OpenOffice.org Training, Tips, and Ideas

ODFReader in Development for Firefox

We all know that ODF, OpenDocument Format, is great. You don't have to pay other companies to access files you created yourself. (I talked more about this in “Microsoft Owns Your Tube Top.”)

OpenOffice.org documents are in ODF format. Great. So you can read ODF documents with OpenOffice.

Um....OK. But we want world domination on this. We want to be able to email ODF documents around to everyone, and everyone can open them for free. Without having to download OpenOffice if they don't want to.

We can already do that with PDF files. That's because of the Adobe PDF Reader program that's built into pretty much every computer on the planet.

So what do we need for ODF files? Well, clearly, an ODF reader application.

Wily Yuen tipped me off to this. There's a new extension in development for FireFox called ODFReader.

https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=firefox&id=1888

The extension is still very early in development and needs more effort to further its progress. However, it could go a long way to help the spread of ODF.

 

---

Shortcuts in OpenOffice Writer: Quickly Inserting Text, and Text and Graphics, with AutoFormat and AutoText

I think pretty much everyone likes to save time, and avoid painful carpal tunnel surgery. Here are the two very nice shortcut features that let you slap in a bunch of text with just a couple keystrokes.

• AutoFormat lets you create a shortcut for a line of text like your name, email, department, etc.
• Autotext lets you put in huge amounts of text and graphics, with the formatting

Using  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.

1. 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.

2. Click New, then click OK.

3. 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."

4.  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.

AutoText: Storing and Quickly Inserting Text and Graphics

Let's say you've got a signature that looks like this.

It would be nice to just insert all that instead of typing, or even copying and pasting.

1. Go to a document where you've got that text and the logo. Select it all, including the logo, and including the paragraph above and below. MAKE SURE THAT THE LITTLE ANCHOR GRAPHIC IS NOT SHOWING FOR THE GRAPHIC—I.E. DON'T CLICK ON IT.

GOOD

BAD

2. Choose Edit > Autotext.

3. In the Autotext window, select a category, then type the name and the shortcut for it. Remember this shortcut; you can use it later to quickly insert the autotext.

4. Click and hold down on the Autotext button and choose New.

5. Expand the selected category and click on the titleof the autotext. Click the Preview checkbox below the blank area at the right. The autotext will be displayed.

6. Click Close.

 

Now you're ready to insert the Autotext. Here's how.

Long way: Click in any document. Choose Edit > Autotext, select the category and the autotext to insert, and click Insert.

The autotext will appear in the document.

Short way requiring that you remember the shortcut for the item: Type the shortcut that you entered earlier when you set up the autotext item, then press F3.

Note: To determine where your autotexts are stored, choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Paths and look at the Autotext item in the big list.

That's all there is to it! Once you get everything set up, you might never type again. ;>

---

Microsoft Vista: Not 'People Ready' (and the date slips again)

Microsoft Vista slips again! Now it's going to be ready (in theory) in early 2007. Hmm.

Is it worth the wait?

(Is it worth the money?  ;> )

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2006/03/22/vista-microsoft-ballmer_cz_dl_0322microsoft.html

---

OpenOffice Pan-Galactic Post: Posts on Charts, PDF, Spreadsheets, Templates, Drawings, OpenOffice Training, Toolbars, and Much More

I've been having a problem that some of you might sympathize with--getting posts to show up in Technorati. So as a cheater, I've created this post that links to a bunch of posts that I don't think have been showing up. Not all of them like links to current discussions or issues, just the ones I think are  important that have been missed.

So I'm sorry this isn't new content, but perhaps somewhere in the last six months there's something useful that Technorati didn't let you see the first time around.

Templates, Writer, general setup and toolbars

• Creating and using OpenOffice templates, including converting Microsoft Word templates for use in OpenOffice
• Doing calculations in tables
• The styles posts on what they are, how to get styles from one document to another, how to create and update them, etc.
• The much-discussed topic of centering text vertically in a Writer document
• Starting page numbering on page 2 and related topics (relates to page styles)
• Tables of contents
• Searching and replacing for carriage returns (paragraph breaks), tabs, and other items, using regular expressions (regex)
• Creating your own toolbar
• Setting up OpenOffice under Tools > Options and Tools > Autocorrect. This is how to turn off word completion, stop automatic formatting, set defaults, increase icon size, and much more.

Calc spreadsheets and charts

• Calc spreadsheet data entry shortcuts
• Dragging a cell in a spreadsheet (see the end of the post)
• Charts in Calc and Writer; how to click in just the right spot and modify exactly what you want.
• Opening a CSV text file in Calc so that it opens as a spreadsheet. Useful if you export files from databases of other formats and want to create them as spreadsheets or databases in OpenOffice.
• Controlling what people can put into spreadsheets with error messages, online help for the cell, ranges of permitted data, etc.

Draw, Diagrams, Impress presentations

• Using the 3D shapes in Draw (I love this stuff)
• Using OpenOffice FontWork, which is kind of like WordArt
• Creating your own arrows and other line ends for UML diagrams and other purposes
• Using the OpenOffice Gallery to store graphics; this too is useful for UML diagrams
• Printing Impress presentation handouts

Web publishing and PDF

• What I did with the web tools, creating colors, image maps, etc. to redo my getopenoffice.org StarOffice and OpenOffice Training page
• PDF, with linked articles on PDF presentations, and using hyperlinked PDFs. That post is particularly interesting since you can generate PDFs from linked OpenOffice.org documents, and the links carry over to the PDF.
• Using the wonderful Web Wizard (that's the techtarget article, here's the blog link) for creating web sites from existing OpenOffice, Microsoft, and graphics documents. You can also use it for  PDF batch convert.

Mail merge, labels, envelopes, and databases

• The very very powerful Mail Merge Wizard.
• The less powerful but far easier Secret Mail Merge that you need to add to your toolbar.
• Creating OpenOffice.org databases from spreadsheets, text files, and your address book. Even Access databases are easy.
• A bunch of articles for TechTarget.com on creating databases from scratch in Base,  creating forms, doing reports, views and joins between tables , and all the fun new stuff in the Openoffice Base database module.
• How to do labels the regular way, and manually.

Openoffice training, change management, and general discussions

• My thoughts on training and its benefits.
• My suggestions for transitioning to OpenOffice.org, including the change management aspects.
• Why OpenDocument Format is important (parental advisory, contains references to tube tops).
• Switching to OpenOffice.org, or any open source product, means you can spend the budget leftover on something important. Education, firefighters--anything that's more important than using Microsoft Office.
• Office 2007 could be a big retraining job. Think about whether you'd rather spend money and time upgrading to Office 2007, or just time on switching to OpenOffice.

---

Making Postcards, Brochures, and Other Cool Stuff With OpenOffice Writer and Draw, and Existing Microsoft Templates

Update: See The Linux Box for more ready-made OpenOffice Impress templates.

One of the biggest losses people experience when switching to open source is the loss of all those cool templates. They are, as the song says, a hard habit to break.

The good news is, you usually don't have to break the habit. (Unless you've been using Publisher, unfortunately, and you can't open Publisher files in anything—not even Word.) Here's how to keep on using the same templates you know and love; find new ones, or create your own in Draw and Writer.

You Can Still Use Your Own Word Templates and Any Others You Can Find

Here's where you might really start to enjoy the value of OpenOffice.org's compatibility with Microsoft Office.
You can still use all those Microsoft Office templates you got with the software. (Assuming the license doesn't forbid it--just putting that in just in case. ;> ) In OpenOffice.org, just choose File > Open, go to Program Files\Microsoft Office\templates (or wherever) and find the one you want. 

You can also set up OpenOffice.org to just find those templates. See this blog on templates. Go to the end.

And you can google around for more. I googled for “postcard templates” and came to this nice site from HP. The templates are available not just in Publisher but in Word. Click the image to see it larger if you like.

http://www.hp.com/sbso/productivity/office/direct_marketing.html

Follow a few links, and you get here. Click the image to see it larger if you like.

http://www.hp.com/sbso/productivity/office/stocklayout/stocklayout_overview.html

 

I decided to download the postcard template and the brochure template. I clicked on each; here's what it looked like to choose the brochure template.

Once the files were downloaded, I just went to OpenOffice.org, chose File > Open,  and opened them in OpenOffice Writer. Here's what the postcard template looks like.

 

I modified it according to my own information; it was relatively easy. Here's what that looks like. Here's the file itself. Right-click on the link and choose to save link as.

So that's really all there is to it. Use your own  or find new ones. There are a zillion free templates out there, and you can use the Word format templates (or Powerpoint, or Excel) in OpenOffice.org. Just google for the free ones, or ask friends where they are.

Making Your Own Postcards, Brochures, etc. in Draw and Writer

Now, that's not all the fun. If you want to create a postcard yourself, let's say in Draw, you can go ahead and do that, too. Or a brochure, or anything with specific measurements.

(You can do this in Writer to; I'm just showing it in Draw since the previous section was all about Writer.)

You need to know three  things.
- Choose Format > Page and click the Page tab to set the overall page size and orientation.

- Use the drawing tools like the text box and shapes to create the borders of the items in the document. Choose View > Toolbars > Drawing to bring up that toolbar.

- Select any item, right-click, and choose Position and Size. In the window that appears, click the Position and Size tab. will let you specify that the border of the postcard box, for instance, is 4x6. Remember to mark or unmark the Keep Ratio checkbox depending on whether you want to change one measurement of the object or both.

 

So let's do an example.

 

I'm going to create another postcard template. So I choose File > New > Drawing to create a new Draw document. I choose Format > Page, click the Page tab, and set the page size and margins.  I'll need a document that's like the first one or the second one, depending on what I'm printing on.

Option 1: A document with no margins, 6 across by 8 high (for two 4x6 postcards), and portrait orientation

Option 2: A document with half-inch margins, 7 across by 9 high (for two 4x6 postcards with two half-inch margins around the outside),  and portrait orientation

Next, I create a box to show me where the content should go. I just click on the rectangle tool in the Drawing toolbar and draw the box. I don't want a fill in it so I make the fill Invisible.

I right-click on the border of the rectangle, choose Position and Size, and click on the Position and Size tab. I choose 6 wide by 4 high, and unmark the Keep Ratio checkbox.

I put the edge of the box against the edge of where the postcard paper will end.

At this point, I make a template of it, so I can get at it again. See this blog on templates. If you want my document to download and make into a template,  here it is. Right-click on the link and choose to save link as.

 

Now I just make one version of the postcard, the way I want it. I put the content in the box, keeping in mind I need a bit of space between the text and the edge of the paper.

 

I copy the postcard and paste it, and drag the pasted version down to the bottom end of the document.

 

And now I just delete the boxes.

 

That's all there is to it. A little bit of work to set up, but the template takes care of that; you only need to do it once.

 

---

OpenOffice Styles: What, Why, and How to Use Them

March 2006: I've had some trouble getting some of my posts to show up, so I'm reposting a couple of the ones I think are most important.

Styles are like wearing your seatbelt, eating your broccoli, and apologizing to your honey even when you think you're right. They might be a bit of a pain to make yourself do, but they will so save your butt in the long run.

This is just the lead-in to  a big multi-blog post, grouped into a few different ones.

• What are styles?
• Why should everyone absolutely use styles?
• How do you create and modify styles?

---

OpenOffice Spreadsheet Printing Tips

March 2006: I've been having a bit of trouble getting some of my posts listed, so I'm reposting a couple of the ones I think are most important. This one is from back in November '05.

For all spreadsheet posts, see this index page.

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.

---

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  

OpenOffice Templates: Making Them, and Making New Documents Based on Them (Writer, Calc and Impress): Updated March 2006

March 2006: I've added info at the end about how to point to a directory of templates.

This is embarrassing. I have a huge blogapalooza on styles but left out templates. (Updated it yesterday a bit but still, no real thorough coverage.)

I shall remedy that immediately.

All right. Let's say you have the following:

• A bunch of styles you need to have when you create a document.
• Some canned text, like your signature or a graphic logo, that you use in a lot of documents
• Or you're just darned picky about how you want your documents ;>

You are an excellent candidate for using templates. Templates are documents that store styles, text, graphics, general formatting—whatever you want. You create a document, save it as a template in the Template Place, then point to that template when you want to create a new document using what it's got. (“Styles and canned text...that's what it's got....remember that.”)

And it really couldn't be easier.

Making a Template

Open a new document.

Put in it what you want in the template. Styles, graphics, text of every kind and variety. Whatever.

Then choose File > Templates > Save.

Specify My Templates unless you have another idea for a category.

(To create a new category, click the Organizer button, select a category in the button that appears, right-click on it and choose New. An untitled category will appear. IMMEDIATELY start typing the name of your new category. Click somewhere else in the category list when you're done typing. Click Close.)

Type the name of your template like Meeting Minutes.

Click OK.

Now you've got a template.

Using a Template

You need to create a new document using that template.

Choose File > New > Templates and Documents.

Select the Template icon on the left.

Open the category you chose like My Templates. You'll see your template.

Click Open and you'll have a new untitled document based on that template.

The Coolest Part—Making That Template Come Up When You Create Any New Document

Choosing File > New > Templates and Documents is fine but what if that's your template you use all the time? You can make it come up when you just choose File > New > [type of document] by setting it as the default template.

Choose File > Templates > Organize.

Open the category your template is in, in the left side.

Right-click on the template and choose Set as Default Template.

Click Close. You're done! Choose File > New > [type of document] and you'll see the effect.

To switch back to the normal original boring blank document, repeat the steps but this time choose Reset Default Template > [type of document]

Pointing to an Existing Directory of Templates

If you have a bunch of templates, Microsoft or OpenOffice.org, set up OpenOffice.org to know where they are. Then you can get to them as above by choosing File > New > Templates and Documents.

Converting, If You Want to Point to Microsoft Format Templates
First, if they're in Microsoft format, you need to convert them to OpenOffice format. Choose File > Wizards > Document Converter. Follow the wizard through to create a converted set of copies of the templates.

Step 1.

Step 2, then just follow the wizard as prompted.

Pointing to Templates to Use
Now, choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Paths. Select the Templates line.

Click Edit, then click Add, and add the path to the templates you want to point to. (Click this image to see a larger version if you like.)

Click OK, and OK, and OK  again.

Now you'll see the templates when you choose File > New > Templates and Documents.

---

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

Open Source Education Software and Other Items

Chris Brogan lists some interesting open source education options. I'll have to check out Savvica. Shall also have to brainstorm about how to get OpenOffice linked in with this world.

http://chrisbrogan.blogspot.com/2006/03/open-source-college.html

---

When I Want to Understand OpenDocument Things and Other Big Ideas

I go to Sam Hiser's blog, where he talks about the big stuff that's going on.

Here's a good one on opendocument format.

---

What Are Your Thoughts on Writely?

I must admit, I've been a little curious about the whole Writely thing. (Perhaps a bit miffed too, since it seemed like Google and OpenOffice were going to ride off into the sunset together. ;> )

I found a review of Writely.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2005/08/31/writely-process-words-with-your-browser/

Here's another article with a screen shot.

Does anyone have any comments on Writely to make? Good, bad, cool, weird?

---

My Open Source Marketing Fantasy: What I Would Do With a Venture Capitalist, a Team of Programmers and Designers, and Oprah's Personal Assistant, to Do My Bidding

These are just some random ideas for when I finally find the Unlimited Money, Time, and Influence Dimension.

Here's what I've been thinking about lately.

We're at one of those points in “Crossing the Chasm” where there's going to be a big change soon and the General Populace is going to start using Linux in the next couple years. I hope. There's no technical reason for it not to happen. The distros are cute. The installs are in many cases very easy.

But, of course, that's not the whole story.

When I tell my friend Betsy or my parents or other folks not in the technical field that Linux, or OpenOffice.org, or another open source program would be great, they get a little glassy-eyed and start to shake if I talk about non-Microsoft products for too long.  It's just not something they believe in. They know intellectually that I make my living in open source and understand that free is cheaper than not free. But don't really believe it. They just don't feel that open source products are an option.

Reasoning is all very well, but as someone very wise once said, "You can't reason someone out of a position they haven't been reasoned into." Which is a very reasonable statement (pun intended). I've certainly got my emotional topics that reason won't trump, period. We can talk all day long about how open source is great and so much cheaper, but that doesn't get to people's amygdala. It doesn't make them feel like they want it or can use it. It doesn't make them accept that yes, cheaper can be better.

Plus, there's no "get an easy cool Linux laptop with support and warantees now!" web site for them to go to.

So I fantasize about how to make people fall in love with open source.

Or, if not fall in love, then help people feel good about it, feel comfortable, and feel excited about it.

And I think about the ultimate pre-installed open source computer web site.

In my fantasy, with the aforementioned money and people, I would do a couple things.

I would create The Warm, Fuzzy, Fun, Exciting, and Absolutely Cool Linux/Open Source Site, For Everyone But Especially Small Businesses and Regular End Users Who Are Not Using Linux Yet.

And I would Shamelessly Pursue Celebrity Endorsements and Product Placement.

About the Site
I would create a different Linux site for people who don't know or care about open source but care about everything you can do with a normal computer save money, do email, edit photos, build web pages, rip CDs, and so on.

In my fantasy, the site would be off the charts on fun, easy, and incredibly cool.  The site should make people feel like walking around in Target makes me feel (I have a serious Target addiction). Or Ikea. Just fun and more-or-less mainstream and cute.

The site and associated products and ads would make it blindingly obvious millions of people are using open source software and having a good time doing so.

Here are a few specific things in my fantasy Linux web site.

• Hire a few designers away from Apple (or Target) to design the most amazing web site and packaging ever.  ((Mark Shuttleworth's freedom toasters are wonderful. Great design.)
• Hire some writers to do humorous text on the web site and in the documentation. I get a kick out of some of the content on the Mini web site.
• Put games on the web site to draw people in.
• I'd pack every bit of extra stuff, plugins, etc., into the distros that I could. Make it the default so that nobody has to fiddle with adding what they need, and can instead just enjoy using their computer for what they use it for.
• Sell all the PDA and music-playing devices I can—and borrow from Apple's playbook by providing free engraving.
• Create community with contests and prizes, featured Linux stories, and all sorts of things to make people feel as proud of their Linux computer as they feel of their Ipod.
• I would of course hire Kathy Sierra to make all this happen and create passionate Linux users.

Celebrity Endorsements, Product Placements, and All That Stuff
What made people stop smoking so quickly in the 90s after yeaaaars of smoking? Peer pressure. Who can get people to buy millions of copies of an item with a wave of her hand? Oprah!

• I would get on Oprah. I don't know how—Mark Shuttleworth is pretty hunky, so we could maybe work the beefcake angle. Maybe we could get Jonathan Schwartz to write a fake autobiography.  Or we just make the pitch along the whole digital divide, make a better society, line. At any rate, we get on Oprah, and at the end of the show Oprah gives away free Linux laptops and everybody dances.
• Microsoft Is for Fuddy-Duddies. Ads and placements and stories in Seventeen, ads on MySpace.com, Linux books on the tables in Urban Outfitters. (It's a stretch, that last one.) Teens and college students, in theory, don't have a lot of money, and in theory want to rebel against established norms. And, of course, are generally more comfortable with computers.

• Product placement in TV shows and movies (maybe ET used VOIP on Linux to phone home?), anything. Mac has a huge product placement thing goin' on; I'd figure out what they do and do it (with all the money from the venture capitalists, yes ;> ).

Now, I'm not actually going to do this. Not this year, anyway. Got to finish a book, got to go do some training, and there aren't that many programmers or designers around who will do my bidding. If you decide to do this, though, please remember me, bring me on as your official trainer. Oh, and I want to be on Oprah. ;>

---

---

Tags

StarOffice open source Mark Shuttleworth Jonathan Schwartz Mark Shuttleworth openoffice openoffice cost

Linux/Windows Comparison

Interesting comparison of Linux and Windows, with good points.

http://amcptwo.blogspot.com/2006/03/linux-vs-windows.html

Public Libraries, Open Source, and World Domination

 

NPR's Talk of the Nation had a discussion recently about the future of libraries. The question was: What is the library of the future like? Libraries have had their funding cut right and left, and  the library in Salinas, California, where John Steinbeck lived, was nearly closed.

So needless to say, it's a good idea to think about how libraries can adapt and grow and become the kind of thing you'd never cut the budget for.

I love libraries. I grew up hanging around in libraries for several reasons. I was a standard quiet bookworm. My dad was a librarian for NOAH for 20 years or so, in Auke Bay for the fisheries laboratory where there was a huge tank of wonderfully gruesome things (can't call'em fish). And we always lived out of town so when my parents and I “went into town,” they would drop me at the library while they did errands. I think I can still smell the slightly musty, friendly smell of the Juneau public library, and the Flathead County public library in Kalispell  has the most wonderful collection of old Life magazines. Read old magazines and you'll get a whole new look at history.

The Talk of the Nation program really got me thinking a lot about libraries. There are so many ways they can, and already are, such a great part of society. Many function as community centers, education centers, and of course places to go and use the computer when you don't have one at home. Up the ante and combine them with rec centers, for instance--kids enjoy story hour while parents work out, or vice versa. Explore the scanning technologies to put old books online that of course is being discussed with much controversy currently. Set up enormous web servers to provide online access to wonderful old books. (The aforementioned Life magazines come to mind.) Or enable paperless self-publishing for authors who have their novel and want others to read it; give them (open source) software to create a PDF of the book, and put it in the virtual library.

My particular thoughts on public libraries, though, are in regard to embracing open source. As mentioned, libraries aren't just books but a place to go and use the computer. (Using the computer at the Kalispell library is what got my dad hooked on email and made him decide to buy his first computer, at age 80.) Libraries already are associated with free computer use. So let's take that and go nuts with it.

I am of course not a library expert, I know pretty much squat about how they're run, but I think they're great and can continue to be a huge asset to the world. Some of these ideas are probably impractical, or perhaps already widely implemented, or C) other. And they're actually just as much about how open source could leverage the power of libraries as vice versa.  These are just thoughts I'm throwing out that, in my enthusiastic ignorance, I think could possibly be beneficial to libraries, open source companies, and society in general.

The Goal: More People, More Demand for Services, and Maybe a Little Revenue
The more people use something, the less likely it is to get its budget cut. In theory, at least. The more benefit it provides to the most people, the more secure it is. So that's a goal, get the libraries as crowded every day as Walmart the day after Thanksgiving.

The other idea, which might be an issue based on how libraries are run, is to get a little revenue stream goin'. Plus a little corporate sponsorship. Library experts, if this is crazy talk just let me know.

A First Step: Libraries Web Sites Can Simply Provide Links to Open Source Software.

A really easy step to promote open source software, and drive people to the library web site, would be to just add a page to the library web site that points to all the open source download sites. No need to even offer support—just add a page discussing open source software, how great it is, and pointing to where anyone can download it.

Libraries Can Be the Brick-and-Mortar “Storefront” for Open Source Software.

One of the problems open source faces is that, much of the time, you can't just go to Amazon or CompUSA and pick up a nice shrinkwrapped box. Or even a single CD; forget the shrinkwrap. Libraries can be the brick-and-mortar “store” for open source software.

Why don't open source programs have stores? Well, there's the cost. But if you could find a building that would set up a nice display of your CDs...well, that would work pretty well.

Talk to libraries. Designate a section of the library where you can just walk in and get Ubuntu, RedHat, SuSE, OpenOffice.org, Gimp, and the zillion other programs available. Give them the shelving, if you want. Send the CDs already burned, or send them a couple computers and let users burn the CDs themselves.

Put a banner or sign outside the library to bring people in, of course. Send emails to the local Linux User Groups and have them spread the word.

Mark Shuttleworth has a great idea with his Freedom Toasters, kiosks where you bring your own blank burnable CD and get the open source software of your choice. Take that a step further to institutions that already exist, libraries.

Get Sponsorship From Open Source Companies to Provide Designated Technologists and Software

Coke sponsors public schools and they get exclusive rights to provide their product with lunches and in vending machines.

Who's sponsoring public libraries?

Maybe this is a slippery slope or double-edged sword that's dangerous but I'm ignorant enough to suggest it and think it has potential. ;>

It probably wouldn't be that difficult to get Red Hat, Novell, Sun, and other companies to sponsor library-based open source software availability. How much would it cost each company to even hire a dedicated open source librarian/technologist? According to the postings I see, about $30,000 a year in many places. $50,000 a year would be a very decent salary for someone who knows her way around a computer, in many locations. Another $10k maybe for some extra computers and a LOT of ready-made CDs with their software already burned.

Corporate sponsors could provide their own open source software directly to a large audience for not much money per library. There'd also be great PR for these companies. It doesn't get much better than "Official Supporter of America's Public Libraries and Education for Every Person".

And of course, it's gotta be tax deductible.

I realize that Coke having free rein with its products in grade schools is a double-edge sword, but nobody's going to get diabetes or rotten teeth from open source.

Library-Centered Geek Squad for Help With Installation, Troubleshooting, Etc.
One of the issues with Linux is the perception that if you run into problems, you're on your own. Which is funny since there are zillions of Linux enthusiasts out there, happy to help. But what if, through corporate sponsorship or other means such as organizing the LUGs, everyone could just go to the library to get help with Linux or other open source products? The sponsors could even say that they would provide help simply on a first come first served basis to anyone with their particular software. Just load up the computer and bring it in.

This again relates to potential issues with charging people, but it might be workable to charge a modest rate for this help, too--maybe some basic help is free and extra-technical help you get charged for.

Charge for Shrinkwrapped Software?

Libraries might give away basic CDs of open source software, and charge $30 or whatever the sponsor suggests plus your library's margin, for a shrinkwrapped box with documentation.

Create an Internet Cafe On Site

People go to Internet cafes and pay for overpriced coffee to use computers and the Internet. It's a huge business. Slumping in a purple velvet overstuffed chair is a nice way to spend the day, whether you're doing email, shopping online, playing poker, etc. People will come to the library if they can get that a Starbucks or cool local coffee shop fee. Then of course, set up the computers, loaded with open source software, for public use as well. 

If you want to provide coffee (with due warnings about NOT spilling on keyboards ;> ) and pastries that might be a decent revenue stream. Again, I'm not at all familiar with the rules if any for what libraries can charge for on premises but the premise is that you don't have to pay for anything, just extra stuff if you want to.

Teach Open Source Classes in Libraries

This idea of teaching classes in libraries is nothing new, of course, But it would be a big benefit to open source.

A huge barrier to adoption of open source is that people don't know about it. Or if they do know about it, they think it's difficult. Or else it's just unfamiliarity.

When anyone can go to the library and learn to use the software, and take away a free CD of the software, the barrier is immediately lower.

Getting the Computers for General Use and for Classes

How do you get all the computers you need for all these classes?

The library corporate sponsors can provide some of the computers to have enough for all students, and the corporate-paid technology librarian, and other librarians, can teach the classes.

You don't generally need as fast a computer to run Linux, so head to your local computer rebuilding area, or to your local Linux Users' Group, and collect old desktops and laptops. Stick Linux on'em (consult your Linux User Group for the fastest, lightest-weight install), and you've got lots of cheap computers.

Team up with schools and teach in the evenings, perhaps? Schools are closed in the evenings, and most of them have computers.

See also this article on cheap new computers.

Cross the Digital Divide

With sponsorship from open source companies, free software, and someone to do the teaching, we can try to approach the ideal of equal computer education, which can lead to equal education, period. If anyone in this country can get to a library, get to a computer, and learn to use the software, all for free: that's the gateway to an enormous set of opportunities.

Say...What About Schools and Open Source?????

Well, of course, open source organizations should actively try to sponsor schools, as well. ;>  But I'm talkin' about libraries in this post.

That's What I Think

As I mentioned, I am NOT a librarian, and my dad was a librarian for NOAH, not public libraries. But I love libraries, I love open source, I want to see both succeed, and I think each has benefits for the other.

If you want to read about people who actually know libraries ;>  here are some blogs.

Science Library Pad

Library Clips

Library Stuff

Lorcan Dempsey

Stephen's Lighthouse

Tame the Web

Librarian in Black

Librarian.net

And of course
http://www.ala.org/

---

Tags

OpenOffice.org    open office    OpenOffice.org training    open office training   open source   open source training   Office 12  Linux   Ubuntu   education    Microsoft Office  digital divide  open source    libraries   

TechTarget.com Article: Charts

I've written an article for TechTarget.com about using the OpenOffice.org Writer and Calc chart tools. It basically says, OK, the tools are like trying to find the right candlestick to twist to reveal the secret bookcase, but once you've found the secrets, there are some decent capabilites.

It got slashdotted on Tuesday! Very exciting. Thanks to ScuttleMonkey and Jane Walker for posting it.

Of course, the slashdoterati slammed it six ways from Sunday but no more than the usual slashdot treatment, I think. ;>   Anything with a Nancy Drew intro is going to draw that type of attention in the  slashdot environment. (Though if you've used the chart tools, I think you'll agree that there's a certain validity to the analogy. With, of course, the corresponding "Whoohoo!" feeling when the mystery is solved.)

Let's hear from you on charts!
There's always another way to do charts (or anything), of course. What are your tips for using charts? Especially for some of the hard-core scientific stuff, which I don't do much of (any of...) so I'm not that familiar with what the charts need to do.

What's your favorite chart technique?

---

Tags: OpenOffice.org  open office  OpenOffice.org training  open office training  open source  open source training  StarOffice  Linux   education  database  base 

I Want To Know What You Think I Should Put In My OpenOffice 2.0 Book

Will you be on my OpenOffice.org 2.0 Book Team?

Some of you have seen this page on Amazon for the past, oh, decade. ;> 

Due to weirdness with Amazon, I have not been able to get it off their site.

But! Now I am actually writing it! I've got content, it's goin' fast, it's going to be out by spring.

It's not going to be another 4-pound behemoth—I do like covering everything but there's also an important place for an 80/20, just-the-most-used-features, approach. The OpenOffice.org 2.0 book on Amazon will be around 500 pages and will not include things like master documents, macros, or basically the advanced features that are cool but less frequently used.

I might do an advanced “Part 2” kind of book, like the Core Java folks did with their books. But right now, we're looking at a good solid for-everyone sort of book with emphasis on the basics.

Not to say that it will be nothing but “To make text bold, click the B icon. See illustration at right.” This book will tell you how to do cool stuff, powerful stuff, stuff that will make your job easier and make you, with luck, pump your first in the air and say “I rule!!!”

That's where you come in.
I've got the main content, all the procedures and lessons that need to be in the book. But I've got a section for each chapter or chunk of chapters tentatively titled OpenOffice.org Power Tools.  So for each main topic area I'll include cool powerful, not-overwhelmingly-complicated, widely applicable, power tips.

Things like:

• PDF, of course, including File > Send > Document as PDFAttachment
• Making a template and assigning it to be the one you get when you choose File > New

I want to know what you think would be good additions to those sections. I want the book to really be something people will find valuable and a great resource for all those specific but really essential things that can muck up your day if you can't do them or they're a pain.

So tell me. What has saved your butt with OpenOffice.org? What did you think it couldn't do, that you really needed, and found out it could? (Or maybe you don't know how to do it, but really wish it could?)

Please leave a comment with suggestions. (The comments won't appear immediately; I monitor comments and trackbacks, due to a recent spell of interesting links from the folks peddling films of women with their ponies.) I'll repost this blog periodically to keep getting suggestions.

I'll of course credit anyone with a suggestion I use in the book. (By submitting a comment, you're saying that's OK. blah blah legal blah blah.)

I'll be posting parts of the book, as well, to get feedback. I want it to be clear, readable, fun if at all possible, and of course, really, really helpful.

Thanks!

---

Tags

OpenOffice.org    open office    OpenOffice.org training    open office training   openoffice books   open source books   Office 2007  resource kit   openoffice 2 book   education   OpenOffice.org Resource Kit  workbook  tips    book   

TechTarget Article: Powerful Mail Merge Wizard in OpenOffice.org 2.0

I've grown disenchanted with this tool. I recommend using this approach instead.

http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2007/01/mail_merge_in_o.html

---

I've written an article for TechTarget.com about using the new mail merge wizard in OpenOffice.org 2.0. It's an extremely powerful tool; there's a fair amount of work to get it set up but then you've got a lot of very useful features.

Part 1
Part 2

---

Tags: OpenOffice.org  open office  OpenOffice.org training  open office training  open source  open source training  StarOffice  Linux  mail merge  education  database  wizard 

Migrating Users to OpenOffice.org or StarOffice: Updated

I've updated my steps for migrating a group to OpenOffice.org, with emphasis on the human factors. There are some fun new ideas as well as expanding on some of the old ones. If this is something you're considering, take a look.

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

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.

---

hr />

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

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.

 

---

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  

Fact-Filled Survey of Linux Administrators Shows (Guess What!) Linux Is Cheaper and Quicker to Maintain

The fine folks at Linux-Watch.com have posted an article on this survey. See also the E-Week article on the survey.

"After years of putting up with Microsoft's anti-Linux half-truths in its Get-the-FUD campaign, Linux supporters are finally striking back.

But if that's all this report was, I'd barely bother with it.

What's different about this report from Microsoft's endless series of anti-Linux reports is that it focuses on the hard evidence of uptime, management and software costs, and system administrator costs per server and user. ...

The survey of over 200 responses, from mostly SMBs (small-to-medium businesses) with from less than 20 servers to over a 1000 servers, found that 'Over half of the respondents can provision a new Linux server in less than 1 hour, and 20% can do so in less than 20 minutes. For sites with sophisticated tools, over 75% spent less than 1 hour to provision a new Linux system and one third could provision the OS in less then 20 minutes. None took longer than 5 hours.' "

Show it to your boss. Show it to your reports. Show it to your friends, take it to the LUG. (Not that it's news to anyone who uses Linux.) This is great.

• Get the survey.
  
• Read about people talking about the survey on Linux Watch and Eweek.

---

Tags

OpenOffice.org open office OpenOffice.org training open office training open source open source training Office 12 Linux Windows microsoft Windows server servers administration costs

Mail Merge Labels in OpenOffice 2.0

This post is similar to the big post here on how to do version 1.1 labels, etc. It works pretty much the same way. However, this is a nice little standalone HTML post on how to do labels in 2.0 so you might prefer this.

First, create a database. You can do this by choosing File > New > Database. I've written an article on how to do this if you just want to connect to a spreadsheet, text file, or address book as your data source. I recommend spreadsheets.

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 data source  you created and want to use from the Database dropdown list. (Click the picture to see a larger image.)

3. Select a table, Sheet1 if you're working with a spreadsheet, from the Table list.
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 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.
8. In the Type dropdown list, scroll through the billions of labels. Select the type of label you're using, 8160 Inkjet Address. The label type is on the label sheet or box of labels.

9. Click the Options tab.
10. Select the Synchronize Contents option.

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.

If you need to make changes, like adding spaces, rearranging fields, or changing formatting, do so in the upper left label, then click Synchronize to apply those changes to all labels.
Choose File > Print.
A message will ask if you want to print a form letter. Click Yes.
15. 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.

16. If you want to just print all the labels, choose All.
17. When you're ready, just click OK.

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.

Note: Feel free to use the formatting features. 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.

 

---

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   

Sun is Marketing OpenOffice.org With OpenOffice Tshirts!

You could have knocked me over with a dot. Sun is marketing OpenOffice.org, in a cool way! Check this out. (Click on the links to get the pictures.)

To buy the tshirts, click here.

Or just look at these. These are great. Click the squished-looking ones to see a bigger image.

Stop giving a bully your lunch money.

Compatible with expensive, closed, memory loving software.

By the people, for the people.

 

All tshirts, on bus ad in Redmond.

Side of the bus ad: we do Windows too.

 

Side of the bus ad: Pick a vendor, any vendor.

My own tshirts are here, including "Great free software: No Bills to pay." (I can't claim credit for the slogan but I love it.)

Great office software. No Bills to pay.

OpenOffice.org: Free and Easy.

OpenOffice.org: Proud Sponsor of the Steve Ballmer Frequent Flyer Program.
(Ben Horst came up with this slogan.)

My daddy contributes to OpenOffice.org.

---

Tags

OpenOffice.org open office OpenOffice.org training open office training open source open source training Office 12 Linux Ubuntu education Microsoft Office migration campaign tshirts 

Louis Suarez-Potts Wants Sun to Let OpenOffice.org Go: Corrected

Here's a correction.
------
Here's the story, and a fun blog on the same topic.

Louis Suarez-Potts is essentially play Moses to Sun's Egyptian Pharoah and saying "Let my program go!" All right, maybe Louis isn't in flowing robes outside McNealy's office door, and I sure hope that there won't be a rain of frogs.

Here's the deal. After six years of having StarOffice and OpenOffice.org, the person on the street has never heard of the programs. Though the cool new tshirt campaign is certainly a step in the right direction.

---

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

Doing Calculations in Tables, in OpenOffice Writer

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.

---

---

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

TechTarget.com Article: Connecting to Existing Data Sources Like Spreadsheets

I'm cleaning up my blog's sidebar areas, and categorizing posts. This post is one of the results--linking directly to an article on TechTarget.com.

This is an article on creating an OpenOffice.org datasource that''s actually just a spreadsheet, text file, or address book.

See also the articles on forms in the new OpenOffice.org 2.0 database tool: part 1 and part 2.

See also part 1 and part 2 of an article about creating databases in the new database tool in OpenOffice.org 2.0, and the article on  views in OpenOffice.org 2.0.

---

Tags: OpenOffice, open office, open office, open source, training, openoffice training, openoffice.org training, linux, education, databases

Spending Your Money on Something Important

Office suite software isn't really all that important.

What's important is pretty much anything else. What your organization is doing: research, services, saving lives, preserving order, education. Preserving the rain forest. Rebuilding New Orleans. Job retraining. Heck, you could argue that a good pumpkin pie is essentially more important than software.

OK, the office suite software helps you do all those things I listed and a million more. But I want to point out that our goal in our eight hours a day is not to use software. It's everything else.

All right. So now think about this.

OpenOffice.org is free.

Other office suites are not.

You switch to OpenOffice.org, and you or your organization is suddenly not spending $500, or $50,000, or $5 million on your office suite licenses.

Add up all the other people or organizations who are no longer spending that money on an office suite, and suddenly we're into some serious cash.

Think about how much your city police force spends on office suite software, and about how that money could probably do some good if it were spent on, say, salaries for additional police.

Think about what that research facility down the road spends on software. Compared to the money they spend for their equipment, maybe not much, but it's money probably better spent on upping the salaries for a few poor post-docs than on office suite software.

Think about how much money the federal government spends on office suite software. Now fantasize about how you would redirect that money if you were in charge.

(Almost makes $4,000 toilet seats pale in comparison, doesn't it? OK, toilet seats are already white, but you know what I mean.)

Amazon saved $17 million when they switched to Linux. Same principle--pay less for something that's not part of your core business.

Think about how much your state spends on office suite software for schools, and how many more teachers and books that money could buy.

A lot.

Education is one of the most important places to think about OpenOffice.org. Education is, to put it mildly, important. Plus, third graders aren't likely to complain that they're used to how Word does styles and they don't want to switch. They're open to anything new. And education isn't exactly overfunded. I live in Colorado which is either 49th or 47th in the nation in funding for education.

For educators, here's an interesting article on trends this year, including OpenOffice.org. 

For anyone thinking about upgrading to Vista, here's an important blog. 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.

So just think about the value. Think about how much money you're spending on your office suite, and what you could do with that money that would be more important.

---

Starting Page Numbering on Page 2, and Other Ways to Mix Page Styles 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.

---

Using the Gallery to Set Up Frequently Used Images for UML Diagrams, D&D Maps, and Anything Illustrated

Note: One great source for images is http://www.openclipart.org/.

I've talked about a few things so far in this series on Draw that will give you some pretty decent power for creating flow charts, UML diagrams, and just plain pretty pictures.

• Making your own line ends, including unfilled arrows for UML diagrams
• A grand day out with Draw--getting to know all the new 2.0 features
• 3D extravaganza with Draw

Here's another step that will help the diagram folks in particular.

OpenOffice.org 2.0 has many great prefab shapes but none of them is of a server cluster. What do you do? Other software packages have all the prefab symbols, images, graphics, etc. that you could want. Mmm....feeling the dark side of the force tempting me to come back to Visio...mmm....

 

No need. You can just get the images you need and put'em in OpenOffice.org.

 

We're not going to go into detail and talk about copyright law--let's just say you've got all the rights you need to all the images you're going to use.

 

You collect all the images you want to use in your diagrams in the gallery. Turn on the gallery with the Gallery icon (shows in the top of your work area typically in Writer, and the bottom in Draw).

Then just find the category you want, and drag any of the images into your document. Once it's there you can resize it or do whatever you want. (Click the thumbnail to see a slightly larger image, for this and any other images that are a little small.)

So I'll walk through how this is done.

Adding Images to the Gallery

Let's say you do a lot of system diagrams and it's just not working for you to draw all the symbols from scratch. Go find the images you need; on the Internet, in other documents, whatever. Save them all in a directory called diagramsymbols, or something.

 

Start up OpenOffice.org; we'll do this in Draw. Click the Gallery icon to view the gallery.

 

OpenOffice.org comes with a predefined empty theme called My Theme. Theme is just a directory, basically.

Select it, right-click and choose Properties to rename it and put files in it.

Note: You could click New Theme and get the same results.

 

You'll see the theme definition window. In the General tab, give the theme a good name like Network Symbols. (Click the thumbnail to see a slightly larger image, for this and any other images that are a little small.)

   

Click the Files tab, where you'll add files to the them. The quickest way is to just click the Find Files button.

 

Navigate to the directory where your network symbol graphics are, and just select that directory, not files inside it.

 

Back in the theme definition window, you must also click Add All.

 

The files will be added, so just click OK in the theme definition window once that's done.

Note: To add just one at a time, you would click Add  in the theme definition window, and then navigate to a specific file.

Add the Pictures by Dragging

 

Now you've got pictures in your theme, and you can drag them into any document in Writer, Draw, Impress, or Calc.

In another post, I'll show how to take the gallery, the line ends you've defined, and a little fairy dust (if desired) to create complex diagrams.

---

$100 laptops

Note, January 31 2006: See this update on the process re Microsoft's attempt to get in on it.

This is absolutely fantastic.

I don't usually do "this is cool! go here!" posts but this is  really important.

Here's a blog on it, a news article,  and the MIT web site.

Here's someone who's actually used one  and his review, Andy Carvin.

This is what the story is about.  Everyone talks about the digital divide but nobody does anything about it, to paraphrase Twain. Well, MIT and others are doing something about it.  MIT has unveiled its $100 hand-cranked  laptop computer to the United Nations technology summit in Tunisia. It's hoping to make a bunch more, for the poorest people in the world.

It's running Linux, of course, and I can only assume OpenOffice.org and something like Firefox are also loaded.

The machines are bright green, which is fun, and have wireless.  Plus there's some kind of mesh network for peer to peer, and they crank so you can somehow generate electricity. Kind of like the mythical tv-electricity-generating exercise bike that I think somebody should invent.

Kofi Annan is all about it. When Kofi weighs in, that's important.  "It is an impressive technical achievement, able to do almost everything that larger, more expensive computers can do. It holds the promise of major advances in economic and social development. But perhaps most important is the true meaning of 'one laptop per child'. This is not just a matter of giving a laptop to each child, as if bestowing on them some magical charm. The magic lies within - within each child, within each scientist-, scholar-, or just plain citizen-in-the-making. This initiative is meant to bring it forth into the light of day".

The goal is to provide the machines free of charge to children in poor countries who cannot afford computers of their own.

Governments or anyone who wants to donate will  pay for them; children will own them.

Here's a question--will Bill Gates get involved in this, since he's allll about charitable donations in third world countries? I'm thinking, look for some sort of response out of the northwest.

Brazil, Thailand, Egypt and Nigeria are on the list to receive the first chunk of laptops.

The computers operate at 500 MHz, but since it's running Linux that's not the problem it would be with Windows.

The screen is from a  portable DVD player and you can use B/W or color.

It's slated to be ready in a year or a bit more, when people have ordered and paid for 5-10 million computers.

This is going to have a huge effect on society, possibly politics, very likely women's rights--it's going to be huge.

---

 

Spreadsheet Printing Tips: Hiding, Squishing, Printing Headers, and More

(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.

---

---

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 

---

Calc Quickies

When I have an advanced class that races through the material and gets done early, hungry for more, this is what I teach them.

Quick Fills: Formulas

If you use Excel you know that if you drag a formula, or just about anything, down with that little handle in the lower right corner, you can get what you want without having to type it in.

Same with OpenOffice.org. If you want to have a formula appear in 45 cells of a column, just drag down.

This illustration shows the whole series of steps; click to get the big picture.

Quick Fills: Things That Are Always in Order

Let's say you need one column that start with 1901 and go through 2005. You could type it in, or, since OpenOffice.org knows about numbers and years and all that, you can let the program do it.

Just type 1901 or whatever the starting year is, and drag down.

You can try this for things that aren't in order--just type for instance Beer, Pizza, Ice Cream, select those cells, and drag.

This also works for months, days, and anything else under Tools > Options > Calc > Sort Lists.

Can you make your own sort lists? Excellent question! Of course you can.

NOTE: In StarOffice 8 and OpenOffice.org 2.0, there is no Tools > Options > Calc. It just doesn't exist. The Help says it's there, and it should be there, but it's not. It does work in 1.x and StarOffice 7. So keep looking for it, and try it in 1.x or 7.0.

Making Your Own Sort Lists That Work With Dragging and Sorting

SEE NOTE ABOVE.

These are great. If you have a group of people or departments who need to be listed in a certain order, not alphabetic, or if you just want a quick shortcut for typing, use sort lists.

1. Choose Tools > Options > Calc > Sort Lists.
2. Type the items you want in the order you want them.
3. Click Add.
4. Click OK.

Now you can type the first item in the last and drag down or across in Calc to get the whole list, or use them when you sort.

Complex Numeric Fills

If you want to fill a column or row with something complex like a specific increment or a geometric increment, you'll want to use the fill window.

1. Select the range of cells you want the fill to be in.
2. Choose Edit > Fill > Series.
3. Select the values you want, like the starting value and a specific increment of 7.25.
4. Select the options you want, like Linear or Growth.
5. Click OK.

Selecting From a List

Let's say you're writing up a budget with lots of different rows, but the value in the Department column is always going to be Research and Development, Technical Publications, or Marketing and Advertising. And not in a predictable order so that sort lists are an option. You could type it all repeatedly, you could copy and paste, or you could use the lookup list option.

1. Click in the first cell in the column where you have repeated values.
2. Type Ctrl + D.
3. Select the item you want.

 

Making OpenOffice.org Work the Way You Want It

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.

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.

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.

---

Transitioning a Team of People to OpenOffice.org: Updated 2006

   

Note: See also more specifics on training in my blog. See also this article and this article on the legal aspects of open source licenses. See also this article by Bruce Byfield, but for group migration, please ignore the item on not expecting to need training. ;>

Also see this article for schools by Miguel Guhlin.

One person learning a new program is a simple process. Decide, learn, do. But switching over ten, a thousand, or ten thousand users can be a little more involved. You get a few more things involved:

• One person decides to switch. With 100 users, it's certain that at least one of them didn't want to switch.
• One person can affect the attitude of many others, positively or negatively. If Chris starts working on the new program, learns to use it, and others see that, then they believe they can use it, too. If Chris doesn't try, doesn't learn, and others see her failing, they think they'll fail too.
• And this is before anyone even starts complaining about, or praising, the product. How users talk about the product, especially the dominant people in your organization, really affects it. How the head of marketing talks about it, how the manager of the desktop publishers for your internal publications group talks about it, how Marge in accounting who's been there 20 years talks about it--all that matters enormously.
• Anytime you do something involving a lot of people, whether it's new software or soap or sandwiches, unexpected problems arise. You really can't over-plan a project involving a lot of people.

 

To make the switch as calm, cool, and collected as possible, you need to plan. Plan not just the physical implementation, the installation, but plan the social and mental implementation with the people who will use it. To make a somewhat odd analogy, the issue with the space shuttle problems was not really the foam or the O rings. It was the communication between the engineers and the people who made the decision, and it was the culture that made it OK not to report problems. The physical issues with switching to the software can be handled. The most important thing you can do is make sure the human part of the transition is done well.

Here are a few thoughts based on my experience with the product, and what I’ve gathered doing training for other companies over the last four years.

1. Talk to Other People Who've Done It. Take an OpenOffice.org-Using IT Director to Lunch.
Find others who are or have been in your position, and just find out what their experiences were like. You can learn so much from just talking to other people who’ve adopted the program. Get on the [email protected] mailing list (www.openoffice.org) and find other people in your position who are using OpenOffice.org. Google around the Web; maybe you actually know someone at Ernie Ball Music, for instance (http://news.com.com/2008-1082-5065859.html) and can just go over there at lunch and find out how their transition went. Start or join a Yahoo discussion group just for people who are considering or in transition.

Get as much technical and cultural information from them as possible. Others' experience is really valuable.

2. Make Sure It's Got the Features Your Users Absolutely Need, and See What Additional Features It Provides.
Research how OpenOffice.org works and what it can do. This task can be done by you, by your motivated IT person, or anyone else you assign to or hire for the task. But the thing is, you’ve got some core features that your users absolutely must have, some tasks they complete that they must do but might not have to do the way they’re doing.

The drawing program might allow you to ditch your licenses for Visio or Corel or Canvas or Illustrator. The data source connection features are extremely powerful. Keep an eye out not just on what you already use that you have to have, but on what you can’t do now that you could do with OpenOffice.org.

A note on Excel macros--some people use them to do things that can be done perfectly well with Calc functions. So if you hear that the macros won't convert, ask what the macros are actually accomplishing.

If you don't find a feature at first, check around. Perhaps more than other programs, OpenOffice.org has a high ratio of “stuff it can do” to “stuff you can see that it can do.” For some features, it’s easy when you know how—you just have to know how. So get googling, get a book, get a free doc download from www.openoffice.org, get a little training, go to a seminar, ask the [email protected] mailing list, etc.

Don't be afraid to mix and match. If you Sam and Francine must have some Excel macros for certain spreadsheets, then keep a few licenses. You're looking for the best solution, not necessarily purely all open source all the time.

Find the people at your organization who just love to fiddle with software all day. and ask them (with their managers' permission) to spend some time just dinkin' around. They'll find stuff that everyone else misses, and they'll help start culture that it's cool new software.

There will be at least one very specific thing that users do that you won't expect, that can't obviously be done with OpenOffice.org. (Of course, you can't convert to PDF in Microsoft Office; it's true of any software.) Really pay attention to what the tasks is actually trying to accomplish, rather than focusing on the task itself. There might be a workaround, another feature that does a similar thing, or simply an organizational, non-software solution.

For instance, if Jim really needs to have the flotsam feature, it might be because Dave always asked for documents to be delivered in flotsam format. Dave doesn't actually need it, it's just that that's what he's used to; plus Dave is leaving the organization in a month. Jetsam format might do just as well.

Consider interoperability.  Take a few documents back and forth between OOo and Word, or your office suite. See how it works. Consider, and research, how many documents users receive from Microsoft Office users and need to edit, and how many users need to send to Microsoft Office users, and whether those documents need to be edited. If most or all the documents you need to send out can be sent in PDF rather than Word, you're golden. Or if the documents go between formats nicely, you're also a nice warm yellow.

3. Find Other Sources for the Cute Stuff Word and Publisher Provide
One of the things many users really like doesn't have anything to do with the actual software. They like the goodies. Word’s vast collection of clipart is nice but isn't really all that necessary. You can get similar goodies elsewhere.  The Big Box of Art has a million images and is $60 or so, and then there's the open source clip art library.

For cool templates, remind users that all their current templates can be opened successfully in OpenOffice.org. So all the pretty stuff still works. There are also many OpenOffice.org templates out there. Just google away--here are some on the OpenOffice.org site.

Publisher does not provide any decent export so all the Publisher files will be left behind. But Writer and Draw are decent alternatives, with use of the aforementioned clip art.

4. Time to Get Your Hands Dirty and Convert Some Test Documents
Experiment with the program. Now it’s time to take OpenOffice.org out for a real spin and see what she does on your organization’s documents. Some transitions, especially now with the enhanced compatibility and filters in OpenOffice.org 2.0, go really well. Some have some interesting tweaks to make that, once made, work fine. It all depends on what your docs are like.

Here are some tips on converting documents.
- Hang out in Tools > Options. There are a lot of windows here that can help. Default tab settings are a big factor. Open a text document and choose Tools > Options > Writer > General lets you fiddle with those.  Tools > Options > Writer  > Compatibility is another great window; fiddle with these. Try marking the Printer Metrics option first.   Click the image to see if larger if you like.

Then open a Calc spreadsheet, choose Tools > Options > Calc >  General, and try those settings. Click the image to see if larger if you like.

- Use the Conversion Wizard. You can convert mass numbers of Word files to OpenOffice.org. Choose File > Wizards > Document Converter.

Consider contracting out some of the conversion. If your users don't have to convert it all themselves, they'll be a lot happier.

Don't expect perfect conversion. Even conversion between versions of Word isn't perfect.

Consider which documents you actually need to convert.  If you have a document you provide that doesn't actually need to be changed, just make a PDF of it and leave it as is. (You might need to use another product to make the PDF if it doesn't open nicely in OpenOffice.org.) Or print it or scan it, and leave it as is. 

5. Get the Influential People On Your Side

This is what I was talking about earlier. Once you've got the program kind of figured out, invite the managers and a smattering of "regular users," including the people who other users listen to, to a lunch and learn.

Tell them the advantages, show them the software, show the cool features, let them fiddle with it, and show off the new features that you don't have with your current software. PDF comes to mind, the drawing program (File > New > Draw) comes to mind. Make some labels and mark the Synchronize checkbox on the last tab of the labels window, then show how you can make a change to one labell and click Synchronize to apply that change to all the others.

Ask for their input. Ask about how they will do their jobs day to day with the new software. Make sure you have a good ratio of people who like it, to people who might complain. Tell all the people who are invited that they're an important part of the adoption process (they are), and that you need their input to ensure that OpenOffice.org can help them do their jobs.

Before the lunch and learn, make sure you have buy-in from whoever's at the top of your organization. Make sure that he or she communicates to his reports that they need to show support for the product, or they'll have departments full of dissatisfied users who don't feel like they can do their jobs with the new software. (Nobody wants that in their department.) Have those managers  then show up at the lunch and learn. Not to say "you're using it, get over it," but to show enthusiasm. Have them get a little giggly over the drawing tool (you can do cool 3D stuff) or be overly impressed by the mail merge tool. Not to put on an over-acting show; just to make sure that they demonstrate, as well as state, support and enthusiasm.

Depending on how these go, you might want to have a few.

Another idea to get influential people on board is to give them some say in how the money saved will be spent. If anti-change Sam from Accounting can tell people that he's the one responsible for switching money from the software budget to the health care plan, he might be more enthusiastic.

When you send out reports on the lunch and learn, be sure to mention that Sam, Brenda, and Lucy all had excellent suggestions, and worked hard to provide much-needed input to the IT team.

Consider schwag.  Everyone on the OpenOffice.org Transition Advisory Team (your lunch and learns) gets a mug, a tshirt, something. Make'em on Cafepress.com. Order 15 to get a bulk discount. The schwag could be plain, just the OpenOffice.org logo, or be self-mocking, "I Gave the IT Team a Piece of My Mind" or a pun, "Open to Discussion: OpenOffice.org 2006 Transition Advisory Team."

6. Execute a Transition Plan.
As many people say, just do it. Introduce the adoption schedule and let people know that while you’ll be giving them time, training and manuals and rewards. You absolutely must make sure everyone knows they're not going to be thrown into the new software without help. Make sure they know that there will be help, there will be time, there will be training and documentation.

This is also the time to start transitioning your legacy documents to OpenOffice.org, or planning how it will occur.

The other part of this step is the tough love--make sure that people know it *is* going to happen and no amount of objections will stop it. (You've already done a lot of research and gotten a lot of feedback, so you know at this stage that switching is the right decision.) Make sure people know that Microsoft Office or their other office suite will fall off the face of the earth in three months. (Or whatever your transition timeline is.) The exception to this is if you're keeping the old software around to edit legacy documents. In this case, though, you might want to have that software on selected computers, or do something else to make sure that as of the launch date, everyone is using OpenOffice.org on new documents.

7. Offset Fear and Confusion With Information and Support.

Demonstrate how it works to the people who will be using it. People are usually going to be apprehensive about the idea of change, but you can reduce that considerably just by doing a few seminars, demos, lunch and learns, and other short and reassuring demonstrations of what it’s going to be like. Make sure everyone in the organization comes to at least one session. Show the object bars at the top of each application, for instance. The Word and Writer, and Excel and Calc object bars, look very similar. Then slowly show how a few of the core procedures will be performed. Simply knowing what the change is going to be like, ahead of time, alleviates some fear and change resistance. I’ve seen this repeatedly when I do training.

Give short quick-reference handouts at the end of each presentation, so that everyone has at least a little documentation, before they even touch the software.

Again, consider schwag. Give a magnet, button, sticker, etc. to everyone who asks a question during the presentation. Cafepress.com is a goodplace to do this. The person who asks the most questions (constructive ones) might get a USB drive or a small MP3 player or another prize.

8. Show Appreciation.

People will be happier doing just about anything if you recognize the effort they're putting into it publicly.  In all communications, in training, in demos, etc., be sure to recognize that they will be the ones learning the new product, that this is a significant task, and that you appreciate it.

Another thing you can do is just plain provide rewards. Suggestions include prizes for:

• The department that completely switches to OpenOffice.org first
• The person who logs the most “Cool OpenOffice.org Tips” on the company intranet
• The person who does the most document conversion.

Motivational rewards can be anything--a department pizza party or trip to the waterslides, an extra day off on a three-day weekend, a weekend trip for two to the nearby national park. Whatever works, based on your people and the money you’re saving.

9. Teach Users How to Use the Product.

It's important to have OpenOffice training. The training can take many forms. It can be one book and your in-house open source enthusiast (who will be patient with users who have less experience than he or she does). You can send everyone in the organization to OpenOffice.org training or have someone come onsite to train. You can hire someone to teach your internal trainers. You can obtain OpenOffice.org books, training materials, or both. Make sure that everyone at least has a reference book for the department to use.

Make sure everyone has used the product before they have to start using it. You wouldn't give someone a car who didn't know how to drive. Give'em a chance to learn before they have to do their job.

Make sure that everyone has a CD to use it at home. When I do training, at least half the people in each class want a CD to use at home.

10. Consider an Ongoing Joke or a Big Payoff.
When I was at Great Plains Software, our main architect Dave Gaboury wore a Great Plains Dynamics tshirt every day for a year and a half until our Dynamics product shipped. (He had seven.) Maybe for your Openoffice.org project, the IT head wears the same OpenOffice.org project tshirt until everyone is up and running on the software, or maybe he or she dies their hair green, or tries out for American Idol, if all the departments are up and running successfully by the official transition date.

11. Make the Official Switch.
As promised, make it happen. Take the other office suite off all desktops (unless you still need it some places as noted above). People will use what's familiar, if they can. It's like when I went to France in college--I hung out with my friend Stephanie who spoke French much better than I did. When she left Rennes for Paris for her internship--well, gosh, my French got a lot better when I had to speak it and understand it. Go figure. ;>

---

Tags

OpenOffice.org    open office    OpenOffice.org training    open office training   open source   open source training   Office 12  Linux   Ubuntu   education   Microsoft Office  migrating to openoffice.org  switching to staroffice    switching to openoffice   

OpenOffice.org 1.x Plain Labels and Envelopes: From the GetOpenOffice.org Workbook

 

I wanted to make sure that everyone out there in OpenOffice.org 1.x land knows how to do plain old envelopes and mail merges. (These are just based on text and graphics you specify rather than coming from a database.) Everyone isn't going to be converting to OpenOffice.org 2.0 the day it comes out, so I hope this information will be useful for quite a few people for a while.

Envelopes and labels actually work very similarly in OpenOffice.org 2.0, so don't have any reluctance to learn this approach if it's your first time with labels.

There are no lab files necessary for these exercises; you create all documents from scratch.

Download envelopesandlabels.pdf