the number range and the text.

Here are examples for levels 1, 2, and 3. In this formatting example  there’s an indent of .3 inches from the left margin of the document for all text. Also the distance from the number to the text is .3 inches.

Level 1 (plus set a .3 tab in the Tabs tab)

Level 2 (plus set a .3 tab in the Tabs tab)

Level 3 (plus set a .3 tab in the Tabs tab)

3. Start inserting the numbers, just anywhere in the document. You're going to insert them, then make shortcuts so that you can insert them more easily.

Choose Insert > Fields > Other, select your top level variable such as Arabic, specify 1 in the Value field, and click Insert.

Now   create your ArabicContinued field.  Press Return or just make a space or two. Still in the Fields window, delete the 1 from the Value field, and click Insert to insert another field of the same range. It’ll show up in the document as  2. Click Insert again if you want to prove it's working; it'll show up as 3.

DO NOT set up different variables here for the regular and the restart. They need to have the same name.

Do the same for the first item and the next item at all the levels you’re using.

4. Apply the appropriate paragraph styles to each number range you're using. If you created a paragraph style called TopLevelNumbering, apply it to all the Arabic fields (or whatever you're using at the top level). Also press Tab to insert a tab after each number.

5. If you have a lot more work to do, you want all this inserting stuff to be easier so make AutoTexts.

5.a. Select the first top-level numbering item, the Arabic one that equals 1 and the tab. (Not crucial, but as long as you're saving yourself some work, you can make the tab show up automatically, too.) Be sure the appropriate style is applied so that you can bundle the number and the correct style into one convenient autotext.

5.b. Choose Edit > AutoText. Type a name like ArabicRestart, make the shortcut something obvious like AR for ArabicRestart. Click and hold down on the Autotext button and choose New.

5.c. Repeat the steps for the next number at that level, the one that doesn’t have 1 as the value. So select the field that shows 2 in your document, choose  Edit > AutoText,  and call this one just Arabic or ArabicContinued. Make the shortcut something like A or AC.

5.d. Repeat those  steps for every level.

6. Now just keep on formatting or typing your list by inserting numbers. Type AR F3 (the shortcut plus the key that says "insert the autotext with that shortcut" to insert a numeral 1 plus a tab. Type AC F3 to insert a sequential continuous number.   

Note on inserting: You can't have the cursor immediately next to any existing text or the AutoText tool will get confused about what you want to do. There has to be at least a space between the cursor and any other text.

Alternately, if your list already exists, copy and paste the appropriate restart and continuous number variables to the appropriate spots, rather than using the shortcut keys.

In Conclusion

Is it wildly different from normal numbering? Yes. Is it complicated to set up? No more than any other complex numbering.

Does it offer much more reliability and control than other numbering in OpenOffice Writer, for complex lists? Yes, yes, oh god, yes.

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Creating your own order to sort with: leaving alphanumeric in the dust

I've been blogging about sorting for a while:

• Easy sorting
• Standard, more powerful sorting
• Sorting by a custom sort order

There's just one more thing to mention: creating your own custom sort order.

Existing sort orders are things like Monday Tuesday Wednesday (the right order, which is not alphabetical). But let's say you've got things you want in a certain logical but non-alphabetical order that aren't already set up in OpenOffice.org: titles of books or people, procedures done in a certain order, or your own abbreviations for the days of the week. You can create sort orders for those very easily so you can sort by them.

Let's say you've got this data.

This is the right order. If you had them out of order, though, and wanted to sort them, all you'd have the option for is alphabetic. Which isn't right. So you create an order to sort them by.

Select just the content of the sort order, nothing else. Be sure it's in the order you want it.

Choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org  Calc > Sort Lists.

Now just click Copy.

The list will appear. Click OK.

Now just sort the way you would with a custom sort order. You'll see your new sort order in the sort window.

Sort orders are nice for quick data entry, too. If you type the first word for a sort order, then find the small black handle in the lower right corner of the cell and drag, you'll be able to easily fill the cells with the rest of the content in the sort order.

Type the first word

Find the black handle and drag (magnified to show the handle)

The data will fill in each cell you drag through, in the order set up in the sort list.

Sorting: Sorting by months or days of the week, in date order instead of alphabetical order

All right. It's time to do some really advanced sorting.

Let's say you have a schedule and you want to sort it by day of the week. What's the first day of the week? Monday. But alphabetically it's not first. Friday, for instance, comes before Monday. So here's how to sort by days of the week, months, etc.

You've got your data.

Select it and choose Data > Sort.

Click the Options tab and make the appropriate selection for Range Contains Column Labels.

Now select Custom Sort Order and select the one you want.

Click the Sort Criteria tab and select the column to sort by that contains the corresponding kind of data.

Click OK.

And you get your results.

Wondering "Where did that sort order come from?"

Wondering "Could I perhaps make my own sort order, like President Vice-President Secretary Treasurer or High Card, Pair, Two Pair, Trips, and so on?"

You will have your questios answered in the next installment of Sorting.

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Sorting: More powerful sorting using the Sort window

You want to do some good, hard sorting. Not just sorting by the first column, but by perhaps the third column. Maybe you want to sort first by state, then by city, then by last name. For that, you need the Sort window under Data > Sort.

You have your data.  Select all the data to sort, and either select the headings or not. You're good either way.

Choose Data > Sort.

Click the Options tab. You need to tell Calc whether you've got headings selected or not. If you've got headings selected, you want the option shown, "Range Contains Column Labels," to be selected. If you didn't, unmark it.

Now click the Sort Criteria tab. If you selected headings you'll see the headings themselves; if you didn't then you'll just see Column A, etc. Select the column to sort by, and Ascending or Descending.

Click OK.

You get your results. Here, the amounts under the column for the year 2000 are sorted in ascending order.

Now, let's look at a different set of data. You have a lot of people from the same state, and several cities per state. In this case you might want to just sort by last name, but you could also group by location. So you'd sort by state (the broadest category), then city, then alphabetically by last name. Click the image to see more detail.

Select the data, with or without headings, and choose Data > Sort. In the Options tab, be sure to select the Range Contains Column Labels option if you selected headings.

In the Sort Criteria tab, select first State, then City, then Last Name.

Click OK.

You get your results. Here's a closeup of one section, followed by the complete data. Click either to see them closeup.

This window that I've covered in this blog entry is pretty much what you need. If you want to go a little farther and sort by something else, like days of the week in the order they come, not alphabetical order, tune in for the next sorting blog.

IBM's already making a difference: publicity about new office suites

Here's the article, on CNet.

"After years of watching Microsoft rake in billions of dollars from its desktop software franchise, its competitors are pouncing.

IBM on Tuesday announced the release of Lotus Symphony, a suite of free desktop applications based on the OpenOffice.org open-source product...." and so on.

Now, this article is about seven years too late since Sun had StarOffice out there a while ago. But Sun didn't....really....go gangbusters marketing StarOffice. There were the tshirts and bus ads, yes, a year or so ago, but not much else that I saw.

Let's hope the publicity, and recognition of OpenOffice.org and its variants, continues!

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Sorting: Your basic everyday sorting

In the mood of fall cleaning and to celebrate having gotten my office organized, I'm going to blog this week about sorting. Today, it's just basic run-of-the-mill sorting using the sorting icons on the toolbar.

Let's say you've just got this list, and you want to sort it alphabetically.

Select it, without selecting any data you don't want sorted.

Click either the A-Z or Z-A icon.

You get your results.

Be sure not to select any headings, i.e. the word Employee in this case, or you get this result, which you don't want.

What if you have something like this, though? Something with multiple columns.

Here's the thing. Selecting, say, the 2000 column and clicking a sort icon will NOT give you good results. It will sort just the data in the 2000 column and leave all the other data behind. So all of a sudden your data is wrong.

You cannot specify the column to sort by, using the simple sort icons. That's covered in my next blog entry on sorting.

Here's what you can do. You can sort by the first column in the data set. You select ALL the data, again without the headings.

You click the sort icon you want.

And you get your results; the data is sorted by the first column. That's your only choice.

If you had selected just one column, the data would be goofed up.

For more control over sorting, tune in for the next sorting blog.

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Back to School: Creating cute graphic-filled borders in OpenOffice Writer like you can in Microsoft products

One of the nice things about Microsoft products is that they have a lot of prefab goodies.  OpenOffice.org is a little more of a from-scratch situation. But you have much more flexibility, and you can still do a lot of great stuff. It's not easy, at least not using this approach, to add borders all around, but you can do it in the top and bottom.

Step 1: Add graphics to the gallery.
You can find lots of great graphics on the Internet by googling for "free clip art." For the purposes of borders, keep an eye out for graphics that are small, i.e. under an inch by an inch, and also that have some white space around them.

Step 2: Learn to use the feature documented here.
I'll also describe it in this blog but that's another one that talks about using it in general. Can't hurt to skim that blog.

Step 3: Use this blog entry to add top and bottom headers and footers with any appropriately sized graphic in your gallery.

NOTE: To take out the repeating background borders in this blog, use the instructions here or just Undo (Ctrl Z or use the Undo icon) to go back to not having a background border.

How to Create Graphical Top and Bottom Borders in the Header and Footer

First, open your document.

Turn on the header and footer. Choose Insert > Header > Default, then Insert > Footer > Default.

You now have headers and footers. The graphics will repeat in the background of each to create the graphical border.

Next, turn on the Gallery by choosing Tools > Gallery or clicking the Gallery icon.

Find a category you like, then find a graphic you want to use. Drag the graphic into the document to see how big it is, if you don't know. This one, for instance, is too big. To delete it, just select it so that the green handles are showing, in the document, and press Delete on your keyboard. You can also press Ctrl Z or use the Undo icon.

This one is better. It's a good size, plus there's some white space around the graphic so that when it tiles, you won't see part of another row of the graphic.

Delete the graphic from the document once you know which one you're going to use.

Click in the header.

Right-click on the graphic, in the gallery, and choose Insert > Background > Header.

The graphic will appear, repeating, but not all of it will show at first.

Click in the header and press Return once or more times to add more space, to show the entire graphic.

If part of the graphic is showing on the right side, click in the header and move your mouse over the ruler, at the edge of the right margin. When your mouse becomes a 2-ended arrow, click and hold down, and drag to the left or right to show the amount of graphic you want.

Then only whole graphics will show.

Then click in the footer, and do the same thing. Insert the same graphic, or another graphic if you want, in the background of the footer, then adjust it as necessary the same way you adjusted the header.

Choose File > Page Preview to see the document.

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Getting a Picture from a Document Into the Gallery

I've already written about how to get a graphic from a file on your computer into the Gallery. But how do you get a graphic you like, that's just sitting in some OpenOffice document, into the Gallery? You could just copy it and paste it from that document to others, but putting it in the Gallery is more convenient.

1. Open the document containing the graphic.

2. If the gallery isn't showing, open the gallery by choosing Tools > Gallery or clicking on the Gallery icon.

3. Select the theme, the category you want to put the graphic in, in the gallery.

4. If you want to make a new one, click New Theme. Type the new name and click OK. Then select that theme in the Gallery.

5. Select the graphic. Release the mouse.

6. Click and hold down, and keep holding down on the graphic, for at least two seconds. Don't release the mouse, and drag the graphic into the gallery.

7. The graphic will appear in the gallery, at whatever location is set up as your gallery location, in a subdirectory for draganddrop.

You can set or change your gallery paths here. Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Paths.

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Making Illustrated Callouts With Clip Art From the Gallery, and the OpenOffice Callout Drawing Tools

I love the callouts in OpenOffice.org. I also love that they're available in Draw, Impress, Writer, and Calc.

To get started, just choose View > Toolbars > Drawing. If there isn't a checkmark next to the Drawing option, select it.

Now look for the Drawing toolbar. It usually appears at the bottom of your work area.

Adding a Graphic

You can choose Insert > Picture > From File to add a graphic if you know where it is. Or just choose Tools > Gallery to turn on the picture gallery, and drag in a graphic from there. Click here to learn more about using the Gallery, including adding graphics to it.

Adding a Callout

You can choose Insert > Picture > From File to add a graphic if you know where it is. Or just choose Tools > Gallery to turn on the picture gallery, and drag a graphic into your document.

1. Be sure you've got the Drawing toolbar on, according to the instructions at the top of this blog.

2. Find the Callouts icon.

3. Click and hold down on the black triangle to the right of the Callouts icon.

4. Click on the tool you want. Move your mouse into the drawing area.

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5. Click and hold down, drag your mouse down and to the right (or up and to the left) and you'll see the callout being drawn.

6. Release the mouse, the callout you drew appears.

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7. Select a different fill color for the callout.

8. Select different line width, style, and color for the callout.

9. Double-click in the graphic; the cursor will appear.

10. Type the callout.

11. If the text is too big, click the callout border, find a handle, and drag the handle to resize the callout.

12. Double-click in the callout to select the text so you can change the font, then select a font from the dropdown window.

13. Drag the point of the callout to where it needs to be; it will change sides if necessary. Alternately, drag the callout to a different position in relation to the graphic.

And you're done!

From Draw or Impress: Exporting the Graphic to Reuse Later (for Use in the Gallery, on a Web Page Like This Blog, or Any Other Reason)

You can copy and paste to Writer or Calc. However, if you want to add your graphic with callout to the Gallery, put it in a web page, or anything else more reusable, do this.

Select everything you want to export. You can select everything manually, press Ctrl A, or just draw  a box with your mouse (not the box tool) completely around the items to select.

Choose File > Export.

Specify the location to export to and name the file. Select the format, not HTML but JPG, PNG, or something similar.

Click Save.

If a message prompts you to make some choices, either click OK accepting the options, or make your choices. For instance, with JPG, the highest number is the best quality.

 

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Creating a Dropdown List in Calc That References a Range of Values Elsewhere in the Spreadsheet

I just started using feature this recently, for my LinuxWorld presentation. It's very nice. Anytime you can reference some text, rather than embedding it in the formatting, it's good.

Some background: under Data > Validity, you can control what people can enter in spreadsheets, and offer them help in the form of lists, help tips, etc.

I wrote about the Validity tools here

http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2007/01/openofficeorg_c.html

and elsewhere on my blogs. However, what I haven't talked about yet is how to make a dynamic list.

Let's say you've got a spreadsheet documenting the year's performance for the 120 people in your company, one sheet for each person. They're summarizing what they've done this year, and you want them to list the projects they've worked on. You would like to list the Official projects rather than having them type in whatever. So you want a dropdown list. Howeve, you don't want to have those projects typed in that dropdown list because then if you change it, or use this spreadsheet next year, you'll have to correct the list 120 times. (You can copy and paste, but still.)

So you make a list of the projects that references a cell range in a sheet called Projects, say, and all you need to do is update that one cell range to make all the lists update.

Here's how you do it.

1. Click in the cell where you want the list to appear. If you want the list in multiple cells, select multiple cells.

2. Choose Data > Validity.

3. Select Cell Range in the list.

4. Type the range. To type a range in the same sheet , type something like this:

$F$1:$F$20

You need the $ to make the reference absolute.

If the range is in a different sheet, add the absolute sheet reference in front, like this.

$Projects.$F$1:$F$20

5. Click OK.

Then if you need to, just change the contents of the cell range and the list updates. Previous entries in those spreadsheets containing entries no longer in the list do not change.

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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 in the wizard 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.

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Opening CSV and .TXT delimited files as spreadsheets in OpenOffice.org Calc

How do you open this

as this?

If you just choose File > Open, a text file will open in Writer.

Here's how to open it as a spreadsheet.

Choose File > Open.

In the File Type list, select Text CSV. The easiest thing is to click in the file type list and type T four times.

Then select the file you want and click Open.

You'll see this window. It might not look right at first.

So be sure to select the right delimiter (and deselect the wrong ones) in the Separated By section.

If it's a fixed-width file, select Fixed Width then drag the field separator to the right spots.

Click OK. You'll see the file in spreadsheet format.

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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

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Printing Envelopes in OpenOffice.org Writer (Repost)

I ran into Christian Einfeldt at Linuxworld, who mentioned that he had some questions about printing  envelopes. It's a good perennial topic, so I'm rereposting.

(Originally posted December 2, 2005)

I get a lot of questions about envelopes. A lot. I wrote an article for TechTarget.com about how to do envelopes in OpenOffice.org 2.0.

I included some templates there; here are the same envelope templates for OpenOffice.org 2.0.

• Envelope template, not hooked up to a data source, using frames
• Envelope template, not hooked up to a data source, not using frames

The article is long and detailed. Here are the key points.

• You need to get to know your printer and let it know to expect envelope shapes, not letter or A4 shapes.

• You also need to fiddle around for a while and figure out where--left, right, perpendicular, parallel--in the tray your printer expects envelopes. Buy a box of cheap envelopes and expect to waste a few while you experiment.

• Then make sure that your envelope document is set up to print to the envelope size your printer is expecting. Envelope 10 is good.

• You can type in your data for the envelope or use a data source. My article goes over both.
• The simplest way is to just choose File > New > Envelope, then Format > Page Size and instead of Letter or A4, choose Envelope 10 and change the orientation to landscape.  Then either with standard margin formatting or with frames, put the text where you want.
• As another way to create the envelope document, you can also choose Insert > Envelope, and use the three-tabbed window that appears.
• Print the envelopes separately from your letter or other document that goes with the envelope. It complicates things too much with the paper size that the printer expects.

Then just print the envelope. (If you're using data sources, click Yes in the dialog box that appears asking if you want to print a form letter.)

The next time you want envelopes, just use that same document you already created, and change the addresses. Either save the document in myimportantdocuments\envelopes, or if you're a template kind of person, make it a template. (File > Templates > Save, select a category and name the template, then choose File > New > Templates and Documents and pick your envelope template.

Note: Doing it in 2.0 is quite similar to how to do it in OpenOffice.org 1.1. Here are my posts how to do that; they're excerpted from my OpenOffice.org workbooks.

• OpenOffice.org 1.x Mail Merges, Envelopes, and Labels
• OpenOffice.org 1.x Plain Labels and Envelopes

Tip on Printer Setup
Some of the pain of envelopes is the printer setup. Here's a GREAT tip from Miriam:
"I just read your envelope printing tip. Instead of constantly changing and checking the printer settings, I add another instance of the printer, configure it for envelopes and name it "envelope." When I want to print an envelope I choose this printer instead of the default one. That way my settings are always the same."

Envelope Mantra
Here's the other main point I want to make sure everyone understands.

Envelopes aren't too bad once you figure out how to do it the first time. Honest.

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A Huge Printable PDF Article on Advanced Report Techniques, Including SQL-Based Calculated Fields on Reports

I realized that while this was published on TechTarget, I hadn't made much of a big deal of it here.

Here it is. Lots of fun, techy stuff about reports. Here's the TOC.

A Quick Review of the Report Writer Tool

What You Can Do in the Query Design Tool and SQL View

What You Can Do With Report-Specific Fields

Quick-and-Dirty Reports

Creating Your Own Reports Using the Next Record Field

Powerful Reports Can Be Fun....If You Enjoy Getting Your Hands Dirty

 

Here's the link. It's a big PDF.

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Pump up the Format Paintbrush with a double-click

I sometimes wish I could just format my documents with mind control. But until I develop that power, there are several options. Styles. The toolbar. And to speed things up once you've done things right, the Format Painbrush icon.

So. This is how it usually works.

You have some text. You format one part of it the way you want. It's got maybe three or four different formatting attributes, so a pain to do it over and over again.

So you select the piece that's formatted

And click the Format Paintbrush icon once

And move your mouse to another word (you see the effect of the Format Paintbrush icon because your mouse pointer is now a paint bucket)

And select it, and you get the same formatting. But nowyou're done. You have to click the Format Paintbrush icon again to get more formatting juice.

So to keep formatting as long as you want, then select the formatted text like you normally would, then doubleclick the Format Paintbrush icon.

Then keep selecting as many words or letters as you want to have formatted the same way as the text you selected.

Click the Format Paintbrush icon once when you're done to stop the formatting.

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Correcting a Small Annoyance: OpenOffice Calc Spreadsheet Cells Don't Wrap By Default, Plus Making a Spreadsheet Template

Me, I like cell contents to wrap.

This is wrapping.

This is not wrapping.

This is more not wrapping.

So, wrapping is nice.

You can make cell contents wrap by selecting one, two, five, or all the cells, then choosing Format > Cells, clicking the Alignment tab, and selecting the Wrap Text Automatically option.

But then, when you cut the contents out of a wrapped cell, those wrapping attributes aren't applied any longer. This is a small point but one I find annoying. Look at this first example, where I applied the Wrap formatting to alllll cells in the spreadsheet.

Now here I cut out the middle item, paste it to the right, and type in the empty cell. The Wrap formatting left along with the contents.

Correcting the Problem
There are a few ways to get around this. Here's one way. Just redefine the cell Default Cell Style to be wrapped.

- Choose Format > Styles and Formatting.
- Right-click on Default and choose Modify.

- In the Alignment tab, select Wrap Text Automatically.

- Click OK.

Now forever and ever, for that spreadsheet, all cells will wrap period. (You can overwrite them on a cell by cell basis if you like.)

If you want to set up allllll  new spreadsheets to be like this so you don't need to redefine the default style for every new spreadsheet, do this.

- Create a new spreadsheet.
- Define the default style as wrapping as shown in the last set of instructions. Before you click OK, set up any other formatting that you want to always be there by default. For instance, you might want the font to be different.

Or you might want the number format to be always a specific, different format.

- Click OK.

- Choose File > Templates > Save.

- Select the My Templates category (or another if you want) and name the template something obvious.

- Click OK.

- Choose File > Templates > Organize.

- In the left-hand pane, open the category you choose previously when saving the template. Find the template. Right-click on it and choose Set as Default Template.

- Click Close.

Now, when you create a new spreadsheet, it'll be based on that template you created: cells will all wrap, they'll all have the font you wanted, etc.

To go back to the regular way of creating new spreadsheets, just choose File > Templates > Organize again, right-click on the template, choose Reset Default Template > Spreadsheet.

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Important Note on OpenOffice Writer Styles

I was talking to my friend Simon the other day (who's a fabulous flight instructor and photographer in the Denver area, plus Java instructor) about what to present at LinuxWorld.

We were talking about styles and how that's something that can help people be more efficient. The conversation turned to list styles, and I mentioned that list styles and paragraph styles are totally different. List styles contain only list attributes, no text or paragraph formatting attributes. Simon's jaw dropped, he was very surprised. So I decided to make sure that was clear here.

Background
To apply, create or modify styles, choose Format > Styles and Formatting. Select the right category of style at the top: paragraph, character, frame, page, or list/bulleting.  Select text then double-click the style you want to apply.

To create or modify, just right-click on the white area and choose New, or right-click on an existing style and choose Modify.

Specifics on List Versus Paragraph Styles 

List styles, list formatting, is all about attributes of the list. Indenting of the list. Bullets or numbering of the list. Etc. You cannot control the font through the list formatting window.

And here are the attributes you can apply to paragraph styles.

To apply font formatting and list formatting to a list, using styles, you apply a paragraph style AND a list style. The following screen shot shows the paragraph style that's applied, then the list style that's applied.

This paragraph style is applied to the list.

And this list style is also applied to the list.

Now, applying two styles is a bit extra work so you can link the two styles. If there's a paragraph style that you only use with lists, then you can say, hey, whenever I apply this paragraph style, then also apply this list style.  Then you don't have to take the extra step of applying the list style; that'll happen automatically. However, remember that this happens ALL the time, so you want to do this only with a paragraph style that is ALWAYS applied to lists.

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Useful OpenOffice Calc Formulas and Related Tricks

First of all: if you want some great tips on using OpenOffice.org formulas, go to www.openofficetips.com or http://www.richhillsoftware.com/  (same site).

But here are some that I think are useful: formulas, related items, and calculations built into Edit > Paste Special.

FORMULA -- you can display the formula for any cell.   

=FORMULA(B6) shows you the formula from B6. 

To display formulas by other means, choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Calc > View, and under the Display area, choose Formulas.

To copy and paste only cells that contain  formulas, copy, then choose Edit > Paste Special. Select only Formulas and click OK.

Paste Special, using the Operations section.

You can add, subtract, multiply, or divide values of one set of cells with another.

Here's an example of adding.
- You have two sets of cells.

- Copy a set of cells.

- Select the other set of cells and choose Paste Special.

- In the window that appears, choose All in the left column, then under Operations choose Add.

- Click OK.
- The cells you copied are added to the cells you pasted.

Here's what before and after for division look like. The second set of numbers, that you paste onto, are divided by the ones you copied.

Copy one set


The second set is divided by the first set

ISBLANK returns TRUE if a cell is blank.

This isn't as flashy, but ISBLANK(cellreference) or ISBLANK(cellrange) can be used for error checking or just seeing if you've got blanks where you shouldn't. For a cell range, it would be something like =ISBLANK(A5:A55).

INFO is a slightly obscure but perhaps useful formula.

Here are the possible values. Click the F(x) icon on the main toolbar, double-click the INFO formula and you'll see this window.

Here are some example values.

 

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Dropdown lists in OpenOffice.org Calc

Dropdown lists are a mainstay of many spreadsheets and forms. They help you control what people can enter, as well as giving them ideas for what types of things they might say.

You can make dropdown lists in a couple ways, at least, in OpenOffice.org. The simplest way is to use the tools accessed under Data > Validity. The lists are easy to make, plus you can easily use the values in formulas. In the following illustration, the value in B2, selected from a dropdown list, is referenceable in another cell.

Another way you can use the values in the dropdown list (among many) is to concatenate them. Click the following illustration to see it larger. The formula

=CONCATENATE(B2;" is an excellent source of information.")

sucks in the text in the dropdown list in B2.

So how do you make this list? I'll tell you.

1. Click in the cell where you want the list.

2. Choose Data > Validity.

3. In the list at the top, choose List as the type of information.

4. Select the various options you want.

- Allow blank cells: just what it sounds like. This means you don't have to select a value from the list, but if you type even one blank space, you can get the error message. More on that later.
- Show selection list: you definitely want this. What's the point of a list if you don't see it? Plus, then it's hard to figure out which cell has the list, to go back and modify it. (To modify an existing list, just select it and choose Data > Validity again.)
- Sort entries ascending: alphabetical order sorting. If you don't mark this, the items appear in the order you entered them.

5. Type the items you want in the list. Just press Enter to get to each new line.

6. Click OK. You'll see the list. Select something from the list. However, note that you can still type something that's not in the list, in addition to selecting something in the list.

7. If you want to require that people only enter something from the list, you need to do one more step. (You didn't have to click OK at that point; I just had you do that to show you the effect of not setting an error alert.) Select the cell where the dropdown list is and choose Data > Validity again.

8. Select the Error Alert tab.

9. You need to select the Show Error Message checkbox, select an error type (Stop is what you want to enforce selection of an item from the list), and optionally type the error title and error content.

10. Now click OK again.

11. Now when you try to type something different in the list, you get the error message you created.

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Why Open Source Matters: A Larger View

When I teach, one of the most common questions about OpenOffice.org is "How can it be free?"

I answer with a hodgepodge of topics from "Sun wanted to piss off Bill Gates" to "you know how your printer is really cheap but the cartridges are more expensive?" to "well, when geeks go home and want to relax, they don't play volleyball, they code." And I vow to read The Cathedral and the Bazaar when I get home.

I'm traveling soon so I'll be able to fulfill that vow before my next training class. Before I delve into the official or popular views of open source software, however, I'm going to open up the chest of my own opinions. Here's one thought. Software development is an odd combination of useful for mass numbers of people, and fun for others to develop. Usually, things that are fun enough to do voluntarily are not that useful to other people.  There might not be as much of a benefit to millions of people from group collaboration in, say, acting or singing or lounging around in the back yard -- other more traditionally enjoyable activities. But there are enough people who enjoy, or are significantly rewarded by in nonmonetary forms, software development, to create a lot of usable software. And it's far more useful for the rest of us to have a free office suite, than for a bunch of people around the world to have united to read some great novels while sipping gin and tonics. ;>

So this is one way it's possible for open source software to be, metaphorically, delicious and calorie-free because, well, it's different. The context and assumptions of the nature of software development are different than other products and services.

Then there's others' opinions that I want to share and expand on. I came across this article/blog which I thought was another interesting angle on open source from a larger standpoint.

It's not really hot news; it's about the keyword that characterizes Web 2.0 and all the associated buzzwords: participation. But I haven't talked about that theme much on this blog, having generally focused on specifics like exactly what to choose to make an inter-subdocument cross reference show up. Thus I'd like to emphasize the link between OpenOffice.org and the big ideas.

The article mentions the attempts to create an online encyclopedia.

"Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales were running into problems on the other side of the Atlantic. Together they were working on Nupedia, an encyclopedia they planned to make available to the public, free of charge, via the Internet. They considered it the ultimate democratization of knowledge. Sanger and Wales found renowned academics who were prepared to write entries for the site as well as to edit others’ contributions. Great plan. But it had one drawback: It was impossible to get anything done. Two years in, Nupedia included only 24 articles. “The pace was horrible,” Wales says now."

And then they discovered wikis. They opened up the process and now of course wikipedia is the first place many of us look for information if we just want a definition, some background and examples....in fact, an online encyclopedia entry.

Open source information goes much farther back than that. The Professor and the Madman chronicles the development of the Oxford English Dictionary, or OED, begun in the late 1890s. Where did many of the entries, many excellent entries come from? An inmate of Broadmoor who was imprisoned for murder. On the up side, he was still a very intelligent man, and of course had plenty of time to write definitions. I don't want to imply anything about today's software developers ;> with this analogy, but simply to point out that a venerable, dignified, and very old mainstay of our culture was developed with participation from many outside sources rather than an officially appointed and restricted group.

Let's keep in mind that  the odds of any software project successfully producing the desired outcome, on schedule, are roughly on par with going on a diet before your high school reunion and getting to your ideal weight in time. The structure of a standard project doesn't seem to be that much of a benefit. "It's impossible to put a precise number on the failure rate," says Karl Fogel, author of Producing Open Source Software, "but anecdotal evidence from over a decade in open source, some casting around on SourceForge.net, and a little Googling, all point to the same conclusion: the rate is extremely high, probably on the order of 90 to 95 percent."

Obviously, open source software can fail too. But my point is that developing outside the cube farm is not the risk.

Free software  seems odd to a lot of people, I think, because it's just new. We get free entertainment through TV; free information all over the place on the Internet; and overpriced $5 1000-calorie macchiatos while we're enjoying the free stuff.

The simplicity and rigidity of money = value , in an environment of better communication and participation, can't be applied as uniformly anymore. Barter, whether actual or less obvious, has a role too: you're bartering your willingness to dig a little on the Internet for information instead of being handed a thick manual. (And for those who have read through thick software manuals, sometimes they're worth the price of the software....sometimes they're not.)

I've been sitting here, staring across the coffee shop (past my $2 iced tea) trying to come up with a splendid, eloquent final sentence that ties everything together. So far, no luck. I will go with something like "Open source is more normal than you think, and was providing many valuable, reliable, free products long before Linux came along."

Simple Summer Tips for Easier Use of OpenOffice.org Writer

In the summer season, I want to throw out some nice easy-going simple tips.

(I also just took three blues-dancing lessons, my quads are burning and apparently my Norwegian-Lutheran upbringing did not, as perhaps one might assume, prepare me for a sensuous blues dancing career or even hobby. I am thus feeling very very very beginnerish, and  very sympathetic to those who might not have been using OpenOffice.org heavily since 1999.)

Anyway. Here's the summer vacation reading equivalent of some everyday OpenOffice.org tips. Some new, some not. It's just how I use the program, things that make it easier.

* I always start OpenOffice.org by starting Writer, then keep it open and create or open new Calc, Writer, Base documents, etc. I probably run OOo slower than some people but I like having all the documents open, and just creating or opening new ones from the menu of whatever OpenOffice.org document's menu is available.

* I use, as much as possible, the File > Recent Documents menu. Any document you've created and closed recently is likely to show up there.

* Undo, undo, undo. You can use the Undo icon, or just press Ctrl Z and keep going. OpenOffice is set up for 20 undoes and you can set it for farther back under Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Memory.

You can undo multiples at a time by clicking and holding down on the Undo icon and choosing multiple items by selecting as many as you want.

*Select multiple non-contiguous pieces of text by holding down Ctrl. Select the first word or character, then hold down Ctrl, hold down the next word, release Ctrl, and so on. When you're done, release the mouse, and the Ctrl key. Then you can apply the same formatting, or other action, to all of them at once.

* Use styles! Just Heading1 through Heading3, and Text Body, will save you a lot of time. Select the text, then select the style from the dropdown list shown.

* Edit the existing styles rather than creating new ones. Apply the styles, then if you don't like them just edit them and everywhere they're applied, they'll change. Select anything with a particular style applied that you want to edit, right-click, and choose Edit Paragraph Style. (This of course works only for paragraph styles.)

A window appears where you can change any attributes of the formatting that you want. Click the tab you want, make the changes, click another Tab and make changes, etc. then click OK.

The change will be applied to any text where that paragraph style was applied. As with any modification to or creation of a style, the changes apply only in the current document.

* Keep your cats off the desk. My cat Winston loves to lay his head on the Esc key. And wackiness ensues.

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An equivalent of the Word's Outline View, with the OpenOffice.org Writer Navigator

Who hasn't had one of these experiences?

• You're writing your guide to gardening, you're looking at the headings for your garden-preparation chapter, and you realize you have made instructions for the compost pile a level-3 small section when it should really be a chapter of its own.
  
• You think, re-reading the first draft of your novel, "No, the dream sequence should come first to grab people, and I'll put the conversation between Grimelda and her guru in chapter five after the chariot race."
• You are tired of scrolling through your document and you want to just go directly to the section on shoe-making so you can add the cool new stuff about suede. Or you've put in a table, or a graphic, and you want to go directly to it to make some changes.
• ou're writing a 680-page document and you just want to read through the main heading titles and make sure that they're in a good order, that you're using parallel grammatical structure, that you're capitalizing correctly, etc.

In Word you might use the Outline view. In OpenOffice Writer, you use the Navigator.

Press F5 and you'll see the Navigator window.

First: What you need to do in your document to make sure the Navigator works for you

You must either use the Heading1 through Heading10 styles on the text that is used as your document headings. Or you can apply other styles to your headings and set them up at the right levels; choose Tools > Outline Numbering. (See this entry for more on outline numbering.)

Applying the heading styles

This picture shows how to apply the Heading1-Heading10 styles in a simpler  example, a document about bread.

Modifying how the heading styles look

If you don't like how the Heading1-Heading10 styles look, right-click on any text with the style you don't like applied to it, and choose Edit Paragraph Style. Make your changes in the formatting window that appears and click OK.

Then: What you can do with the Navigator

You can:

• View all the headings in your document: just the top levels, just the top and second levels, and on down
• Jump from one section to another just by double-clicking
• Jump to other items in the navigator such as tables, bookmarks, or charts, just by double-clicking
• Turn chapters into sections by demoting and vice versa
• Easily drag sections to different places in your document to re-order the document: not just chapters but any section that starts with a Heading1-Heading10 style, or with whatever styles you set up under Outline Numbering.

Viewing the Headings

In the Navigator, press F5. You'll see all the headings. The icon labeled Heading Levels Shown lets you see only Heading1s, only Heading1s and Heading2s, etc.

Click as shown to view the number of heading levels you want.

Jumping from one section to another

I'm currently at the top of the document.

I double-click the Breweries and Wineries sub-section and bam, that's what's displayed in the document itself.

Jump to other objects in the document: tables, bookmarks, etc.

I double-click the Table1 item (I don't name my tables but you can when you choose Insert > Table) and immediately it's displayed.

Change chapters to sections and vice versa by promoting and demoting heading levels

Let's say I want the Romance section to be less important, a heading level or two down. It's currently assigned the Heading2 style so it's at level 2.

I can just click on it, then click the Demote Level icon as many times as needed to move the section to where I want it. I clicked it once so now Romance is at level 3. (And Jazz and other sections below it were moved down, as well.)

Ditto for making sections more important; click the Promote Level icon.

Re-order sections in the document

Let's say I want the chapter Getting Here and Getting Around to be earlier in the document, not last. It's a Heading1 and I don't want to change that, but it's now starting on page 22 (look in the bottom left corner) and I want it earlier in the document.

I click Promote Chapter and it's now earlier in the document. It's at the same level, as you can see by the applied style, but it's now on page 16 as you can see in the lower left corner.

I can do the same thing with lower-level sections. I can take the By Train subsection here, currently before By Car

click Demote Icon, and now it's the last section in the document, not second to last. It's after the By Car section.

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Inserting Stored, Reusable Information in OpenOffice Writer: One of the Most Useful Features in OpenOffice.org

I think pretty much everyone likes to save time, and avoid painful carpal tunnel surgery. Here are the two very nice shortcut features that let you slap in a bunch of text with just a couple keystrokes.

• AutoFormat lets you create a shortcut for a piece of text like your name, your company's motto, or anything else such as special characters
• Autotext lets you put in huge amounts of text and graphics, with the formatting

Using  the Automatic Formatting to Create Handy Shortcuts

Let’s say you type the word supercalfragilisticexpealidocious a zillion times a day, or your name and title. As much as you might like to type, it's repetitive work.

Or let's say that you need to use any of the special characters like accents or Greek letters. You can insert them the long way if you want.  Choose Insert > Special Characters, scroll through, switch fonts as necessary, select what you want, and click OK. But that takes a long time.

Whatever you want to type, you can set up a shortcut for it.

To do this:

First, get the text you want to reuse ready. Like get your special character inserted in the document, or think about exactly what motto or title or name it is that you want to get into your document more quickly.

Now choose Tools > AutoCorrect and click on the Replace tab.

1. In the left-hand Replace field type your shortcut like sig and in the right-hand field.

2. In the right-hand With field, type your name or motto or paste in the special character that you've already inserted in your document.

3. Click New.

4. 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."

5. Click OK.

6.  In your document, type the shortcut, followed by a space, and your words or special character will appear.

AutoText: Storing and Quickly Inserting Text and Graphics

Let's say you've got a signature that looks like this.

It would be nice to just insert all that instead of typing, or even copying and pasting.

1. Go to a document where you've got that text and the logo. Select it all, including the logo, and including the paragraph above and below. MAKE SURE THAT THE LITTLE ANCHOR GRAPHIC IS NOT SHOWING FOR THE GRAPHIC—I.E. DON'T CLICK ON IT.

GOOD

BAD

2. Choose Edit > Autotext.

3. In the Autotext window, select a category, then type the name and the shortcut for it. Remember this shortcut; you can use it later to quickly insert the autotext.

4. Click and hold down on the Autotext button and choose New.

5. Expand the selected category and click on the titleof the autotext. Click the Preview checkbox below the blank area at the right. The autotext will be displayed.

6. Click Close.

 

Now you're ready to insert the Autotext. Here's how.

Long way: Click in any document. Choose Edit > Autotext, select the category and the autotext to insert, and click Insert.

The autotext will appear in the document.

Short way requiring that you remember the shortcut for the item: Type the shortcut that you entered earlier when you set up the autotext item, then press F3.

Note: To determine where your autotexts are stored, choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Paths and look at the Autotext item in the big list. Or in the AutoText window, click Paths. You can add or delete paths there.

That's all there is to it! Once you get everything set up, you might never type again. ;>

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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.

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How the New OpenOffice Chart Tool Works When You Don't Specify a Data Range

I've talked about the new chart tool in previous blogs here and here.

In both of those, though, I assumed that you would be selecting the data range in the Calc spreadsheet or Writer table before inserting the chart. Which you normally would be.

 

If you choose Insert > Chart in Calc, in the new tool, without a range selected, it's not much use. You get a big blank chart.

In Writer, however, at least in this stage of development of the tool, you get something different when you choose Insert > Object > Chart with no data range selected. Thanks to Linda from Largo for pointing this out.

It's not much good like that, of course, so right-click on it and choose Chart Data Table to input some data.

You get this window where you can not only fill in the names on the X and Y axes and the data, but you can add and remove rows and columns of data, and move rows and columns around.

This is nice if you have the data written down somewhere but not in a chart or table, and it's just quicker to slam in the data manually than to base it on a chart or table. It took about twenty seconds to make this chart. (It would have taken more if I'd had any actual data on penguins and marmots as pets. ;>  )

That was the chart data table, and then I just clicked the red X in the upper right corner to close and update the chart. Here's what it looks like.

This chart approach does lack titles, and X and Y axis titles. However, you can just make them with text boxes. Choose View > Toolbars > Drawing (deselect the chart first) and use the Text tool to draw a text box outside of the chart area. Type what you want in the text box, then drag it into the chart area.

In this example, I also clicked on and shrank the inner data part of the chart to leave room for the title I created with the text tool.

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