OpenOffice.org Training, Tips, and Ideas

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 e