OpenOffice.org Training, Tips, and Ideas

Summary of new features in OpenOffice.org 2.3

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

General

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

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

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

Writer and Web

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

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

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

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

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

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

Calc

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mail Merge, Databases, and Forms

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

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

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

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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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An Always-Reliable Way of Docking the Styles and Formatting Window in OpenOffice Writer, Impress, and Calc, and the Slide Pane in Impress

You can dock the toolbars and floating windows in OpenOffice.org.

Here's the Styles and Formatting window, docked.

Here's the Styles and Formatting window,  undocked.

Usually you can take any window, drag it toward the side of your work area (or any of the four sides, technically) and when the gray dotted outline appears, release your mouse. (Then to undock, click and hold down on the blank gray area between the icons at the top, and drag back toward the middle.)

However, this doesn't always work. The docking process, that is. The gray line doesn't always show up.

Here's a key combination to dock the Styles and Formatting window that always (to my knowledge) works.

Click on the title bar of the undocked window so that it's selected. Then press Ctrl  Shift  F10

Press that key combo and the Styles and Formatting window docks immediately. Then as described above, drag the gray area between the icons back toward the middle of the work area to undock.

And -- here's the beautiful thing -- IT WORKS WITH THE SLIDE PANE IN OPENOFFICE.ORG IMPRESS, TOO!!! And that thing is really tricky to dock.

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

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

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

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

         

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

Assigning a Keyboard Shortcut to a Task

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

2. Choose Tools > Customize, Keyboard tab.

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

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

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

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

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

8. Click OK.

Assigning a Keyboard Shortcut to a Style

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

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

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

2. Choose Tools > Customize, Keyboard tab.

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

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

5. Click OK.

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

Giving the Configurations You've Made to All Users

Shortcut keys are stored here in XP:

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

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

In Vista, it's

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

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

Here's what it looks like.

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

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Importing Fonts Into OpenOffice.org 2.1

OpenOffice.org will just pick up whatever fonts you've got on your system. As someone who's worked with a lot of desktop publishing projects and who's mostly on Windows, I have a lot of fonts.

But let's say you don't have a lot of fonts, and you want more fonts for OpenOffice.

OpenOffice is there for you. In 2.1 there's a link from the Wizards to an installation site.

Choose File > Wizards > Install Fonts From Web.

Just follow the wizard through. Here are the windows.

Click on English and here's the text you see.

===========================

FontOOo

Version 1.6.1

FontOOo is a wizard allowing free fonts installation.

 

FontOOo is a wizard to simplify the downloading and installation of selected, high-quality fonts available on the internet.  License restrictions prevent these fonts from being directly shipped as part of OpenOffice.org but do allow end-user installation and use for no cost.   Please carefully read and follow the license for each of the fonts you install.

 

Click the button to start the wizard

Notes:

You will have to restart OpenOffice.org and the quickstarter to see your new fonts.

FontOOo only works at OpenOffice.org level and no font is installed at operating system level

 

This wizard is licensed under the terms of the LGPL, available here:
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/lgpl-license.php

Author: Laurent Godard – © 2004–2006 – LaurentGodard@openoffice.org

===========================

Select available fonts. If they're dimmed, click Next and select any that are available.

I selected all these and installed them.

Selectwhat you want installed and click Next. The process will run. Restart OpenOffice.org and the quickstarter when you're done.

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TechTarget Article: Numbered and Bulleted Lists in OpenOffice Writer

I was looking through my posts and realized, hey, I hadn't posted here that I've written a fairly comprehensive article for techtarget on lists.

See also this post on how to do numbering with fields. Fields are a more reliable but more complex approach.

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Merry Christmas! An Easier Way to Start Page Numbering at 1 on the Second Page

Note: Upon further testing, this works fine as described but the table of contents does not reflect the offset correctly. Sorry!

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I was answering comments on this blog about starting page numbering on page 2, when I mentioned the page number offset, and how it doesn't work.

And I thought, well, I haven't tested this in OpenOffice.org 2.1 yet.

Hmmm......

And then I grinned broadly as it worked exactly the way it used to.  BUT that's OK because how it functions is perfect for when you don't want a page number on page 1, and you want the second page to be page 1. (Or the third page to be page 1, etc.)

This means that if you want, and if it suits your document, you can totally skip the whole big thing with page styles simply by inserting the page number field in your footer as usual, then double-clicking the page field and typing a negative page offset.

Here's the poop.

What the Page Offset Is

When you insert a page number in a header or footer (or in your page content), you get a page number, of course. This is a FIELD, which means it's not just text, it's got intelligence built into it. The gray shading indicates it's a field.

You can double-click the page number and you get this window.

The Offset fields at the bottom right is what we're interested in here. Type in 4 and your first page number will be 5; type in -2 and your first page number will be -3.

Seems like this could be useful, yes? Well, kind of. Read on.

The Way It Works That Doesn't Do You Any Good, and the Reason I Hadn't Talked About the Offset Before

If you type 4 in the Offset field, then the first page number to appear will be 5. (It would normally be 1, so an offset of 4, 1+4, is 5.)

Here's what that looks like in the window.

Here's the effect on the first page in the document.

Here's the effect on another page in the document. So far so good.

But here's the effect on one of the last four pages  (4 is the offset) in the document. No freakin' page number at all. There's gray but nothing will actually print.

So: when you type in a positive offset, where x = your offset number, the last x pages of the document don't have a page number.

The Way It Works That Is Useful For You, and Exactly How You Can Use This for Documents With Pages You Don't Want Numbered

Positive offset isn't that usefull, but negative offset is verra nice

Let's say you have a cover page, and your content is the second page. You want no page number on the cover page and you want "1" to appear in the footer of the second page.

So you want 1 of your pages to have no page number in the footer. Your offset is therefore -1.

Here's what you do.

Insert the page field number as usual. (To add the footer, choose Insert > Footer > Default. Click in the footer text box that appears and choose Insert > Fields > Page Number.)

Double-click the inserted page number.

In the fields window, type -1 in the Offset field.

And here's the result on your first page. Look at that! It's gray,  so that means nothing will print! Which is exactly what you want!

And here's what the first page of content looks like, i.e. the second page of your document. Again, this is exactly what you want -- the number 1.

And since the numbers disappeared at the beginning of the document, not at the end, you get the correct page numbers all the way to the end of your document.

This is great. Much easier than page styles; my apologies for not bringing it to everyone's attention earlier.

If you want the page number 1 to appear on your second page, use the offset -1.
If you want the page number 1 to appear on your third page, use the offset -2.

And so on.

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Using Master Documents to Combine Spreadsheets as Well as Writer Documents

I've written an article for TechTarget.com about how to bring spreadsheets into master documents, too. You link the spreadsheet to a Writer document, then bring that "dummy" writer document into your master document. It's a hack but a practical hack since big publications often need to combine different document types. There's an approach (even hackier, but useful) for bringing in presentation content, too.

If you haven't read the first article on plain old master documents, read that first.

 

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TechTarget Article: Using Master Documents in OpenOffice Writer

I've written an article for TechTarget.com about using master documents in OpenOffice.org Writer.

http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid39_gci1230368,00.html

Master documents are used to combine lots of other Writer documents. They're similar to Word master files or Frame book files in that they organize your subdocuments, let you create a unified table of contents, etc.  They're a bit picky but once you've got them set up, they work quite reliably.

 

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OpenOffice Writer Styles Article on TechTarget.com

I've written a big ol' "what, why, and how" article on styles for TechTarget.com.
http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid39_gci1230137,00.html

It starts with just how useful styles are in daily life and why they make life great, then goes into just how to apply, create, and update them.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'll be celebrating with friends in the usual tryptophan-heavy way, and also by hitting Ladies' Night at the Grizzly Rose in Denver.  I've had a few very nice lessons on the two-step and triple, and will be looking to dance now that I'm a little more confident with the country dances.  I'm hoping to find someone there who'll do a little swing, too.

Jumping to Particular Spots, and Rearranging Content, in an OpenOffice Writer Document, and Using Draw

Moving Around Easily Between Sections in the Navigator

I saw this question on LiveJournal by madscience but couldn't post an answer because of the Friends Only setting. I thought it was a good question, though, so I'll post it here.

"Is it possible to set up chapters or sections in an OpenOffice Writer document so that I can jump to them easily, like maybe with tabs or a tree like some PDFs have? I found something called "sections" in the documentation, but it doesn't sound like what I'm looking for.'

Definitely. Press F5 and you'll see the Navigator window.

You can expand the Headings option and just double-click the heading name to jump to that part of the document.

(This is only if you've used the Heading1 through Heading10 styles, or if you've used other styles for your headings and set them up at the right levels under Tools > Outline Numbering.)

You can also jump to anything listed in that window that you have set up--graphics, bookmarks (Insert > Bookmark), cross references, notes, etc.

You're right, sections aren't what you want, but if you have them you can double-click them in Navigator and go to them.

Rearranging Sections in Writer by Moving Headings in the Navigator

You can move one section of your document to an earlier or later part of the document easily in the Navigator too. Again, you need to have applied paragraph styles to your headings such as Heading1, Heading2, etc.

In the Navigator, just select the heading for the section you want to move.

Then click the Promote Chapter icon or the Demote Chapter icon as many times as needed to move the section to where you want it. In this picture, the 1950s and Bread section now comes before Romans and Bread.

Other Good Alternative Open Source Software

Another question from LiveJournal from fadedletterlost

"Alternative Software
I love alternative software, especially when it is a piece of free software that does basically the same function as a far more expensive version. What are some good alternative softwares that you have found?

MS Office alternative: OpenOffice
Photoshop?
Movie Creation Software?
First Person Shooter?

So on and so forth..."

A lot of people do stuff in Photoshop or Gimp that is easier to do in OpenOffice Draw. (File > New > Drawing.) If you're doing diagrams or anything that's not direct raster editing, do it in Draw, then export to EPS, JPG, PNG, whatever.

You do have slight raster control in Draw -- adjust RGB, make things B/W or grayscale, control contrast and lightness, etc.

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Searching and Replacing: Replacing One Style With Another, in OpenOffice

I wrote this blog about how to rename styles in your current document to match the style names in a different template or document, then import styles from that different template or document to update the definitions.

Now, that's a reasonable approach. More or less. Renaming can be useful also if you just realize, d'oh! you really should be renaming things something like Directive_Heading, Directive_Text, rather than Textfordirectives and headingtouseindirectives. It's nice to have all the styles you use together sorted together alphabetically.

But unfortunately the Nancy Drew in me is sometimes drawn more toward hacks than to regular ol' features already there in the software.

Felipe wrote to that post and said "Is there a way to search and replace styles?"

And I slapped myself on the forehead and said, "Well, yes, that feature DOES exist and that would, OK, be a perfectly reasonable way to deal with replacing one style with another."

So here's the scenario.

You have a wonderful document with great styles.

But then Bob the Annoying Boss comes along and says "You need to use THIS template with THESE styles."

If all the names of the styles were the same you could just import the styles and be done with it. BUT the styles in the template are DIFFERENT so it's not that simple.

What do you do?

Follow the instructions in this blog if you want to try that approach to rename the styles in your document to match the ones in the template.

Or just search for your style names, and replace them with the style names from the template.

Here's how to do the second one.

Step 1: Import styles from the new template

Open your document.

Choose Format > Styles and Formatting.

Click and hold down on the far right icon and choose Load Styles.

In the next window, mark all the checkboxes and click From File.

Find the file with the styles you need to use and click Open.

That document's styles will show up in your Styles and Formatting window.

Step 2: Search for Your Styles and Replace With the New Styles

Be sure you're in your document.

Choose Edit > Find and Replace or just press Ctrl F.

In the Find and Replace window, click More Options and select only the Search for Styles item. NOTE: An alert reader, Julian, has this warning. "The option to search for styles disappears if you have specified some formatting in one of the search or replace boxes. Clicking No Format brings it back."

In the  first dropdown list, select the style in your document, and in the other dropdown list, select the style you just imported that you want to replace the existing style with.

Click Find, then Replace as appropriate. Or if you're feeling confident, click Replace All.

Repeat for each style you need to replace.

You'll see that the old styles have been replaced by the new styles. (In this illustration, the style ChapterTitle used to be applied, and it looked like the style illustrated near the top of this blog.)

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Styles Hack: Importing a Template With Completely Different Style Names, in OpenOffice Writer

NOTE: You can also search and replace for styles. Open the search and replace window, click More Options, select the Styles checkbox, and go nuts. I have blogged  more on this here. Thanks to Felipe for reminding me of this.

Maybe I should have thought of this years ago. Maybe I just hadn't thought about it all that hard. But regardless, I had a realization this morning while brushing my teeth that makes importing a new template much easier.

So. You have a grrrreat document on what makes squirrels look so cute when the sit up and eat nuts.  And you need to submit it to the Journal of Squirrel and Possum Research.

You've applied all sorts of styles from your best template. Styles like ReportHead1, ReportHead2, StrongNote, PlainNote, BodyText, ListDiamondBullets, etc.  You've got about 20 styles and about 100 pages.

And now you get the note from the JoSPR and they love your article, but they want it in their template.

No problem! you cry as you swig a celebratory jigger of apricot brandy that you keep in your desk drawer for just such occasions. You open your document, import styles, find the template, click OK, and boom......

OK, no boom, just a whimper. You get all those new styles but guess what? Nothing changed because when you import SquirrelHeading1 into a document that uses ReportHead1, nothing about ReportHead1 changes.

Agh!

Do you need to go through the whole document and apply the  JoSPR styles? Isn't the whole point, or one of the key points, of styles, is that updating them is soooooo easy?

No, and yes. IF YOU USED YOUR OWN STYLES RATHER THAN STYLES THAT CAN'T BE RENAMED LIKE HEADING1 THROUGH HEADING10 THEN IMPORTING DIFFERENTLY NAMED STYLE DEFINITIONS ISN'T THAT BAD

If you used your own styles, all you need to do is rename the styles.  And then when you import, you're golden because when you import SquirrelHeading1 (20 point, Albany font)  into a document that uses SquirrelHeading1 (18 point, AvantGarde font), then all of a sudden SquirrelHeading1 does in fact change to the new definition. And alllll text with that style applied changes, too.

Here's what you do.

Figure out if you've applied existing styles that are part of every Writer doc, like Heading1 through Heading10, or if you've applied styles you created yourself like ReportHeading1. If the former, then you do have to just import all the styles and then reapply. If the latter, then you're good. 

Renaming Styles
Use this procedure if you can rename the styles you used. If you don't know, try this procedure and you'll find out.

1. Open your document.
2. Go to the text with the first style you want to rename, like ReportHead1. Select that text.

3. Choose Format > Styles and Formatting.
4. In that window, be sure the correct category, Paragraph or another, is showing. Click the appropriate icon at the top.

5. Right-click on the style  name and choose Modify.

6. In the style window, click the Organizer tab.

7. Rename the style; name it whatever is in the new template that corresponds to this style, like SquirrelHeading1.

8. Click OK.
9. Now, all the text that used to have the style ReportHead1 applied to it now has the style SquirrelHeading1 applied to it.

10. Rinse and repeat for all the other styles you need to rename.

All you need to do now is import the right definitions from the new template.

Importing Styles
1. Open your document.
2. Go to the text with the first style you want to rename, like ReportHead1. Select that text.
3. Choose Format > Styles and Formatting.
4. Click and hold down on the far right icon and choose Load Styles.

5. In the window that appears, select all the checkboxes.

6. Click Find File.
7. Find the new template and click Open.
8. Now all the new style definitions have been imported and all the text should look different.

(If you used un-renameable styles, then at this point you need to go through and reapply the new styles. Sigh.)

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Restarting Numbering in OpenOffice Writer: Yes, Virginia, There Is a Way to Do This Without Manual Labor

OpenOffice Writer numbering is powerful but it lacks at least one very important feature.

(I’m not saying Word numbering doesn’t suck. I think it does. )

Now, it’s not all bad. Anyone doing a nice little shopping list like this is going to have no problem.

1. Beer

   1. Light

   2. Dark

2. Bread

   1. Rye

      1. Russian

      2. Scandinavian

   1. White

To get lists like this, just type the list, select the list, click the Numbering icon to turn numbering on, press Tab to indent each item as far as it needs to go, then select the whole list and in the Options tab select the numbering type you want at each level.

However, what do you do if you want this? AND let’s say you have about a hundred  of these and combine them in the same master document?

1. Directive on Parking

   1. Parking shall be completed by 8:30 AM each morning.

   2. Parking shall be performed in the following lots

      1. Lot A, except on Mondays

      2. Lot B

      3. Lot Q on weekends

2. Directive on After-Work Parties

   1. Parties shall follow these guidelines

      1. Parties shall last no longer than three hours

      2. Parties shall be catered for no more than $300

      3. Parties shall provide bus service home as necessary

   2. Parties shall take place no more than five times a year

When I first typed up the Directive on Parking part in OpenOffice, composing the blog before I posted it here, it actually looked like the following: the top-level numbering for the directive on parking continued from the bread list, even though it was totally separate.

Imagine a 100-page document or a 100-document book where you have to go back and fuss and curse over restarting the numbering.

The trouble with using regular ol’ numbering is multi-fold.

There Are  Problems With Trying to Do Complex Numbering in Big Projects, Especially Relating to Restarting Numbering

Restarting the numbering where and when you want it is hit and miss. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t.

To restart numbering, you need to click the Restart Numbering icon, or alternately use the Paragraph formatting window. Here they are.

NOTE however that this restart attribute is NOT available when you create a paragraph style.

This all means that you cannot apply restart-iness with styles. You can only apply it manually.

[I have tested the following issue moderately with 2.1 and it does not SEEM to be a problem. Test with your documents.] Also, here’s the kicker. When you import new styles, at least some of the time, the manual settings, aka the restartiness, are kablooied and you need to set them all over again.

[I have tested the following issue moderately with 2.1 and it does not SEEM to be a problem. Test with your documents.] Did I say the kicker? That was a kicker. There’s another even bigger kicker. Importing the styles also often kablooies all the indenting you did to get, say, Rye bread down to level 3 or the party rules down to the level they’re at. You can get around this by using a separate paragraph style/numbering style combination for every level but you still end up with the problem of manual restarts.

You could consider using outline numbering; however you cannot restart the numbering if you are going to combine multiple documents in a master document. Also you have only the most basic control over the distance from the number to the text. (Tools > Outline Numbering. See also http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2006/10/in_praise_of_ou.html )

So what the heck is the solution?

There Is A Solution If You’re Willing to Do Things Completely Differently

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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A Design Contest! Enhancing the OpenOffice.org Template Coffers

The deadline is October 31st! Still plenty of time to enter!

It's another contest! Anyone with OpenOffice.org and a dream (that's all of us, potentially) can enter.

It's the Worldlabel-sponsored OpenOffice.org Design Competition.

" The OpenOffice.org documentation project has announced a Template & Clipart Contest.

The total prize money is to the tune of $5000 sponsored by WorldLabel, which has long been a strong champion of OpenOffice.org.

The goal is to increase the trove of templates and clipart. The current collection of template samples leaves a huge gap that needs to be filled. Step up and fill that gap. Winners will also have the option of including their winning entries in the OpenOffice.org installation sets available from the site.

If you are interested, visit the Documentation Project for more information. Everyone is eligible and everyone is encouraged to participate. The contest officially starts this week and ends 31
October 2006. Winning entries will be judged by a panel of three and winners will be announced."

Enter! I'm definitely going to do it. It's fun, plus with more templates, OpenOffice.org will be even more appealing for those still with Microsoft Office.

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