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"/>

---

Comments

[John Russell]

Is there a way to set a keyboard shortcut to focus the Apply Style text field in the formatting toolbar? In Word I think its Alt-S or something, but it makes setting styles wonderful. Alt-S (or whatever it really is) to focus the field and then start typing the name of the style you want, which autocompletes.

Is there a binding for that? Thanks.

[Zaine Ridling]

Wow thanks for this great tip on keyboard shortcuts for Styles! I wish this could also be applied in the Styles and Formatting box by right-clicking on the individual style, but it's not necessary. Great tip, indeed.

[fwyzard]

Mhm... ok that was the easy part. But how do I assign some functionality to, say "Ctrl + >" (or "Ctrl + Shoft + .") ?

[Sylvaticus]

Is it possible to save the shortcut directly on the document ??? (I'm start suspecting a negative answer as google is not helping this time...)

[Solveig]

Hi,

Sorry, styles are document specific but shortcuts are in the mentioned settings file.

Solveig

[Bill]

Is there a way to add to the list of possible key combinations? In Word I loved to use alt+right and alt+left to promote or demote my bullets/numbering when making outlines... I love even more the prospect of using both alt+left and alt+right in their aformentioned respects along with OOo's move up/down with subpoints using alt+up and alt+down...

After that my short question is can I assign shortcuts to alt+[anything]? All I've seen is Shift+[x], ctrl+[x] and ctrl+shit+[x]. A related question is if there is a way to sign a macro to any keys other than ctrl or shift, or both.

[Steve B]

How can I assign a special character like the letter a with an acute accent to a key combination like (in MS Word) CNTL + singlequotationmark, a. Also MS Word would change font size up or down a point with CNTL + [ or CNTL + ] --is anything comparable on OpenOffice Writer? Also MS Word changed single to double spacing with CNTL + 2, anything comparable on OpenOffice Writer? The method of assigning macros in OpenOffice is utterly opaque to me.

[Solveig]

Hi Steve,

You can assign Ctrl 2 to double spacing using the steps in this blog.

You can assign a shortcut to a special character here using the AutoCorrect window. Just type "sq" or something in the Replace field and paste your special character into the With field. (Get the special character into your document in the first place by choosing Insert > Special Characters.)

http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2007/07/inserting_store.html

[LEO]

Hi Solveig, I frequently use special characters in my documents when I am transliterating words written in other alphabets. I followed the steps you describe in the comment just about this one to use AutoCorrect to do things like replacing "ii" with "ī" and that kind of thing. Trouble is, it only works when my shortcut is written on its own but not in the middle of a word. I would really, really love it if I could type something like "liik" and have it automatically turn into "līk." Is there any way I can get autocorrect to do something like this, or any other way to achieve this? I'd appreciate any advice you might offer!

[Solveig]

The only way really is to enter liik as the thing you write and lik as the thing to replace it with. I.e. think of the permutations.

Solveig

[http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2007/04/creating_keyboa.html]

I use Qliner Hotkeys to toggle between my various open applications and Office documents instead of going through the arduos Alt-Tab route. Openoffice just doesn’t bend to this order of things. When I click my hotkey for Openoffice Calc for instance it always opens one new empty Calc table. That is useless to me since everything is always already opened. I have tried to point Qliner to the Openoffice documents themselves but it did not work either. Is there a way for a basic “point and click user” to add OpenOffice to Qliner or any other application that would do my toggling. I lose a lot of time every day alt-tabbing my way to these openoffice documents that I must have open at all times.

[gentillyjoe]

Hi. In Word you can just hit the combination of keys you want in the keyboard customization dialog and have them register. I know this won't work in OOo, but isn't there a way to add key combinations (for example, in Word I use Ctrl+Shift+right parenthesis to view/hide the ruler)? Or better, isn't there a way to import keyboard shortcuts from Word?

[Solveig]

Hi Joe,

I don't think you can add or import combinations, though it's not impossible you could do something with a macro.

[DAVID JOHN]

Shortcut keys are stored here in XP:

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

FOR Y'R COMMENTS OF SHORTCUT KEYS FINDING PATH COULN'T BE FIND OUT ME

PLS TELL ME CLEAR PATH LIKE C:\PROGRAM FILES\OPENOFFICE 3.0 .. SO & SO

[sebastian conea]

is there a way to assign a shortcut to a character? - I want to make a shortcut to a symbol so I don't have to look for it everytime...

[Sriram]

Can someone please show me how to:
- to create a shortcut/icon on my Mac (laptop) desktop for OpenOffice (I guess this shows I am a Windows user trying out a Mac!)
- configure the system to find and use OpenOffice to open any document, or spreadsheet

Thanks

[tower defense]

Thanks for this great tip on keyboard shortcuts for Styles! I wish this could also be applied in the Styles and Formatting box by right-clicking on the individual style, but it's not necessary. Great tip, indeed.

[IT Certifications]

You are making openoffice world best office....? keep it up

[Gary Winnick]

Nice post.