Two easy setup changes everyone should make in OpenOffice.org Writer

You have a lot of control over how OpenOffice is set up. One of them is automatic formatting. I recommend turning off most of it. Here are two things to do that will make OOo work the way you want.

Choose Tools > Autocorrect, Options tab, and unmark everything from the second line on down. This will prevent, among other things, the numbering formatting that  starts when you don't expect it.

Then choose Tools > Options > Writer > Print and unmark the circled option. It will take out that annoying extra page you get sometimes and you don't know why . (It has to do with right-left pagination for books.)

Comments

[Mic]

Hi,

any chance that you will be writing an article on how to create a complete document that students will need to do when completing a project?

the report will normally consists of :
- Cover Page
- Title Page
- Table of contents (automatically create)
- Chapters/Section/sub-section (which have different heading/ font size)
- Index
- etc.

a sample of the typical layout can be found here
http://www.docsymmetry.com/layout.html

Will be interesting if you can share an effective / best way to create such a report.

[Jean Hollis Weber]

Mic, you might find useful a book I'm writing and publishing on my website. Its working title is "Self-publishing using OpenOffice.org" and one chapter is about book design and how to use page and paragraph styles. I intend to have some specific usage examples at the end of the book, one of which would be just the sort of thing you mentioned. I'm not at all sure when I'll find time to finish the book, but I work on it a bit now and then.
http://taming-openoffice-org.com/newsite/?page_id=65

[gaetano]

Thanks a lot for providing such simple info for newbies - really appreciated.

Maybe a pet peeve, but do you have any idea why the autocorrection settings are not part of the standard settings dialog?
Every time I discover something new in ooo I get this feeling of being lost deep in a bottomless mine - plenty of ore to be found, but where's the map?

Another question: how can the 'automatically create bulleted lists' option be disabled? Thanks

[gaetano]

"how can the 'automatically create bulleted lists' option be disabled? Thanks"

Ok, I think I found it - it is one of the checkboxes in the autocorrect settings.

[Solveig]

Hi Gaetano,

I actually use the metaphor of an iceberg, lots more possible than visible ;> but yeah, the default settings are an annoyance. I think they should all be off by default. (If it helps, I think in Word the autocorrect settings are in roughly the same place in the interface.)

You're right, it's one of the checkboxes in autocorrect.

In my opinion, everyone should turn off all the settings under Tools > AutoCorrect, Options tab, EXCEPT for the first line. Then if you're happy with how it works, leave it as is. If there are things you wish it did, then go back in and root around and see if there's anything you want.