OpenOffice.org Training, Tips, and Ideas

Modify the Layout of Prefab OpenOffice Labels Under File > New > Labels

Note: For other label tweaking tips, click here and here.

I was just putting together the mailing labels for my books (thanks everyone!) and the 8163 label layout built into OpenOffice.org was too wide for my printer.

What to do?

Changing the margins seems like the first thing to do. But when I do that, the layout skews. The page thinks there isn't enough room for both columns of labels so the second column of labels jumps to the second page.

Then I thought, well, I'll  shrink the width of the little frame things that the text is in.

When you try to do that, though, you get the Ghostbusters symbol that indicates "no changing anything here, buddy."

However, you can change the frame so that its size and position are no longer protected.

Some of you, reading along, are saying, "Um, Solveig....there's that adjustment window in the freakin' label creation window for just such purposes. Why not use that?" That's a good one too. ;> If you haven't already typed or pasted a lot of content into your actual label document, at least.

So here are some ways to tweak your labels. These apply to the prefab ones used through the File > New > Labels window. The ones you get from WorldLabel are made from tables, not frames, so the font modification items might work but the frame stuff is irrelevant.

Tweaking Label Size in the Label Window Before You Create the Label Document

Choose File > New > Labels.

Select the correct page size and label number, such as Letter and 8163.

Click the Format tab.

The Left Margin field is what you want to increase, if the left side of your labels are getting cut off. Increase it just a tad, perhaps to .3.  Or if your margins are getting cut off on top, change the Top Margin measurement. Then click New Document to create the label, if you're ready.

The new label document will have a slightly bigger  margin to give you some breathing room. (Or it will otherwise reflect the change you made in the Format tab.)

Tweaking Already-Created Label Documents

If you've got your document and you don't want to re-create it, here's some stuff you can do. Be forewarned that it is harder to control than the previous approach.

Here's the sample I'm working with; there's content only in the top two rows just from sheer laziness on my part. ;>

Right-click on the top left frame and choose Frame.

In the Frame window, go to the Options tab and unmark the Size and Position checkboxes.

Click OK.

If you want, you can just physically drag the frames one by one. Or use this approach to modify their dimensions all at once.

Choose Format > Styles and Formatting. Be sure that Frame styles are displayed. Right-click on the Labels style and choose Modify.

Now you can do whatever works in your layout. Make the label slightly narrower, perhaps 3.75  or 3.8.

Click OK. This will update the measurements of all the frames.

Choose Format > Page. In the Page tab, set the left margin to something a tad larger, like .3. Make sure the right-hand margin is .01 or something similarly small. You want to make sure there's enough room on the left side to get all your content in on the left without it being cut off and a too-wide right margin will goof that up.

Click OK.

Your labels should have a little more space on the left now, without the content being cut off.

Alternate Approach to Indenting Text From Left
I tried this once but the frames went kaflooie. Then I tried it again and it was fine. See how it works for you.

If you haven't selected the Synchronize checkbox, use this approach to quickly reformat. Choose Format > Styles and Formatting. Be sure paragraph styles are showing, and that all of them are showing.

Right-click on Default and choose Modify.

Now you can update the Default style, used by the label text.  In the Indents and Spacing tab, specify a left indent of .2 or .3.

Click OK.  All label formatting will be updated to add more space to the left.

 

One-Step Reformatting of Label Contents
If you haven't selected the Synchronize checkbox, use this approach to quickly reformat: make all your label content 17 point red Arial Bold or whatever you want.

Choose Format > Styles and Formatting. Be sure paragraph styles are showing, and that all of them are showing.

Right-click on Default and choose Modify.

Now you can update the Default style, used by the label text.  In the Font tab you can of course change the font.

Click OK.  All label formatting will be updated.

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Using OpenOffice Draw: Creating a Drawing and Exporting the Drawing to GIF, PNG, JPG, or Other Raster Formats

Note: Read more about SVG here.

I was looking through my posts and realizing I never did one on how to export a drawing from Draw. What was I thinking? ;>  If you have a drawing that you want in Writer or Calc, or as a background for another document, the most reliable thing to do is to export the drawing from Draw to GIF, PNG, JPG, EPS, or whatever format you want. Also, if you want to edit the drawing with GIMP or Photoshop, exporting is what you need to do.

You can export to a huge number of formats, shown here.

So, how do you export?

First, make the drawing.

Making a Basic Drawing
1. Start OpenOffice.org.
2. Choose File > New > Drawing.
3. Go nuts. Draw shapes from the drawing toolbar at the bottom, and apply borders and fills with the dropdown list at the top.

4. Save the drawing; File > Save and name the file.

Exporting a Drawing to a Graphic Format

1. Select everything that you want to export. You can press Ctrl A or you can draw around the objects with your mouse, as shown.

2. Choose File > Export.

3. In the window that appear, select the format you want. PNG is usually best in my opinion; JPG can come through with poorer quality. Also GIF sometimes shows up with a hot pink background in Photoshop.

4. Put the file in the directory you want, name the file, and click Save.

5. Depending on the format you chose, you might get another window asking you to specify options. To make the best-looking graphic, choose low compression or high quality. Here are the options for PNG. Choose low compression for good quality and you can generally leave Interlaced marked.

You can now insert the graphic anywhere you would put any other graphic; choose Insert > Picture > From File, or in the Background tab of the Page or Table configuration files, choose the graphic as a background.

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Novell Version of OpenOffice.org

Matt Asay has a blog referencing an article on Novell's supposed "forking" of OpenOffice.org. He recommends trying the Novell version of OpenOffice.org. Read more here.

Read more about the Novell version of OpenOffice.org.  and here from Miguel de Icaza.

Download from here; registration is free and not too painful.
http://download.novell.com/protected/Summary.jsp?buildid=90Jv0byQWIU~

 

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Migrating to OpenOffice.org ODF Format

I like to talk periodically about how you actually do the work of migrating your systems, and your users, to OpenOffice.org. Even better, I like to find other people's advice on how to do this. Bob Sutor has an excellent list of questions to ask. Once you have the answers, you can start in on the plan.   His list, 10 possible elements of your ODF migration strategy, has a lot in common with my own recommendations, including identifying gurus to start working on the migration.

Based on my own experience, I want to strongly recommend among other things that if you have complex or badly formatted  documents that are causing problems when you convert, just pay to get them converted. Your users will be far happier.

My own blogs on the topic are here  and here.

 

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Using the OpenOffice Draw Shapes in 2.0 (Repost)

Note: I've been having a dickens of a time getting all my posts to show up as searchable in Technorati. Thus, a repost of this Draw blog.

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It's a gorgeous morning, I'm sitting in my office drinking some fine Constant Comment (milk, two sugars), the sun is starting to shine through the clouds, and I'm listening to NPR and Scott Simon.  My cat Winston is sitting on a corner of my desk, not on my Esc key. Life is good.

What better time to indulge myself and talk about my favorite part of OpenOffice.org, Draw?

Don't get me wrong; the others are nice. I like to drag formulas down through cells and see the right numbers pop up, and I like to Paste Special more than just about anyone you know.

But Draw...with Draw I could spend a weekend and not notice the time pass.

2.0 Prefab Shapes

I touched on this a bit on my post on the new 2.0 features. Here's a more detailed look, including the flow chart shapes which I often forget are there but which are going to be great for, well, flow charts and other diagrams.

All of the following are on the Drawing toolbar at the bottom; if you don't have it, choose View > Toolbars > Drawing. If you can't get to some of the shapes I show here, click on the small black triangle at the right side of the toolbar, choose Visible Buttons, and select anything without a checkmark by it.

Here are the new Basic Shapes. For whatever reason, they're separate from the also-available Rectangle and Ellipse shapes, so this isn't your only source for the ultra-basic shapes.

Here are the new Symbol Shapes--moons, stars, flowers, etc. Stuff that was a little hard to draw before, no matter how much you like Bezier curves.

The Block Arrow shapes should come in handy for various diagrams, or signs.

And here are the fabulous flow-chart shapes.

Here are the callout shapes, making cartoons and much more a lot easier.

And finally, for teachers and anyone else who needs lots of stars and ribbons and award-looking graphics, here are the star shapes.

If there are shapes you need that you don't see, go to www.openoffice.org and submit a request for the next version. Or for a more immediate result, find the shape you need in another document or on the internet, and use the Gallery to store it and keep it on hand. (Tools > Gallery, click new Theme, click the Files tab and point to any graphics file on your computer. When you have shapes there, you can drag them into your document.)

Drawing Your Own Shapes and Closing the Shape So You Can Fill It

There are infiniate shapes, so you might not see everything you need there. If you draw your own shape with the freeform line tool or Bezier tool, one thing you'll probably want to do is to close it up so you can color it blue, or fill it with a gradient. Otherwise it's just a line with no ends. Here's how to do it.

1. Draw your shape and make sure it's closed.

2. Click the Points icon on the Drawing object bar.  (If you don't see the toolbar, choose View > Toolbars, Drawing.)

3. Be sure that the shape is selected. In the toolbar that appears, click the Close Bezier icon.

4. Select the shape again if necessary and select a fill from the dropdown list at the top of the work area.

In another blog, I'll go through how to make your own shapes for arrows and other shapes at the ends of lines. Fairly useful for UML and other diagrams.

 

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Good Introductory Overview of Linux and Open Source

The "Of Zen and Computing" blog has a nice article on Linux and open source and just what the deal is.

 

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The French National Assembly Is Going Open Source

The French National Assembly is to adopt open source software for its deputies’ use, from the next legislative session.

Each deputy’s desktop computer will be equipped with the Linux operating system, the Open Office productivity suite, the Firefox internet browser and an open source e-mail application.

Read more.

 

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Trick Question: Should You Use OpenOffice.org or StarOffice?

Here's an interview with Sun's Simon Phipps about what Sun's doing with StarOffice and OpenOffice.org.

"Phipps added 'I think you’ll see growing support from Sun for the things people use.'"

This strikes me as a remarkably practical attitude:

Here's what I've experienced as an OpenOffice.org and StarOffice author and trainer.

- Business started taking off when OpenOffice.org became available, not when it was just StarOffice.
- People asked me the difference between OpenOffice.org and StarOffice, and seemed to think that OpenOffice.org was the better program.
- I encounter very few training clients who use StarOffice. One is a school that gets it essentially for free anyway, and one is a private company contracting to NASA, so perhaps they want a big company name behind their software.

OpenOffice.org, in my experience, has better name recognition and a better reputation. Like Phipps says, follow the market share.

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Making Life Much Easier in OpenOffice Writer by Selecting Non-Consecutive Pieces of Text

I've mentioned this in the context of various articles before but I don't think I've really zeroed in on it before.

Selecting text and formatting it, whether manually or with styles, is one of the standard tasks you do every day. Let's say you've got a few notes, interspersed in your document, that need to be bold. They're not consecutive so you select one, then apply formatting; select the next then apply the formatting again and so on.

Select, apply; select, apply. It's one of each.

Or IS it???

You can select a bunch of pieces of text that aren't next to each other, and then apply whatever formatting you like. (Or delete all the pieces of text, or do anything.)

So:

1. Select the first piece of text.  (If you're applying a paragraph or list style, you just need to select a part of the paragraph.)

2. Hold down the Ctrl key and keep it held down.

3. Select the next piece of text.

4. Select the next piece of text.

5. When you're done, release the Ctrl key.

6. Now apply the formatting or just generally have your way with the text.

7. You'll see the formatting change.

8. Click somewhere else in the document to deselect the text.

 

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Are Vista and Office 2007 for You?

ComputerWorld has an article about the pros and cons of continue the upgrade trail with Vista and Office 2007.

I've been talking about this for a while. Upgrading to Vista or Microsoft Office 2007 or both is not to be undertaken lightly.

Here's the deal in a nutshell.

• Vista isn't going to just run easily on the same hardware you've got.
• Office 2007 means lots of money and  retraining.
• Skipping the Microsoft upgrades, and going to Linux and OpenOffice means little or no money for the software and hardware, and retraining.

So....what works for you and your organization?

Note: If you're a school or otherwise on a limited budget, are you sure that's the best way to spend the money, especially on the hardware you have now? Here's a blog from a Vista beta tester, The Tech-Savvy Teacher.

 

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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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How to Get the "Do You Want to Print a Form Letter?" Message Back for OpenOffice Mail Merges

If you've done mail merges before, you've seen this message.

 

What you should do, every time, is to click Yes and leave everything else alone. Then the mail merge will print with the contents of your data source.

What would make sense is to mark the Do Not Show Warning Again checkbox and click Yes, thinking that every time thereafter you'll be able to print the mailmerge correctly, with the contents of your data source, just like you did this time, but without that pesky message popping up.

You'd be logical, but you'd also be wrong because of the wacky design of the program. If you mark the checkmark, then from that day forward you will print, instead of a mail merge, a list of fields like <Firstname> and <Lastname>.

So:
How do you get that dialog box to come back so you can print a mail merge correctly?

Answer: Here's how it's supposed to work. People say this works. I can't find a file with the relevant flag in it on my machine but if it works for you, great. It should work.

<< Reader David Beroff offers some fine suggestions after his successful implementation, which I have updated the instructions with.>>

1. Close OpenOffice.org.

2. Find the Writer.xcu file. It's in one of these locations.

~/.ooo-2.0-pre/user/registry/data/org/openoffice/Office/Writer.xcu

Documents and Settings\[users]\Application Data\OpenOffice.org2\  user\registry\data\org\openoffice\Office\Writer.xcu

3. Make a backup copy of it. Just copy the file in your file manager and paste it somewhere else.

4. Open it with an Ascii editor (i.e Notepad or 1stPage or some such program.)

5. Look for <prop oor:name="AskForMerge">  and set the value to true. To do this, look for "AskForMerge=False"  and type "True" where it says "False."

6. Save the file.

Now you'll get the message popping up again when you print a mail merge. Leave the checkbox alone and click Yes, and you're golden.

 

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Installing OpenOffice.org 2.0.4 Isn't Going So Well

I'm researching what the problem is, but I just wanted to share that installing OOo 2.0.4 on Windows is just not working on either my desktop or laptop. If you're having problems, you're not alone!

 

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Just a Quick Post: Send Document as Email Is On the Toolbar

I noticed while training in Largo that one of my favorite features, File > Send > Document as Email, has an icon on the toolbar, as well. Click the image below to see it bigger.

This feature, of course, all in one shot:

• Starts your email program (set it up in your operating system defaults, in your control panel)
• Creates a new empty email document
• Attaches the current document to that email document

All you need to do is address the email and send. I used this feature in class when I had student write up quick reference guides. Each wrote up a guide to the key steps in a few of the procedures they'd learned that day, then they used this Send feature to send their guide quickly to everyone else in class.

It's been there for a while -- now with an icon, so even more convenient for the icon folks.

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Looking Forward, Now That I'm Back

There's no place like home.

It's almost like I clicked my airport-friendly slipon black shoes together and said it three times.

I've got my cats, NPR is on all the time (Colorado has amazing NPR, we get it all except Selected Shorts), and it feels good.

I'm glad to be home because I've been all over the place. Home to care for my mom, of course, plus lots of wonderful training gigs with great clients. I've been training on Bainbridge Island and then, for two weeks, the City of Largo. Both beautiful places, and may I just say that the Bellview Biltmore hotel in Clearwater is amazing. If you are traveling to the Tampa area, by all means stay at that hotel. I got a good deal as a business traveler, through Orbitz, but I don't know of any reason not to contact the hotel directly.

One new class in Largo was a one-day databases class, covering the topics I've written about in various TechTarget articles. My new Databases workbook  covering tools in OpenOffice Base for queries, views, reports, joins, etc. is the basis for the class. Don't buy it just now -- I need to update it with a few cool new things I learned while teaching it. I'll announce when it's updated, should be by the end of the week.

While in Largo in the evenings, sitting by the gorgeous Belleview Biltmore pool and looking at the palm trees, I pondered and concluded and planned about various things. Here's what I came up with.

1. I'm going to start selling my workbooks via PDF--once I figure out the best way to do it.
The price of course will be lower, though of course there might be some printing costs for each customer. I'm in the process of figuring out how best to do this; candidates are www.lulu.com and simply setting up some PDF security, possibly a password, and sending them directly.

Question: How annoying would it be for you to have to type in a password every time you open a PDF? It would be something reasonably obvious to you, not au7781fflk or anything like that.

If you want to see lulu.com, you can see my Gift-Giving Guide for Guys there. It's a $10 PDF of my self-published guide to good gift ideas for men who would like some help coming up with the ideas. You can see an excerpt on the page with the book, covering not just good ideas but how to come up with others based on what your sweetie is generally interested in.

2: I'm going to be promoting the idea of a site license for the workbooks.

If you're looking at OpenOffice.org for your organization, and you need workbooks, please contact me about a site license for the workbooks you'll need to train users. This applies if you're going to be doing the training yourself or bringing me in to train some or all users. It's economical and convenient; you can put the PDFs on your internal web site (without a password) and let any internal users access them.

3: I'm going to be giving a particularly good deal on site licenses to schools (K-12).

I haven't figured out the details yet, but for a limited time I'm going to be putting the training materials "on sale" to promote the use of OpenOffice.org in schools. Stay tuned!

4: I want to hear about more projects that you're having trouble with, so I can write about how to do them.

For instance, I approached the idea of a tri-fold brochure for the City of Largo. (More on that in an article for TechTarget.) If there are other tasks, rather than specific features, that you'd like information and/or templates for doing, let me know.

5: I'm open for business, to help convert your problem documents.

A lot of documents open up in OpenOffice.org with no or few problems. But for the stubborn ones, it can be most efficient to just farm out the conversion. If your manual on policies nad procedures started out in WordPerfect in 1985, and has been touched by at least 30 people since then, some of whom aren't highly skilled desktop publishers, it's not just a simple case of File > Open. Contact me for a quote, if you'd like me to help convert those.

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That's my plan, or at least key elements of it, going forward. I'll also be back to blogging as normal, and writing articles for TechTarget.com.

Regards,

Solveig

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Using Sections to Reduce Extra Work

I love efficiency.

I hate finding mistakes that I have to correct in a zillion dozen places.

How do I do more of the thing I love and less of what I hate?

Sections!

Sections are great for partitioning off existing text that you've typed and treating it differently: giving it a different background, protecting it from being modified, putting it in columns, etc. Here's a small section in columns.

Another great way to use sections is to use them to access content in a different file.

Let's say you've got boilerplate content that you use in 11 different documents. You could copy and paste it 11 times, but it often changes. And it would SUCK if the content were out of date or inaccurate or just misspelled, in those 11 different documents.

So you type the content once on one document, and insert 11 different sections in 11 other documents. So far it's the same amount of work as copying and pasting.

BUT when the content changes, you change it in the source doc and it updates in those other 11 documents. NOW you're being efficient and avoiding mistakes.

Step 1.  So write your content that you need to reuse, in your source document.

Big Red Chair Consulting is in no way responsible for any problems. Copyright all content September 2006.

Save your source document as legalboilerplate_source.odt, or whatever.

Step 2. Now go to one of the 11 documents where this content needs to show up.

Click where you want the content to appear, and choose Insert > Section. In the Section window, select the Link option. Click the browse button (...) and find the legalboilerplace_source.odt file.  Click Insert.

The content, all of it including blank lines, from the source doc, shows up in the doc where you insert the section.

If you want, in the Section window, you can unmark the Protect option, so that it can be changed, but that's not a good idea. It's best to leave Protect marked, and then also mark With Password. When you select Password, a window will pop up where you enter it twice. Then later if you try to change the content, you'll be prompted to enter that password.

Step 3: When you need to change the content in the source document, just change it.

Then the next time you open one of the 11 docs where you use it, you will be prompted to update links. Choose Yes.

Or if the document is already open, update by choosing Tools > Update > Links.

Either way, the new content will be displayed.

That's all there is to it. Sections are a very useful feature; I encourage using them whenever you can.

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Columns in OpenOffice Writer: Balancing Columns, and Inserting a Page or Pages With Columns Without Resorting to Page Styles, Updated March 2006

I've talked about page setup before.  Specifically,  how the heck do you have one page set up so that it's got a cover design with no page number, and then the second page and the rest have page numbers, nothing fancy, and start with the page number 1?

The answer for that is here.

But what if your question is this: How do you  insert one or more pages of columns in your document, then switch back to regular layout?

Well, one answer is the same as before. Use page styles, switch between them.

But there's a simpler answer.

Use a section.

A section is a very easy way to set off text to be treated differently. You can give the text a different background, or suck in the content from an entirely different file, and many other options. The section can be one word or a dozen or more pages.

Just click Insert > Section, and you see the options.

Click the Columns tab, select the number of columns, set up spacing, and a separator line if you want.

Click OK. Here's what the empty section will look like.

Type some content in the section. You'll see the content appear in the section.

You can keep on typing in that section for a long time. Make it as many pages as you want. The text can be a little twitchy when typing in a section which is why you might consider the next thing, below.

Turning existing content into columns  You can also simply select a bunch of text that you want in a column, choose Insert > Section, select the Column tab as you did before and apply options, and click OK. Then the selected text will be put into columns without your having to retype or copy and paste it.

But what if your question is this: How do you  balance content in a normal document, that's just got columns all the way through?  How do you balance column content using the Page Format window?

There is, in fact a solution. I got it from Phil's comment. Thanks, Phil!

Hi. I'm just trying to learn Writer and have been experimenting with columns. If you want the 'Distribute evenly..' checkbox to appear before you do any real typing try typing the first word you want that will be in your first column - highlight it (select it) - then go to Format-Columns and the checkbox will be there. Pretty bizarre to me too but someone must have thought it was a good idea at the time :-)

If you just have a blank page, or you have some text with no text selected, and you choose Format > Columns or Format > Page > Columns, there's no option to balance columns.

BUT if you type then select even a small bit of text, then choose Format > Columns or Format > Page > Columns, there IS an option to balance columns.

Make your column selections, such as selecting the number of columns, and the checkbox will become enabled. Click OK and there you go.

The answer is, I don't think you can. Or rather, yet again, ya gotta use sections. Look at this page setup window.

There's no option to balance the columns.

How is it that there's an option to balance content in sections that have columns, but not in pages?
I don't know. I think it's kind of silly.

How do you choose whether to balance or not balance content in sections that have columns?

If you want to use sections to create columns, the balancing option is available there too. Choose Insert > Section, Columns tab. Evenly Distribute Contents to All Columns .

If you don't want balance, unmark it. Then your columnated sections will look like this -- content all the way to the bottom of the page, then restarting in the next column.

How do you  change a section once it's inserted?

Select some of the content in the section, then choose Format > Section. Click the Options button and you'll see everything you need.

 

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Starting Page Numbering on Page 2, and Other Ways to Mix Page Styles in a Document

Note: See also this blog on just using the offset feature.

Note: This is a repost from December that didn't get published correctly. Also see my post that will be coming Wednesday, on an easier approach if you just want to insert some columns in a document.

All right. It's the elephant in the room, and it's time to address it.

How do you have no page number on the first page, then have the second page start with the page number 1 in the footer? Or with page number 42, or 623?

(Or how do you have a landscape page in a portrait document?)

Good question. It's a common one. It's actually not more complex than the tax code, but there's some setup you need to do that's a little more complicated than the task at hand. I would like to see a checkbox/field combination somewhere  that would let you specify "For this document, start the page footer on page __ and make the first page number be ___". However, for now, we do it this way.

There are two things to control in this situation:
- Whether there is a page number in the footer--i.e. whether there is any number at all in there, regardless of what it is.
- If there is a page number in the footer, what that page number is.

You control the first with page styles: you set up the page style, say "yes, there's a footer and a page number in it" or "no, no stinkin' page numbers here" and then apply that page style.

You control the second a few different ways. I'm going to show you the most straightforward which is just to create a page break, switch to a different page style, and specify what the page number for that page is.: 1, 42,  623, or anything else.

Let's look at part 1 first.  Page styles are actually a really nice, useful feature.

Part 1: Setting Up Page Styles

Bring up the document you're working with.  Remove any page breaks you've put in between the first and second pages. This sample  document I'm using has some text that clearly goes on a cover page, and then it runs immediately into the content text that should start on page 2.

For any of these images, just click on any of them that are too small for you to read. (They mostly all are, but you might not need to get more detail on all of them.)

Here's my sample document. I want no page number on the first page and page number 1 on the 2nd page.

Choose Format > Styles and Formatting. In that window, click the Page Styles icon at the top.

Right-click in the blank part and choose New. You're going to make the page styles you need.

In the Organizer tab of the page styles window, just name the style  something like Cover Page. This is the one with no footer and no page number.

You actually don't need to do anything else. But just to make sure it's clear when we're applying the styles in this procedure, I'm going to suggest that you  click the Background tab and give it the  light gray background.

Click OK.

Now, right-click in a blank part of the Styles and Formatting window again, and choose New. This time you're creating the other page style, the one for the main body where you're going to have a page number and start it at 1. Call it Main Body or something, in the Organizer tab.

Then click the Footer tab and turn it on by marking the checkbox.

That's all you really need to do, so click OK.

Part 2: Applying a Page Style, Then Switching to Another

Click in the first page of the document, where you want the Cover Page page style. In the Styles and Formatting window, double-click the Cover Page style you created. The style will be applied, as you can tell from the gray background.

The style is applied not only to that page, but to the entire document. That's what's supposed to happen at this point.

Now you're ready to switch. So click to the left of the first word where you want to switch, the first word of the next page usually. Or click to the right of the last word on the current page. Whatever works. Here I've clicked to the left of "Why".

Choose Insert > Manual Break. In the window that appears, just tell it that now you want to switch to the Main Body page style by selecting it in the list.

That second page is also really the first content page of the document, so you'd like it to be page 1. So select the page numbering checkbox and specify 1. (Or any number you want.)

Click OK.

A page break will be inserted where your cursor was, and the new page style you specified, Main Page, will be applied from that page on in the document.

Now, there's one more step. You've already created the footer for that Main Page style, but it's time to put content in it.  I.e., the page number. This is easy. Just scroll to the bottom of the first content page (the second page), type the word page and a space if you want, then choose Insert > Fields > Page Number. The page number will appear. And  you already specified that on this page where the page style switches to MainPage, the page numbering should restart at 1.  So it restarts at 1. (If you had specified page number 42 earlier, this number would be 42.)

That's All There Is To It

Just create the styles you want, apply the first style, then just switch page styles the way we did in this example.

Tips for Landscape and Portrait in the Same Document

To have a landscape page in a portrait document, just create a page style and select the Landscape option of the Page tab. So in this example, you could create a third page style, call it Landscape or Horizontal. Switch to it the way we did here with the manual break, but just don't change the page number.

Tips for Automatic Switching From One Page Style to Another

If you want to automatically switch from one page style to another, you have two options.

In the page style definition window, click the Organizer tab and find the Next Style list. You'll still need to insert manual page breaks sometimes but you won't have to switch styles as we did earlier.

In the paragraph style definition window, click the Text Flow tab and find the section in the middle dealing with creating a page break with a particular page style on the next page.

Or try using all three approaches together.

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Book Update, and Question About What Other Open Source Products to Write About

Hi all,

Well, the pieces are all on the board, kind of -- just not together yet.

The good news is, my book is in line to be proofed. (argh.) And we're going to do a new title and cover but who knows what.  I still love the road theme stuff we all came up with but not sure what will happen. I will know more in October.

The more interesting news is that my editor at Prentice Hall is eager to have me write mini-books for their Shortcuts program. They're roughly 30-50 page short PDF books on particular topics. I'm not a programmer so won't be covering Ajax or Ruby anytime soon, or ever, for that matter. But I can definitely elucidate how to use open source end user programs: Moodle, perhaps, and other K-12 oriented programs, or whatever else.

So that's my question to you:

- What end-user open source product would you like to see a Shortcut written on?

- What  end-user open source product do you think there's the most demand for?

- Any other thoughts on topics to write about?

Thanks,

Solveig

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OOoCon 2006 Links

Hi all,

If you missed OOoCon 2006, the OpenOffice.org conference in Lyon, France, here are some links.

Schedule:
http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2006/schedule.html

Video :
http://ooocon-koon.kiberpipa.org/media/

Thanks to Karim for reminding me to post!

 

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Making It Easy for Your Organization to Work With Microsoft Office Users

One of the issues you face when you switch your organization to OpenOffice.org is: how do the users work with MS Office users?

If Angie down at the courthouse needs a document that your clerk Rob created, how does Rob send Angie what she needs? Especially if Rob isn't very experienced with file formats, attaching documents to emails, and so on?

You do this.
1. Set up everyone's computers to save by default in MS Office format. Then they don't need to even worry about sending Angie the file in the right format.

2. You set up everyone's default email program.

3. You train everyone to send out documents using one of the options under File > Send. You might even create a new toolbar with those options more clearly expressed.

See this blog for info on modifying toolbars/menus in general and this blog, from Monday, on how to add the two new items.

1. Setting Your Default Email Program

I've mentioned it before, but have forgotten about it since blogging ;>  so it bears mentioning again. When you choose File > Send > Document as Email or File > Send > Document as PDF Attachment, the default email program starts. How do you specify it? It's usually not right, for one thing, since Yahoo starts by default on my desktop and (oorgh) Outlook starts on my laptop.

The online help for OpenOffice says to look for the External Programs setting. However, there is no such thing. You set your default program by setting it in your operating system. For me, it's under Internet options in my control panel.

2. Set Up Everyone to Save in MS Office Format

If you work with people who aren't familiar with saving files in different formats, or if you just think it would be easier for you, set up everyone's computers like this.

Tools > Options > Load/Save > General.

In the area toward the bottom, select Text Document, then in the corresponding dropdown list, select the Microsoft Word format. Click the image to see a larger version.

Repeat for each file format in the Document Type list, then click OK to close the window and save changes.

3. Use the File > Send Features As Much As You Can
I love these features. They make working with non-OpenOffice users so much easier. Plus there's a new one this release in 2.0.3 -- too bad they didn't put it on the menu.  ;>  However it's easy to do yourself.  Click the image to see a larger version of the menu options as they are by default.

Document as Email starts your default email program, and attaches a copy of the current document to that email. All the user needs to do is address the email and enter content like "Angie, here's the document you wanted." If you're set up to save in MS formats, then the doc of course is in the appropriate MS format.

Email as PDF does the same thing, but makes a PDF version of the current document, and attaches that to the email.  This is great if Angie down at the courthouse doesn't need to edit the document, or if you realllllly don't want her to.

There are two other new ones, Email as Microsoft Word and Email as OpenDocument Text. See the related blog for how to add those to the menu, or to a menu that you create yourself. You can also of course rename those options to make them clearer for users.

There you go -- those are three steps that will make interacting with MS Office users much simpler. Less training, fewer complications, and less confusion about where various files went.

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Nancy Drew Rides Again: Adding Two New and Wonderful Email Options to the OpenOffice Menu

First they take the simple but elegant mail merge option off the Tools menu, and now this.

There are two wonderful, extremely useful, much-requested features in OpenOffice 2.0.3.

• Email as Microsoft Word
• Email as OpenDocument Text

These are in addition to the existing ones:

• Send Document as PDF Attachment
• Send Document as Email

If you're working in some text document, the Email as Microsoft Word  option will take your current doc, make a MS Word version of it, start your default email program, and attach the MS Word copy to a new email document. 

The Email as OpenDocument Text option does the same thing, but the attachment is in OpenOffice text format regardless of the format of the current document.

Send Document as Email -- This one does pretty much the same thing, but it just uses the format of the document you're working in. If you're working in MS Doc format, the attachment is .doc and if you're working in OpenOffice,  the attachment is  OpenOffice.

Send Document as PDF Attachment -- This one does the same thing but creates a PDF copy of your document .

Can you see how incredibly useful these are? They're great for working with MS Office users within or outside your organization. Combine them with File > Send > Document as PDF Attachment and you're golden. (See this blog on setting up openoffice for easier use for inexperienced users for more info on that.)

But how do you get them on the menu? They're there -- you just can't see them.

Here's how. I'll show you how to add them to File > Send, and I'll also show you how to create a whole separate menu to add them to. If you're working with inexperienced users in your organization, the latter might be more helpful for them.

Adding the Two New Items to the File > Send Menu to Join the Other Similar Options
Choose Tools > Customize.

Click the Menus tab.

Select the File | Send menu.

Click Add.

In the window that appears, find Document on the left and the indicated menu item on the right. Click Add.

Select the other option, Email as OpenDocument Text, and click Add.

Close the window.

In the original window you'll see the two newly added items.

Click OK.

Choose File > Send and you'll see all the items.

 

Adding the Two New Items to the File > Send Menu to Join the Other Similar Options

Here's how to make a special menu to put these items on. It might be simpler for your users if there were a specific menu for these items.

Choose Tools > Customize.

Click the Menus tab.

Click New.

Type the name for the menu like Sending Out Documents.

Click OK. You'll see the new menu with no items.

Click Add.

In the window that appears, select Document on the left, and the four indicated items on the right. Select each of the four items in turn and Click Add.

Close the window. You'll see the items you added.

You might want to rename some of the items to make them clearer or comply with internal processes. Select the item, click and hold down on Modify, and choose Rename.

In the window, type a name you prefer, then click OK.

 

Rename any additional items.

Click OK to save changes and close the window.

Click on the menu you added. You'll see the items.

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Question: Why Aren't More Schools Switching to Linux and OpenOffice.org?

Note: Steve Hargadon has an interesting post on this same topic.

I was teaching on Bainbridge Island, Washington a couple weeks ago. Their school district, one of the best in the state or possibly the best in the state, is in the process of  switching to Linux thin clients and OpenOffice.org. You should see the performance of OpenOffice on their setup -- it takes a couple seconds to start the program. Yes, to start it.

The school district is saving several hundred thousand dollars just by switching to OpenOffice.org. I'm not sure how much additional money is being saved by switching to Linux.

The teachers who I trained had the usual reaction -- "Hey, this is really similar to Microsoft Office. What was the big deal about switching?"

Which leads me to ask any and all of you who are reading this blog.

Why haven't more schools switched to OpenOffice.org?

It's the perfect fit. Free. Lets you spend money on something really important, education. Schools are perpetually short of money and teachers are underpaid.  It's hard to find something in the real world that would do more good for a school than to switch to OpenOffice.org. (Or another open source software product that would save as much money.)

There's the Microsoft campaign of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt), of course. There's inertia.

But is there something else?

Are there teachers reading who'd like to know more, or share frustrations with open source?

Let's talk about this. It frustrates me that such a good thing isn't being done. There could be schools across the country, across the world, with smaller class sizes, better teacher salaries, and better facilities and supplies, by saving money on software. Let's make it happen!

 

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Selecting Non-Consecutive Pieces of Text in OpenOffice Writer

I'm on Bainbridge Island near Seattle this week, training teachers who are switching to OpenOffice.org. (Bill would have charged them many hundreds of thousands of dollars over the next few years to keep going with MS Office, so they decided to spend the money on things like teachers' salaries instead.)

The thing that seems to be a big hit is the ability to select non-consecutive pieces of text. I'm not sure if I've blogged on that before, so this seemed like a good time.

Say you've got this text here.

NOTICE FOR ALL NEW HIRES

Date:

Your date of hire must be April or earlier.

Paperwork:

Your paperwork must be in by May 15th.

Donuts:

Please pick up your donuts in the gym.

You want the text for the heading, plus Date, Paperwork, and Donuts to be bold. These are non-consecutive pieces of text.

You could select the first line, click Bold, select the next line, click Bold, and so on.

Or you could select everything that you want bold, and click Bold once!

Here's what you do.

1. Select the first piece of text that you want to select, just normally.

2. Hold down the Ctrl key.

3. Select each additional piece of text that you want to format.

4. Release the Ctrl key.

5. Click Bold, or select a different font, or whatever other formatting you want to do.

This is a much quicker way than applying the formatting to one piece of text at a time.

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Some Very Precise Table Control Settings in OpenOffice Writer

If you don't have really specific requirements, you can just insert  a table and drag the columns around to make it spaced the way you want it.

You can also do a lot of good work with the automatic spacing options on the Table toolbar. (View > Toolbars > Table.)

But for good old-fashioned "I want this column to be 2.53 inches wide and I don't care who think's that's anal and geeky" control, you want the Table and Colums tabs of the Table Properties window. (Table > Table Properties.)

Here we go.

So let's say you're not happy with the table just spreading itself all over the whole width of the page. You can drag the right-hand edge if you want or you can be more precise.

Select your table and choose Table > Table Properties. Click the Table tab.

To align at the left, which is the default, select Left. However, to have an indent from left, select From Left.

Then in the Left field, specify how far in from left you want to indent, such as a half inch.

Click OK, and you see the results.

Also in the Table Properties window, if you selected the table and went back in again, you could specify a smaller width for the table in the Width field. The value for how far in from Right the indent is would be recalculated, in the Right field.

Click OK, and you see those results.

The other interesting option in the Table tab, for alignment, is the Manual tab. Select Manual, and  set your indents from the left and right in the Left and Right fields.

You can use the Manual setting in combination with the column measurements in the Column tab. Click the Column tab.

If you leave both the checkmarks unmarked, here's what happens. Just put the measurements that you want for each column in the appropriate field. If these measurements don't add up to the same amounts you set in the Table tab, then the margins will be adjusted and the column widths will remain the same.

Click OK and you see the results.

Let's say that you want the margins to be the same but the table width to be adjusted, under the same circumstances. Then select the Adapt Table Width checkbox, and the margins from the Table tab will remain the same but the column widths you enter here will be goofed around a bit. I find this setting a bit annoying, but try it if the margins are the most important thing.

If you want to still preserve the margins but adjust the widths of the columns proportionately under the same circumstances, select the Adjust Columns Proportionately checkbox. Warning, however. It's not proportionate adjustment. If you have columns of 3, 2, and 1, and you decrease the first column to 2.5, then both of the other columns are decreased by the same amount. This is weird.

That's about it for today's installment of table measurement control. Generally, if you want absolute control, select the Manual option in the Table tab. Then enter your margin measurements in the Table tab and your column measurements in the Columns tab. And don't select either of the wacky checkboxes in that tab.

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A Few Helpful Calc Display and Usage Tips (in a fresh all-new post!)

I'm back! And not with a vengeance, just with a couple Calc display tips that you might find useful.

It's all about investigating what's in there when you choose Tools > Options and start rooting around.

Under Tools > Options > Calc, there's the General category.

There's the Press Enter to Move Selection option, with the corresponding dropdown list. Normally when you press Enter, you move down a cell. However, if you want to move in a different direction, just select it.

Just below that option, there's another option, Press Enter to Switch to Edit Mode.  This is good for non-mouse-types. Normally if you want to type in, rather than select, a cell, you need to double-click in the cell. (Or click in the entry field in the toolbar, of course.) With this option, you just press Enter and you're in edit mode with the cursor, as shown here.

Once you select your options, click OK to save changes and close the window.

Under Tools > Options > Calc, there's also the Edit option.

In the upper right corner, you have the option to show Formulas, rather than the result of the formulas. Mark that option and your spreadsheets will look more like this.

Another option is Value Highlighting. In this case the text is shown in black, numbers in blue and formulas (the results, not the formula) in green.

A third option farther down is Text Overflow. This is on by default, and I like it, but I want to point it out. It's what makes the red triangle show up when you've got too much unwrapped text in a cell, with text in the cell to its right. (If there's nothing in the cell to the right, then the text just flows all the way through. Another approach is to choose Format > Cells, click the Alignment tab, and choose to wrap the text.)

Once you select your options, click OK to save changes and close the window.

Go ahead and explore the other options in these windows, as well; some are pretty obvious and on by default. But some aren't -- and you might find just the option you want to make things a bit easier every day.

 

I Think They're Going to Publish My OpenOffice Book!

   

            

I'm not counting my chickens -- well, not all of them -- quite yet.

But my editor at Prentice Hall says (sorry Greg, but I love the second line so here it is):

"Just got clearance to do OO.org as an ebook/Print on Demand.  Release the hounds!"

I do not yet know the details of all that, but they're proofing the manuscript I sent in a few months ago and things *should* be good.

I'm a little fuzzy on the details but I think the general theme is "thumbs up" and we should have something in a PDF or print or both by the end of September. Please don't quote me on that or schedule anything around that but that's my understanding.  And I believe there will be some way to provide something for those who have placed orders on Amazon, for an appropriate price. Ditto for the date disclaimer.

As my friend Jonna wrote, at the end of the Life: A Post-Feminist Fable penned for our group of English major friends at the end of college, "Yay!"

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Making OpenOffice.org Work the Way You Want It (Repost)

 

(Originally posted in October 2005.)

Note: Here's a related article I wrote for TechTarget.com.

What's better, software that does what it thinks you want, or software that does what you tell it to?

If it's rocket-launching software, and I don't know much about rocket-launching, I guess I would let the software do what it wants. However, I know what I darn well want my office suite software to do. I know how I want it to behave. I know what features I want and I know, for instance, that I do not want it suggesting to me what word I am typing and offering to help me finish the arduous task of typing it.

OpenOffice.org has its default behavior and default settings just like any other software but is very cooperative in letting you customize those behavior and settings the way you want them. Which is refreshing. You just have to tell it how to behave.

So I've put together a list of the top  customizations I think are the most helpful and/or powerful. I make sure that everyone in my classes learns these by lunchtime, and review them afterwards. When the software behaves the way you want, that makes everything better.

(By the way, this is a little bit off topic, but I wanted to mention that the scroll graphic at the top of this blog is a drawing shape in OOo 2.0.  I'm a bit of a giggly schoolgirl when it comes to the OOo drawing tools, especially the new 2.0 features.)

1. Turn off the word completion.

I hate word completion, and it’s really easy to turn off. Choose Tools > AutoCorrect and click on the Word Completion tab. Make sure the Enable Word Completion option is unmarked, and click OK.

2. Turn off any automatic formatting that you don’t want.

Would you let people live in your house who you didn’t know? Then you don’t want automatic formatting going on that you don’t understand. Choose Tools > AutoCorrect and click on the Options tab. Unmark everything except the top option, Use Replacement Table. Then go back through and see if you really want anything.

(You can unmark the Use Replacement Table option too....but that table is handy, as you'll see in the next item.)

3. Use the automatic formatting to create handy shortcuts.

The same tab where you turned off word completion has a really great feature for creating shortcuts. Let’s say you type the word supercalfragilisticexpealidocious a zillion times a day, or your name and title, or anything kinda long. You can set up a shortcut for it. It's a much more reliable approach than word completion.

To do this: Choose Tools > AutoCorrect and click on the Replace tab.

A. In the left-hand field type your shortcut like sig and in the right-hand field, type the word you’re tired of typing all the time.

B. Click New, then click OK.

C. 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."

D.  In your document, type the shortcut, followed by a space, and your word will appear.

Note: You can also delete anything in the Replace tab that you don't want.

4. Display the icons that you want.

There are a zillion icons in OOo as with any software and you probably don’t use all of them. There’s also that dandy little result of having to click on the black arrow to get to the icons you want, while the ones you do want sit there taking up space and, quite frankly, smiling a bit smugly. So take off the ones you don’t want, leave room for the ones you do want, and add some other ones.

First step is to take off the ones you don’t want. Click on the dropdown arrow and choose Visible Buttons. Find the icons you don’t want, like double spacing, and select them. That’ll remove the checkbox by them, and that removes them from the toolbar.

Now add the icons you want. The first thing to try is to click the dropdown arrow again and choose Visible Buttons. If the icon you want is there, select it and it’ll appear.

If the icon you want isn’t there, click on the dropdown arrow again and instead of Visible Buttons, select Customize Toolbar. Find the toolbar you want to add icons to. Click Add, and in the window that appears just keep looking through the categories on the left til you find the feature you want in the list on the right. Select it and click Add.

 

Back in the customization window, you can leave the icon as is and just click OK, or change the icon by clicking and holding down on the Modify button and choosing Icon.

5. Get to know the choices under Tools > Options.

Choose Tools > Options, and you’ll see the big fat configuration window. Just as the items under Tools > Autocorrect were about default behavior, Tools > Options is about default settings, default values. Anything about the program, from icon size to language settings to where the program looks when you choose File > Open, is set here.

I suggest that you open the OpenOffice.org (or StarOffice as in this illutration) item at the top, then select Paths, and change the values for any paths you use a lot. Change the My Documents item, for instance, to change the default for where OOo tries to save documents. You’ll save a lot of time scrolling around in your Save windows.

To change the path, select it in the window, click Edit, and just point to the new location.

You might also want to expand the StarOffice Write item, select Default Fonts, and choose the ones you prefer.

When you’re done, just click OK.

You can turn off the Save for Autorecovery feature if you want--or increase the save interval
I find this feature entirely un-annoying, but you can turn it off easily if you want. Autorecovery means if OpenOffice.org crashes or you have to coldboot your machine, at least you'll have something recent to return to. If you're hypervigilant, increase the interval to every minute or 5; if you don't care about it, set it to every hour or just turn it off.

Choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Load/Save > General. You're looking for the Save AutoRecovery Information Every  option. Unmark it, or change the interval.

Click the thumbnail below to see a bigger image of the window.

Now OOo is more like a well-behaved pet and less likely to jump up at you, licking and biting inappropriately.

Those are not all the configuration steps you can do, by a long shot. But I like them, and students seem to like them. And they're an important set of steps in the general process of showing that OpenOffice.org does what you tell it to do.

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Some Pretty Slick Web Design Features: Image Map, Web Page Editing, Graphic Design, and Creating Your Own Colors (Repost)

(First posted March 2006)

I know I should probably be using Nvu or just hand coding everything in HTML or using cascading style sheets.

But for those of us who still redesign our web sites on Saturday morning while listening to Car Talk and Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me, I wanted to talk about what I did for my site at www.getopenoffice.org. Since it worked out pretty well, to my not-that-artistic mind. At least, it's vaguely pleasant and not Five Bright Colors of the Same Shade. Click to see a bigger version if you like.

I was pretty happy with what I was able to do, how I was able to design the colors, and I'm stoked with the image map. It turned out in a far more normal, controlled way than I usually experience. So for all of you out there who are a little fuzzy on web design but do it anyway, here are some features I think you can use for some pretty decent results.

I'm not here to talk about how FAAAbulous the new design is, but to focus on the steps I used in OpenOffice.org to do it. It's also by no means a lesson on web design—I'm just showing what I was able to do in a morning (OK, a long morning) in OpenOffice.org, and hoping it helps other people.

Features include:

• Creating my own colors
• Cool drawing shapes for nav bar
• Image maps
• Reasonably well-behaved HTML editing in Web documents (HTML purists, just let me go with this ;> )

By the way: I'm sooooo sorry for the bright blue design at www.getopenoffice.org for the past few months. I got the templates from a free templates site and it just didn't work.

Getting the Design

I am in no way a Graphic Designer. So I just went to my friend Kristin Nelson's web site (designed by fabulous friend Takane), www.nelsonagency.com, to get ideas.  I decided there was no way I was going to learn JavaScript before I had to leave that afternoon, but I did like the colors—a deep maroon and a beige. So I stole that. ;>

Side story: Kristin started her  literary agency maybe four years ago, and she lives in Denver, not New York. She's made incredible progress, including selling the film rights to many of the books. If you've got some marketable fiction and you're looking for an agent, consider her.

So, armed with the ideas “maroon!” and “taupe!” and figuring I would just use the same simple top/side navigation style, I continued to the beginnings of implementation.

Creating the Colors

One of the wonderful things about OpenOffice.org is that you can create your own colors. So I chose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Colors, and created my maroon and my taupe. The far right color, and the ones on the bottom, are various colors I created for the site.

I did various shades of maroon, a lighter one for a bit of shadow and contrast, and a few different taupes for the nav area, the text in the nav area (nearly black), and other taupes for shading and for the background color of the page.

To create your own colors:

1. Choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Colors. Click on the Edit button in the colors window. Click the image to see a bigger version if you like.

2. Then mess around in those windows with the various settings til you get what you want.

3. Then click OK, click Add, and name the new color.

Creating the Nav Graphic

I went into OpenOffice.org Draw and after some fiddling with colors and fonts, came up with the navigation graphic, including all the text along the left and top. It's in two separate chunks, for the top and the left side.

I used this beveled rectangle tool to draw the navigation shape at the top, and just used a couple graphics behind each other in different colors for the other shading.

I exported each of the two graphics just by selecting the components of each, choosing File > Export, and exporting to .gif. Other options of course are JPG, PNG, etc.

Creating the Web Page Master

I created a new web page (File > New > HTML Document). I inserted an eight-inch-wide table in the center (well, kind of ;> ) of the document to control where the graphics and text go. The table was two rows and three columns, no heading, with a left column of 2 inches, a middle spacer column of 1 inch, and then the rest. Click to see a bigger image of the setup window here if you like.

Then I merged the top row of cells, where the top nav graphic is going, to end up with something like this.

And I also removed the table borders.

Adding the Graphic to a Document and Additional Formatting

I just chose Insert > From File and added the top graphic in the top merged row, and the left graphic in the left cell. I right-clicked on each graphic and set it to Original Size since there was some wackiness with automatic size reduction.

I also right-clicked on each graphic and choose Anchor > As Character to get rid of extra space below them.

Some extra white space showed at the bottom of the nav bar because of the formatting of the apparently nonchangeable Table Contents paragraph style. However, this wasn't an issue when browsing the document.

I also set the background color of the cells to match the graphic in them; the spacer and right lower cells were set to white since they'll have text and I want a white background.

I made the page background color a lighter taupe. (I chose Format > Page and clicked the Background tab.)

And I set the page size nice and big so that there would be plenty of room for the graphics. Same window, Format > Page and choose the Page tab.

Doing the Image Map: Linking Portions of Each Graphic to the Pages on My Web Site

I right-clicked on the top nav bar graphic and chose Image Map.

In the Image Map window, I used the rectangle tool to draw a box around each piece of text on the graphic that I wanted linked, and entered the URL It's a little odd—you have to draw the box around the image in the window, so it's a little small but manageable.

Then I did the same for the left nav bar.

You end up with nothing happening to the graphic itself, but a bunch of code in the document with the tag MAP1, MAP2, etc. The code gives the coordinates of the links. That means of course that you don't change anything that would shift the graphic up or down or left or right, once you get this done.

The image map would have been too small to see in this window if I had used the full length one here for the editing.  I kind of cheated—I used a short version of the left nav graphic in the beginning, then created a much longer one in Draw and inserted that after the map was done. Since the only thing that changed between the short graphic and the long graphic was the bottom, where there are no links, this didn't affect the image map.

Tweaking

I had to tweak some stuff, of course, in the HTML. No biggie. My graphics seem to end up local sooner or later for no readily apparent reason. I use EvrSoft's 1stPage. I also tweaked a bit in Netscape's Composer since it seems that Web's graphics wrapping features, at least in the GUI, aren't all that great. (Of course, if I bothered to memorize a few more HTML commands, I wouldn't have needed Netscape at all.)

Pasting in the Content

Nothing shocking here. I pasted in the content from my old site, creating a new page with File > Save As.

I adjusted the right margin as I would in normal formatting. (Again, HTML purists, I know it's Wrong but it felt so right.... ;>  )

Posted the pages. Did some retweaking.

That's All.

Heck, I didn't even use the Web Wizard. (File > Wizards > Web Wizard.) That tool of course is more for quick “just get it on the web” work when you have a lot of existing content to slam up on the web.

So....who should be using these tools versus Nvu, DreamWeaver, handcoding, better overall extensible design, etc.--well, I'm not debating any of those issues. Just wanted to show you what was available, and let you know you might be surprised at how much cool stuff you can do without a huge headache.

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Times Tables Quiz Sheet in OpenOffice Calc: The File, and How to Do It (Repost)

(First posted February 2006)

For one of the exercises in my training materials, I put together an exercise using the random number function. It's a times table document that regenerates itself every time you open it.

Click this image to see a larger version. The first number in each multiplication is fixed, and the second is random.

Here's the file if you just want to download it.

I did it by entering 1 - 12 in three columns. I just typed 1 in the top cell, then dragged the small lower-right-corner of the cell down to create a series of 1-12.

I did the same with the x for the multiplication sign.

And I put this formula in each cell where I wanted a random number between 1 and 12 to come up.
=RANDBETWEEN(1;12)

The document regenerates with different multiplication questions in different order each time you open it, so students can't remember which answers were where. Print the document to PDF if you want to preserve it in a particular way.

For other ideas, see Plugged In Home School for a tip on making a word find puzzle.

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Free Software Magazine: Issue 13

Get the latest issue of Free Software Magazine here!

I have an article on templates in the next issue.

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Please Step Back Five Feet: Controlling What People Put in Spreadsheets With OpenOffice.org Calc Help and Error Message Tools (Repost)

First published March 2006

I don't know if you remember in the 90s, the thing on the Mac that let you define all sorts of wacky error messages on your friends' computers. “The radiation shield on this Macintosh has failed. Please step back five feet” was the default, I believe.

Well, it might not have the same impact, but you can do the same kind of thing in OpenOffice.org Calc spreadsheets.

Pranks of course are great but you can actually use this Calc feature for good, useful, pure and high-minded purposes as well. You can do online help, error messages, data entry lists, restrict the maximum characters in the field—and so much more.

Let's say you're in charge of creating all the forms people fill in. Obviously, sometimes they fill them in wrong. You can build in business logic, i.e. you can set up the spreadsheet so they can't fill it in wrong. Or you can at least make it a lot harder.

Window Walkthrough

Select one of the cells in your spreadsheet and choose Tools > Data Validity ( in 2.0.1 and earlier) or Data > Validity (in 2.0.2 and later). Take a look at the first tab, Critera. You can restrict entry in that cell to whatever is listed here.

Then to enforce what you specify here, go to the Error Alert tab and set up your error message.

If instead of controlling what's entered, you just want to provide guidance, then it's time for input help.  Select the cell or cells, choose Tools > Data Validity ( in 2.0.1 and earlier) or Data > Validity (in 2.0.2 and later),  then go to the middle tab, Input Help, and enter some information help that's displayed when users select the cell.

Sample Procedure Using Criteria, Input Help, and Error Messages

Here's what I did with a sample spreadsheet.

In this sample, customer service representatives have a simple form they need to use to enter customer service Incidents.

In the date field, I've observed that people enter the current date rather than the date when the customer service indicident occurred. So I'm going to offer a little gentle help for what to put in the date field. I selected the Event Date field where the date goes, chose Tools > Data Validity ( in 2.0.1 and earlier) or Data > Validity (in 2.0.2 and later), and clicked the Input Help tab. I typed in some information for users to see, and clicked OK.

Here's what that help looks like when someone selects the field.

The next field, Customer Type, is easy since there are only three types of customers. The customer service reps don't always remember this correctly, though, or they like to make up their own types. Therefore I decided to create a data entry list. I selected the field where the customer type goes, chose Tools > Data Validity ( in 2.0.1 and earlier) or Data > Validity (in 2.0.2 and later), and clicked the first tab, Criteria. I selected List, then just typed the items in the list, pressing Return after each. Then I just clicked OK.

Here's what the list looks like in the spreadsheet (sorted alphabetically).

The Description field, which is several cells merged together, is of course for the description. I want a short description, though, and the customer service reps go ON and ON and ON..... So I'm limiting the description to 100 characters. I selected the field where the description goes, chose Tools > Data Validity ( in 2.0.1 and earlier) or Data > Validity (in 2.0.2 and later), and clicked the first tab, Criteria. I made the indicated selections to accept a maximum number of 100 characters.

Then I clicked the third tab, Error Alert, to enforce what I've just done, and created a Stop error message. I typed the title and the message, and clicked OK.

Here's what the error message looks like when people type in too much text. It appears after users tab off the cell.

Here's what the whole spreadsheet looks like now.

That's about it. This is a pretty powerful and flexible feature; I haven't shown you much of the Criteria tab at all, so go ahead and take a look at that a little more if you find this feature interesting. With some imagination you can come up with a lot more applications for it than I have here.

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Things That Are Hard to Figure Out in OpenOffice: Page Numbers, Different Page Orientations, Watermarks, New Document Formats, and Dragging Cells (Repost)

Note: Here's a related article I wrote for TechTarget.com. First published November 2005.

I get a lot of questions when I train, and just in emails. A lot of them are about things that aren't actually hard to do but they're hard to figure out how to do in the first place. Here's how to do some of them.

Adding a Page Number
Note: See a related post on starting a document with no page number on the first page and page 1 on the second page.

You can do this a number of ways, but this is the quickest.

1. First, make a footer for the page number to appear in. Choose Insert > Footer > Default.
2. Scroll to the bottom of the document; you'll see the footer.
3. Click in the footer. Press Tab if you want the page number in the middle, press again if you want it at the right.
4. Type the word page if you want, followed by a space.
5. Choose Insert > Fields > Page Number.
6. Format the text in the footer the way you want it.

If you want to have no page number on the first page and start with 1 or 2 on the second page, that's a bit more advanced. Stay tuned for the blog on page styles.

(You can do the footer turn-on by choose Format > Page > Footers, too.)

Putting a Portrait Page and a Landscape Page in the Same Document

You absolutely can do this. It just takes a little while. You set up a page style that's horizontal, and one that's vertical, and then you just switch.

Here's a 2.0 document (twopagestyles.odt) that has a vertical page style and a horizontal page style. (You can set them up yourself using styles—Format > Styles and Formatting, then use the help.)

1. Type your content.
2. Choose Format > Styles and Formatting.
3. Click the Page Styles icon at the top of the Styles and Formatting window.
4. Double-click the first page style you want to use, the vertical or the horizontal. (It should probably be vertical, since this page style will apply to everything above your cursor in the document.)
5. Click at the bottom of the page using that page style.
6. Choose Insert > Manual Break.
7. In the Page Style list, select the other page style, such as Horizontal.
8. Click OK.
9. Put the content on that page that you want.
10. Click at the bottom of that page.
11. Choose Insert > Manual Break.
12. In the Page Style list, select the first page style, such as Vertical.
13. Click OK. Now you're back to where you started.

Stay tuned for the blog on page styles, to create page styles yourself from scratch, and to do some gnarly pagination control.

Getting exactly what you want when you choose File > New ____ Document.

The default empty blank text document and spreadsheet are fine but you'd like the margins to be wider, or the font to be different, or for it to have certain styles. It's easy to switch out what comes up under File > New > ____ Document.

1. First, make a new document or spreadsheet. Set up the page the way you want, create or import styles, add footers and page numbers, etc.
2. Then choose File > Templates > Save.
3. Name the document, leave the category My Templates selected, and click OK.
4. Choose File > Templates > Organize.
5. Double-click the My Templates category.
6. Right-click on your template you created previously and choose Set as Default Template.
7. Click OK.

Now that document will come up when you choose File > New > _____ Document (text or spreadsheet).

To go back to the original, just repeat those steps but instead of choosing Set as Default Template, choose Reset Default Template > Text Document or Reset Default Template > Spreadsheet.

Making a Watermark

If you want a graphic or piece of text behind the content of your page, you can approach it a few different ways.

If you want a text-based watermark for your document, like CONFIDENTIAL, behind just a few pages, follow these steps. You'll  need to place the text box on every page where you want it to appear.

1. Click the “T” text icon, or if you don't see one, choose View > Toolbars > Drawing to make it appear.

2. Draw a box with the tool and type what you want inside, like CONFIDENTIAL.

3. Select the text and make it really big, maybe 66 points. You can use the font size dropdown list on the object bar for this.

4. Make the text gray if you want it lighter. Use the Font Color icon on the object bar.

5. Click somewhere else in your document, like a blank spot or some regular text.

6. If you want the text vertical or diagonal, click on the text box, right-click and choose Position and Size, click the Rotation tab, and in the Rotation field type the number of degrees. (You can also click on a point in the Default Settings region.) 55 degrees is good for a diagonal watermark.

7. Click on the text box you just drew, right-click, and choose Wrap > In Background.

8. Drag the text box to reposition it if it's not where you want, make the text larger or smaller, rotate it more or less, and make any other adjustments.

Here's an OpenOffice.org 2.0 document (watermarktemplate.odt  ) you can use with a watermark.

If you want a graphic-based watermark for just a few pages of your document, paste it into your document on each page where you want the graphic, or choose Insert  > Picture > From File. Then  do step 7 from the previous step to wrap the graphic in the background.

To make the graphic lighter, select it. The Picture toolbar should appear but if it doesn't, choose View > Toolbars > Picture. Use the Lightness icon to make the graphic lighter.

To put a graphic in the background of every page of your document (every page with the Default page style, that is, or every page with the page style you modify if you know styles), follow these steps.

1. Be sure you have the graphic, that it's light enough, and that you know where the graphic is.
2. Choose Format > Page.
3. Click the Background tab.
4. From the As dropdown list, select graphic.
5. In the Type area, be sure Position is selected.
6. Click Browse and find the graphic.
7. Click Open.

Dragging a Cell in a Spreadsheet

I get a kick out of how obscure this is. You can select two or more cells and drag them, but you can't drag just one.

Unless you do this.

1. Select the cell.
2. Click and hold down, drag the mouse down one cell, then back up one cell, and release.

Now you can drag the cell wherever you want.

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TechTarget Article: Lists, Simple/Easy and Complex/Powerful, in OpenOffice Writer

I've written a nice long article on lists for TechTarget.com.

It covers a bunch of topics:
- simple lists
- using the extreeeemely helpful list toolbar
- what you need to know about styles to use the really powerful list features
- the really powerful list features

Here's a kind of list you can create with the power features.

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The Microsoft Office 2007 Upgrade Is Going to Have a Big Learning Curve--and a Big Price. Now's the Time to Consider OpenOffice.org Instead.

(Originally published February 2006)

Office 2007 Is Just Another Upgrade...Right?
In a word. No.

This is going to be huge. Painful. Expensive. And that's before you get to the retraining costs.

Here's why.

Microsoft Office 2007 Is a Radical Redesign of the User Interface, and Will Require Plenty of Retraining

Here's the current Microsoft Word toolbar.

Courtesy of LInux Watch  and linked articles, here's a screen shot of MS Word 2003. Click to see a larger version.

MS Office 12 looks entirely different, and changes constantly as you move in the document. Click this image to see a larger version.

And again courtesy of Linux Watch, here's a screen shot of MS Office 2007. Click to see a larger version.

You can't just install this on all 500 computers at your organization and tell people there's a new version.

The Buzz on Microsoft Office 2007 Is the Retraining

Experts around the planet are leary of the radically changed new interface.

Here's an excerpt from an article on eWeek.

Heading the list of challenges facing Microsoft is the fact that Office 2007 has a new user interface, which could require extensive staff retraining at a significant cost, as well as a new file format, which has the potential to create compatibility issues, analysts such as Joe Wilcox of Jupiter Research, told eWEEK.

"When you introduce something new, it disrupts, and this increases things like help desk costs and employee downtime," Wilcox said. "So, to get to the benefits that come with this, they have to get past whatever retraining will be needed around the new user interface and any hardships around the new file format, which are always disruptive. These are two big hurdles Microsoft has to get around."

Enterprise customers such as Robert Rosen, CIO for the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases and an eWEEK Corporate Partner, agree. The new user interface and file formats pose "major concerns and will slow up adoption significantly," Rosen said. "Since we don't know enough about the benefits of Office 2007, we have not yet developed any plans to move forward."

And another quote:

Jupiter Research's Wilcox told eWEEK that if there were ever an opportunity for StarOffice and OpenOffice.org, "this might be it, going head-to-head against Office 2007, because we have a new file format and a new user interface, which means a lot of extra cost," and which could torpedo many enterprises from upgrading.

In addition, a lot of Software Assurance contracts are expiring between now and the end of July, and Microsoft will be aggressively beating the sales drum. Those businesses might well be looking at their alternatives and options before signing a new contract, he said.

Here's Paul Thurott:

For the first time ever, Microsoft has dramatically changed the Office interface, replacing the standard menu-and-toolbar interface we've known since the earliest Windows applications with a new UI paradigm based on context-sensitive ribbons and tabs."

Here are quotes from Paul's article on the new office software, from Jacobe Jaffe, Group Product Manager on the Office team.

As a personal anecdote, I have a variety of PCs, and on one of those machines for a variety of reasons, I still have Office 2003 installed. I use Office 12 essentially full time, and for me to go back into 2003 is not so good. It's pretty painful, actually."

And Paul's follow-up comment--keeping in mind that he's an expert user.

But because this requires a different skill set to accomplish, I had to relearn how to do this. Long story short, most things are easier, but some power user features will require some more work....I'm nitpicking here, of course. The truth is, the Office 12 interface is so much dramatically better than previous versions, it's hard to find fault with it. On the other hand, I am a power user who uses Office all day long, and I slightly resent having to relearn certain skills. I'll get over it.

Mark Shuttleworth (founder of the Ubuntu project, second space tourist and freedom toaster guy), makes this point, posted by Justin here.

This might not be a direct quote but it's Justin's restatement of Mark's point.

"Office 12 has had substantial UI changes, since Microsoft is trying to distance themselves from the Open Office project. End result, users will require re-training. So which is easier? Re-train users in new Office 12? Or simply, start using Open Office which quite frankly looks just like MS Office today."

Here's another blog along the same lines, Ted's Radio Blog, with a similar conclusion at the end.

"Seven different versions. Dozens of applications, with various features disabled. Nightmarish new licenses. New servers. What a mess! All this to print documents, calculate spreadsheets and do other routine office work? I think Microsoft is overreaching here. They may sell to their captive audience, but new computer users whose machines come with Corel Office or OpenOffice are going to be hard-pressed to find a reason to switch. If you haven't tried OpenOffice.org, there's no better time than the present!"

Think about all those users out there.  Switching, if they all do, is not going to be easy. Take a look at just one part of it. Think about how the people who call you, the IT support folks, are going to react. Think about Laura in accounting or Bob down in contracts.

It All Comes Back to Economics 101

You're happy now with Microsoft Office.

But things change, and the cost can grow to outweigh the benefit.

What if this:


changed to this?

Think About the Cost and Benefit of the Upgrade to Microsoft 2007. Really Think About It.
If you feel that the new UI in this version could change your world and your users' worlds,  there might be a wonderful promised land of fabulous easy of use waiting on the other side of the River of Retraining. There might be. But ya gotta cross the River of Retraining first, and some of your users are going to rock the boat.

I'm not saying you shouldn't use Microsoft Office just because they're changing the interface. I'm saying, you're going to have to retrain people. As long as you have to retrain people, why not consider all your options?

Switching from your current Microsoft software to Office 2007 will require:

• A lot of money for the software
• Training and documentation
• Time and effort to install and convert documents

Switching from your current Microsoft software to OpenOffice.org will require:

• A lot of money for the software
• Training and documentation
• Time and effort to install and convert documents

 

<>

The Microsoft Office 2007 Upgrade is more expensive in money, time, and effort than switching to OpenOffice.org.

This Too: OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office Currently Look More Similar Than Office 2003 and Office 2007
Training your users to go from Office 2003, or before, to OpenOffice.org, might be easier than teaching them the whole new Office 2007 system.

Here's the current Microsoft Word toolbar, and the toolbar for OpenOffice.org Writer. Right now, they're really similar.  Click each to see a bigger image. See how long it takes to tell which is which.

And here's an OpenOffice.org screen shot. Not that different.

Retraining Aside: Do You Need the 2007 Features?

As a commenter on this blog, George Wenger, states, "The vast majority of users in a so-called "average" business setting already have no use for 90% of the existing features of Word, let alone a whole set of new features."

Your job is to make everyone else's job easier. When you walk by the software users in the hall, you want them to say, "Hey, Jim! I can do that mail merge now!" and maybe offer a high five. 

Does Marsha in Accounting or Bob in Contracts need ribbon toolbars and a new UI paradigm?

How many of the new features does your organization actually need? Have the support staff been begging you for this one?

"We're also enabling a new mobile scenario with OneNote Mobile," Jaffe told me. "So literally you'll be able to have a OneNote notebook available to you on a mobile device, like a Windows Powered Smartphone. You can take notes on your Smartphone, or read your [PC-based notes on the Smartphone. The pages in that Smartphone notebook align to the information you have in your PC version of OneNote. They sync up through ActiveSync."

And think about these questions:
- How many complaints will you get about how everything's different?
- What will the overall attitude be like when users come in Monday morning and their desktops are different?
- How much will you spend on training and documentation to get people up and running on Office 2007.

Here's a blog on this topic: Dave Rosenberg states that Vista gives you an opportunity to really compare the actual cost and the actual benefits, and he quotes Jon Oltsik from Enterprise Strategy Group.

"

Later this year, Microsoft will throw a $500 million PR and advertising party aimed at convincing users to upgrade their PCs to Vista. This provides a perfect opportunity for the Linux crowd to persuade CIOs to evaluate Linux and compare pricing. In this way, Microsoft will likely open the door to some unintended Linux desktop momentum.

I have every expectation that Vista will be a much better OS than XP, but do users really need it? Perhaps. Then again, many CIOs may conclude that the more prudent choice would be a Linux desktop and Open Office migration offering good enough functionality, at 10 percent of Microsoft's price."

Switching to OpenOffice.org Means You Can Have Your IT Cake and Eat at Least Part of It, Too
With OpenOffice.org, you can be the kick-butt IT guy who gives your users software that might even be easier to learn than Office 2007, and saves the company money. The VP's assistant Chris loves you, and the VP loves you. Doesn't get much better than that.

If after careful evaluation of 2007, the alternatives (OpenOffice.org among others), and what is involved in upgrading, you still think MS Office 2007 is the best solution for your users' needs, go ahead and upgrade. (Keep in mind that users do not need to be "cool."  ;>  They do need health insurance.)

But it might not be, and it's important to think about your choices. If your job is to deliver the best product for the best value and have your users be able to do their jobs well, please think about the choices.

References for switching to OpenOffice.org: See this post on the process of migrating a group of users who might be resisting the process, and this post on top ten reasons to switch to OpenOffice.org (besides the one covered in this post).

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Doing Calculations in Tables, in OpenOffice Writer (Repost)

(First posted February 2006)

Doing calculations in tables is a nice feature of OpenOffice.org Writer. You can essentially treat a table like a spreadsheet. With this example, for instance, I can just use spreadsheet-like calculations in the table to get the totals and differences.

The process is a bit different in 2.0 so I'm blogging it here; plus anyone who hasn't used the feature before can see if they like it.

Note: I personally prefer to use spreadsheets, so I would do the calculations in a spreadsheet and then just copy and paste. But for those who like tables, here's how you do it.

This process focuses on summing, with some other options.

First, of course, create the table the way you want it.

Then click in the empty cell where you want a calculation. Choose Table > Formula or press F2 and you'll get the spreadsheet-like toolbar with the formula entry field.

If you know what you want and just want to go right ahead and do it, just type what you want using <> around each cell reference. <F5>, <A1>, etc.

If you want some help from the system, do it this way. Select the cells you want to calculate; you'll get an addition formula by default. This will sum the contents of the selected cell range.

If it's what you want, press Enter or click the green arrow by the formula field. The total will appear.

If it isn't what you want, just retype the formula in the formula field. Be sure to preserve the syntax with the <> around each cell reference. Cell references are the same as Calc, with A1 being the upper left cell of a table and counting across to B and down to 2, and so on. A correct subtraction formula for instance is =<b2>-<c2>

In the following example, I of course want to find the difference, not the sum, of the expenses and income, so I changed the formula.

If you want something more complicated than addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, click on the formula dropdown list.

To format the cells automatically with dollar signs, etc.. select the cells, right click, and choose Number Format. In the window that appears, select the format you want. Click the following image to see a larger image of the window, if you want.

 

Overall, the table formulas work but they're just a bit twitchy. If you've got something beyond simple math, I suggest doing it in a spreadsheet, then copying and pasting the spreadsheet into Writer.

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Tags: OpenOffice.org  openoffice  OpenOffice.org training  openoffice training  open source  open source training  StarOffice  Linux   tagtest   education  Google  Sun 

Manually Controlling What's In Your Labels, in OpenOffice Writer (Repost)

(First posted February 2006)

I received this question from Chris in relation to the blog on labels.

“Is there a way to tell OpenOffice to save the document in such a way as that it essentially "exports" it to another OpenOffice document that isn't attached to the data source, so that you can hand-edit the labels? The only way I found to do it was to save it as a Word document and then re-save _that_ as a standard OOo text document. Is there a more direct way?

Thanks,

Chris”

Good question. There are a few different things you can do.

Change the Label Display So You Can See the Data, Then Edit

I don't know of a way to separate the label data from the data source in a sensible way. However, you can just change the content.

Create the labels, connected to the data source, like you normally do. Don't click the Synchronize option in the third tab.

Choose View > Data Sources.

Click the Data to Fields icon in the toolbar above the data sources.

You'll see content in the labels instead of field placeholders.

Now just edit each field normally. Change Bob to Gretchen, Fargo to Kalispell, etc, just by typing.

When you print, you'll get a conglomeration of the database data and what you typed.

Change the Data Source, Not the Labels

If you want to edit the labels, edit where the information comes from, if that's an option. If your data source is a spreadsheet, just edit the contents of the spreadsheet. Be sure that the .odb database file, and any label documents accessing the database, are all closed when you edit the data itself.

Just Make Labels That You Type the Content Into

This approach is entirely manual, but you can copy and paste into the labels. If you want control over what' s in there, just make blank labels and type.

Choose File > New > Labels. Do everything pretty much the same way, i.e. pick the right label type. But don't put any data or fields in the big empty data box in the first tab, and in the third tab don't click Synchronize. Click New Document. (Click this image to see a bigger version if you want.)

Then just type whatever you want in any of the frames.

Quickly Go From One Label to Another

The labels are in frames, which is a bit of a pain. To quickly go from one to another using the keyboard, press Esc Tab  Enter. (Intuitive, huh?) You can also choose Tools > Customize, click Keyboard, and set up a control key for going between frames.

 

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Tags

OpenOffice.org    open office    OpenOffice.org training    open office training   open source   open source training   Office 12  Linux   Ubuntu   education   Microsoft Office  labels  mail merge    printing  

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Spreadsheet Printing Tips: Hiding, Squishing, Printing Headers, and More (Repost)

(First posted November 2005)

Calc spreadsheet printing can be tricky. Which is too bad, because there are some fairly powerful features. Here are some questions people used to ask me a lot at when I worked at Sun. Between horrified peeks at my under-water stock options, this is what I told them.

My spreadsheet won't print the way I want. What should I do?

There is a powerful  and quite easily accessible tab that lets you do a bunch of stuff with printing. Choose Format > Page and click the Sheet tab. There, you will find many useful settings such as what direction to print in (all the way down then start again, or all the way across then start again), and which items to print (grid, formulas and much more).  Possibly the most useful, however, are the scaling options at the bottom which let you make the whole thing fit onto a specified number of pages or let you scale the whole thing up or down a bit.

 

The Page tab of that window can be useful too with more everyday settings—margins, page size, and centering the cells left-right and top-bottom within the page. Use the Table Alignment option for that last feature.

I really don't want to show McNealy the figures in column G. How do I hide that?

It's not tricky—not this approach to hiding, at any right. Select the whole column by clicking on the letter, then right-click and choose Hide. To show again, select the two columns on both sides, right-click, and choose Show.

No, I mean I want to show them in the spreadsheet while I'm working with them, I just don't want that column to print.

Oh, why didn't you say so? This is simple too. Select whatever cells shouldn't print, and choose Format > Cells. Select the Cell Protection tab. Mark the Hide When Printing option and click OK. (Remember to turn it back on again when you want them to be printed.) However, note that this won't make the cell spaces themselves go away. So hide the heading that goes with the data, and be prepared to answer questions about why that space is empty.

How do I print just specific rows or columns of my spreadsheet?

It's quick and easy, just not obvious.

1. Select the rows or columns that you want printed. It has to be rows or columns, the shape must be rectangular.
2. Then choose Format > Print Ranges > Define.
3. Choose File > Page Preview to be sure you got what you want, if you want to check first.
4. Then just print; only items defined in print range will be printed.

If you made a mistake defining the range, repeat the step with the right range and the new range will replace the old range. Or just select the old range and choose Format > Print Ranges > Remove and start over.

If you need multiple print ranges, it might be best to consider using one of the hiding features.

I need the headings across the top, Budget and Forecast and all that, to print on every page. How do I do that?

In the previous task, the window had fields where you could pick rows to repeat. You just use those fields.

1. Choose Format > Print Ranges > Edit.
2. Click in the Rows to Repeat (or Columns to Repeat field for columns).
3. Just use your mouse to select the rows to repeat.
4. Repeat with the other field if you want both columns and rows to repeat.
5. Click OK.

Here's a picture of the key point. Click to get a bigger graphic.

 

Choose File > Page Preview to check if you want to verify before printing.

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Tags

OpenOffice.org open office OpenOffice.org training open office training open source open source training Office 12 Linux Ubuntu education Microsoft Office migration spreadsheets printing 

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A Ray of Hope Regarding My OpenOffice 2 Book

Very important note:  The blogger at http://somethingfishyatbarnesandnobles.blogspot.com/2006/07/last-year-i-was-hired-to-run-28-public.html   is drawing his own conclusions from the reluctance of large bookstore chains to buy copies of my yet-unpublished OpenOffice.org 2.0 book. My only information, and my only conclusions, are in this blog.

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I just talked to my editor and apparently the salespeople at Barnes and Noble, Borders, etc.  just don't want to sell an OpenOffice book right now. Market's soft, blahblah.

Well, I said, poop on them, or something to that effect, and then my editor suggested that we just sell the book as a PDF, bypassing that whole bricks-and-mortar aspect.

That's the plan, now--I hope--to have a whole PDF of my OpenOffice 2.0 book for sale from this blog, through a site managed by Prentice Hall, by the end of August.

If you feel the urge to needle the bricks-and-mortar bookstores, feel free to go to your local bookstore and order my OpenOffice 2.0 book from them. If there's enough demand, maybe we can get a print version out before the end of the decade, too. Thanks to anyone who does this. ;>

Just ask for the OpenOffice 2.o Resource Kit, ISBN 013148205X

Here's the link to Amazon as a reference.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/013148205X

So--there's hope! Not certainty, but hope. And if this doesn't work, I'll try demanding the rights back from the publisher to just publish it myself.

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Mail Merge OpenOffice Labels, OpenOffice.org 2.0 (Repost)

Here's how to do labels.

First, get your data in a spreadsheet, text file, address book, and create a database. You can do this by choosing File > New > Database. 

This post contains instructions for spreadsheets.

This post contains instructions in step 2 for spreadsheets or text files.

Then, once you've got the database set up in OpenOffice.org, you're ready to go.

1. Choose File > New > Labels. (To do Envelopes, open an OpenOffice.org Writer document, and choose Insert > Envelope.)

2. In the Labels tab of the Labels window, select the database  you created in the Database dropdown list. You're looking for the name of the database you created by choosing File > New > Database, not the spreadheet, addressbook, or text file containing the data.

(Click the picture to see a larger image.)

3. Select a table from the Table list. This will be Sheet1 or whatever the sheet name is, if you are using a spreadsheet to hold your data.

4. Select the first field you want to use from the Database Field list.

5. Click the arrow next to it to insert it in the Label Text field.

Type a space after the field and you can add the next field, such as LastName.

6. Use the Database Field list to insert any other fields you need. If you want fields on the second line, click after the last character of the last field you inserted, in the big text box, and just press Enter. If you need to change the arrangement later in the created label document, you can.

7. In the Brand dropdown list, select Avery Letter Size if you're not using A4.

8. In the Type dropdown list, scroll through the billions of labels. Select the type of label you're using, 8160 Inkjet Address is a good one but just use whatever is on the envelope of labels.

9. This step and step 10 , and step 15, are optional but recommended. Click the Options tab.

10. Select the Synchronize Contents option IF you want to apply formatting, like a different font or colors or adding graphics, and make those changes apply to all of your labels.

11.Click the Setup button next to the printer display.

12. Select the printer you want to print to.

13. In the printer options (this will vary according to your operating system) specify the appropriate paper feed or tray. For now, select Manual Feed.

14. Click the New Document button at the bottom of the window. The labels will appear. This is how it's supposed to look. You won't see the data, you'll see the field names like first name. When you print, the correct data will appear.

15. OPTIONAL: IF YOU SELECTED THE SYNCHRONIZE CONTENTS CHECKBOX

If you need to make changes, like adding spaces, rearranging fields, or changing formatting, do so in the upper left label. Make the text an interesting font, or make it the size you need. You can also right-click on the border of the upper right label, choose Frame, go to the Border tab, and give it a background color.

Then click Synchronize to apply those changes to all labels.

16. Choose File > Print. A message will ask if you want to print a form letter. Click Yes.

17. If you want to print labels for only certain records, you can select them in the scrolling list of records. Select one, press Ctrl, select the next, and so on. Or you can select a range of records like 1-20.

18. If you want to just print all the labels, choose All.

19. When you're ready, just click OK. You'll be prompted again to choose your printer. Print normally.

Note: If you have any problems printing, check your printer setup using your operating system setup tools.

Note: You can save the label document and just go back to it again when you need to use it again.

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The Immense Potential of the IF Function in OpenOffice Calc

The word IF has so much potential.

If I win the lottery...if I lose 20 pounds by next Friday...if only I had gone to France that summer...if blind monkeys from hell fly out of my butt, I will certainly attend that concert with you...

IF is a powerful word.

It's also a powerful function in OpenOffice.org. You can use IF to control the content of a cell depending on the content of another cell, on the result of a calculation—and that means the possibilities are limitless.

Syntax

First, what's the syntax?

 

So you could have this, if you needed to have different values depending on whether the value in cell B5 is bigger than the value in cell B6. Note that the test and both results can all be plain values, can be cell references, or can be calculations.

 

Or you could do this, in case you just want to print something in a cell depending on whether the contents of cell B5 are over a particular value.

How to Use IF

Click in the cell where you want the variable results to show up.

 

Then you can just type the formula.

IF (B5 > B6;G10;G10/G2)

Or you can click the Formula icon.

 

Type I in the list to go down to the IF function, double-click IF, and type the values you want in the window. You'll see the result in the window. When you're done, click OK.

Example

Here's an example. I've got this spreadsheet. I want to always have the right recommendation about what to do in the Recommendation field, and the calculations can change anytime. Also, the calculations might bring in cells from other sheets as well, so it might not always be as simple.

1. Click in the cell where the results should show up.

 

2. Click the Function icon.

 

3. Find IF (they're in alphabetical order).

 

4. Double-click IF.

 

5. Type the test (whether the consulting revenue is bigger than writing revenue)

 

6. Type what I want to have in this cell if that's true, with quotes since it's text

 

7. Type what I want to have in this cell if that's false, with quotes since it's text. Click this image to see it bigger.

 

8. Click OK.

 

And here are the results.

 

When I double-click the cell I can see the formula bigger. (Click this image to see it full size.)

 

I've shown some simple examples, but when you think about it, IF can be used effectively in far more powerful situations....IF you think about how to apply it the next time you bring up a spreadsheet.

 

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Who Knew "Desperate Housewives" and "Alias" Were Linux Fans?

Karim sent me links to these dandy screen shots. Yes, the glamorous soap opera "Desperate Housewives" uses Linux and OpenOffice.org when they shoot computer screens.

Alias episode 212 with OpenOffice Writer
Click to see it bigger.

Desperate Housewives episode 220 with OpenOffice Calc
Click each to see it bigger.

See also the post on "House", Linux, and OpenOffice.org

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Go Ben! Energetic coverage of the goal to advertise OpenOffice.org

Ben Horst continues to hit the virtual bricks and get coverage of his effort to make sure everyone knows about OpenOffice.org. Every time I look around, someone's asking me "did you know about this?" Including people not in the OpenOffice world.

Here's the gist.

A group of grassroots activists in the OpenOffice.org community have just announced they are going to undertake a similar media campaign to Spread Firefox, starting with a free (as in beer) New York City daily newspaper called "The Metro," published by Metro International. Most penguinistas know what a huge success the grassroots Spread Firefox ad campaign was. Through ads in the New York Times and the Frankfurt General Newspaper, and the hilarious Firefox videos on the FunnyFox website (video link here), Firefox has probably gained greater popular name brand recognition in the general public than any other free open source software (FOSS) project. 

Read more.  Or click here to contribute.

It's not just sending out emails to everyone he knows, though--other efforts have failed. As the Factory City blog notes, "It’s interesting to see this effort emerge organically — especially after the initial thrust to create a SpreadOpenOffice project fashioned after Spread Firefox died on the vine owing to internal struggles over branding control. A similar project SpreadKDE made it out of the gate, but it’s unclear whether it ever took off."

Ben's currently about 75% of the way to his goal.

I'm amazed at how well Ben's spreading the news. We met at Comdex 2003  and I was impressed then with his technical knowledge, his ability to learn the Las Vegas bus system. I was impressed at how such a clean-cut, nice guy could look so  scary in an Army Surplus outfit, which was extremely effective in keeping people from bugging us on our way through some of the more alarming Las Vegas neighborhoods. ;>  But I didn't know he could get people's attention like this.

Ben, I'm tellin' ya, when you get done with this ad, do the same thing in Chicago. That's all it'll take to get Oprah to do that show I'm always fantasizing about where she gives away a free  Linux laptop to everyone in the audience.

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We're at 100,000 Hits!

I've gotten 100,000 hits since October 2005! Thank you to everyone who's come and visited, commented, linked to me, and told your brother-in-law about the site. I hope that the next 100,000 will help even more people learn to love using OpenOffice.org, and love saving a passle of money doing it.

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Breaking Up Is Not Hard to Do (Just Like Getting Back Together) With OpenOffice Writer Tables

   

Splitting Up
If you've tried to insert a page break in a table, you might have gotten a little frustrated.

A normal page break  just jumps the table to the next page.

You can let the table naturally split over pages (Under Table > Table Properties, Text Flow tab, there's a check box for this and it's the default setting.)

If you want more control over where the split is, here's what to do. You actually split the table first, then insert a page break.

1. Click where you want the page break to be.
2. Choose Table > Split Table.
3. You'll see this window.

4. Select how to split.

• Select Copy Heading to repeat the heading without changing it.
• Select Custom Heading (Apply Style)  if you want a heading but a different one. The new blank row that's inserted for your heading has the same paragraph style as the first row in the original table. You usually want this one.
• Select the other Custom Heading if you want a heading with different content, and a different paragraph style.
• For no heading, select No Heading.

5. Click OK.
6. Now insert the page break above the second table (Insert > Manual Break, select Page, click OK).

Note: Be careful about splitting tables containing formulas.

Getting Back Together

What if you want to get the tables back together and it's too late to Undo?

1. Select all the rows in the second table and copy them.
2. Go to the bottom of the first table.
3. Make a new blank row. (Click in the bottom row and choose Table > Insert > Rows, or click the Insert Row icon.)

4. Click in the first cell of the new blank row.
5. Just paste.
6. Delete the second row. (Or if you're feeling confident, in step 1 you could have just Cut instead of Copying.)

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Microsoft makes concession to rival Office format

Not a phrase you hear all that often.

I yipped "Yes!" extremely loudly, scaring all those around me, when I read this.

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/104761.asp

From Todd Bishop's Microsoft blog.

Microsoft says it will sponsor an open-source project to create tools for translating files between the OpenDocument Format, which arose from the OpenOffice.org program, and the Office Open XML format to be used in Microsoft Office.

Read more.

Also see coverage from CNet.

Of course, we all know what happened when Microsoft decided to support Java. But it's a noteworthy move, nonetheless.

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Useful Variables in OpenOffice Writer

(New! Not a repost! ;> )

I was watching some Strongbad Email and laughing very hard, when I realized that this was fun for me, but not that useful for someone looking for cool stuff to do with OpenOffice.org

Here's a little something that can be very helpful for anyone with a lot of documents, a lot of people who use those documents, and a strong urge to actually keep track of all those documents.

Bring up the document field variables and you'll see what I mean. Choose Insert > Fields > Other and click on the Document tab.

A host of useful tracking info awaits you.  Here are a few examples.

- Select the Templates option in the Type list and insert the template name, preferably the full path, in the document. Then the template that the document is based on will be displayed. (If the document wasn't based on a template, nothing shows up.)

- Select the File Name option in the Type list and use the option that you like the best. Again, I prefer the full path with file name.

Here's what a document looks like with those pieces of information inserted. Click the image to see it bigger if you want; the inserted fields are at the bottom.

Another approach is using the statistics variables. In the same tab, select the Statistics option in the Type list.

You can insert all sorts of information about the document so it's always there. I'd recommend Arabic in the Format list. The data is updated when you save, reopen, or choose Tools > Update.

Here's an example of what some inserted statistics look like. I typed the words after each; when you click Insert you only get the number. Click the image to see it bigger; the inserted fields are at the bottom.

You can insert any of these variables in the header or footer of your documents, as well, if that's where you like the info.

 

 

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My Ubuntu Installs Were Incredibly Easy! (Repost)

(Originally posted March 2006)

If you've been thinking of putting Linux on one of your old machines, but you've heard that Linux installs are horrifyingly painful, PLEASE read this. That's what I used to think, too.

Not any more.

You will be shocked, delighted, and go "whoohoohoo!" all the way home.

Here's Ubuntu, running on my ooooold laptop, just as slick and easy as can be.

Ubuntu is incredibly simple to install and and use. You can install Ubuntu on an old machine (or whatever machine). Aside from the fact that nothing works 100% of the time, and wireless can be very wacky on any machine or operating system, I tell ya, installing Ubuntu will Just Work.

I repeat.

A Linux distro, Ubuntu, is incredibly slick to INSTALL and to use. You can be up and running on Linux today with no more effort than you'd expend making tea.

Now, I'm sure that many other distros are great and easy too. I understand from my techy friend and author of the first Java Certification Exams Simon Roberts who supervised but didn't actually do the install or tell me anything I didn't know, SuSE rocks and is gorgeous to boot. I understand that many of my fears about Linux installation actually are based on unusual situations like setting up wireless and really old or really new hardware. And are also just based on what I heard a long time ago that is not true anymore.

So anyway, it's probably not just Ubuntu that's easy and slick as a whistle. But I'm still very excited about this install.

I am doing everything for this post on my newly Linuxed laptop, too, btw.

Here's the story.

Me and My Linux Background: I'm So Not a Linux Head

I knew I would have to admit this sooner or later: I'm not really that knowledgeable about Linux. Not in a deep down kind of way. I have never and will never build my own distro and don't keep track of what GUI is my fave.

I'm not afraid of it or of using other operating systems--I used Solaris at Sun for three years, Mac at Great Plains Software, mostly Windows since then.

But you know, you hear these stories about installing Linux and it sounds like a quick hike up K2 would be easier. Packages. Drivers. Distros. Editing your BIOS. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH.

I installed, with the considerable help of my friend Simon, a Linux distro a few years ago. Red Hat 8 or something like that. Not horrible but not easy.

Time to try it again, though. I considered the Linspire distro but there seems to be some cost associated with it (forget that! ;>  ) and there seemed to be a lot of buzz around Ubuntu. Plus you've GOT to love a distro with this name.

What I Installed On and the Internet Setup
I bought this laptop, a Dell Latitude CPX, used for $400 from Half.com at least three years ago. I tried to check what its specs are and couldn't see it offhand, but you can figure it out generally. A roughly seven-year-old laptop. Defiitely not less.

I also installed Ubuntu on my four or five year old HP Pavilion 6835, 800 mhz machine with 300 MB memory or so.

I connected using a standard Ethernet card to my in-house standard Ethernet network. No wireless. (Wireless is a pain in the patookus on any system--at least in my experience.) The Ethernet card just went in the little slot on the left side of my laptop, and the dangly thing connected to the normal plug of the Ethernet connection. My desktop already had an Ethernet card installed.

How I Got the Install CDs

Like a breeze. very easy. I downloaded the CD from Ubuntulinux.org. But you can just order CDs too, off the web site. Totally for free, no shipping costs or anything. (Just one note--I ordered mine at least a couple weeks ago and haven't received them yet. Probably more like three weeks ago.)

How the Install Went

Like a breeze. I didn't partition the drives or do anything fancy.  I just said yes, take over the computer, leave no data behind, etc.

I had the computers hooked up to the Internet. The install went out to the Ubuntu site and got extra files it needed, with no fuss or muss dealing with the connections.

I did nothing complicated. I entered what my name and password should be. That's about as complicated as it got.

Performance

Doesn't zip really fast on my laptop, and I haven't used the desktop a lot yet since I'm dithering about my monitor options. But it's definitely good enough. It's a 7+ year old machine.

What It's Like to Use
Very similar to Windows and Solaris. I just played around with the various selections and it looked pretty easy. OpenOffice.org is there, under Applications > Office, just like you'd expect. I got on the Internet by choosing Applications > Internet. I found my files by choosing Places > Home Folder. It's all pretty logical. Most windowing applications aren't that complicated, and I find Solaris, Linux, and Windows all far more similar to each other than Macintosh.

What Else Works Besides Internet
The laptop doesn't have a CD burner, just a CD R drive, so I hooked up my USB Iomega CDRW external drive to it. I inserted a blank CD. And it just worked--a message popped up asking what I wanted to do. It was just like burning a CD on XP. I might have squealed with delight.

Printing worked fine, too. I hooked up the printer directly the USB port of my laptop. I chose System > Administration > Printing, double-clicked the new printer, answered the simple questions, and selected the printer I use. Didn't have to go hunt down drivers or anything.

And yes, the printing actually works. Just got a nice printout of this page on the printer. ;>

I haven't  set up Thunderbird or anything for email since I'm not using this machine for that. I'm pretty pumped about the printing and the other hardware and networking stuff.

Installing Linux Just Worked.
The install was a breeze. Internet and hardware just worked. The layout is logical. The software is free.

Come on in, the Linux is fine!

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OpenOffice 2.03 Is Ready! Get Your Fresh Hot Open Source Office Suite Right Here!

Download OpenOffice.org 2.0.3 here.

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