OpenOffice.org Training, Tips, and Ideas

Sorting: Sorting by months or days of the week, in date order instead of alphabetical order

All right. It's time to do some really advanced sorting.

Let's say you have a schedule and you want to sort it by day of the week. What's the first day of the week? Monday. But alphabetically it's not first. Friday, for instance, comes before Monday. So here's how to sort by days of the week, months, etc.

You've got your data.

Select it and choose Data > Sort.

Click the Options tab and make the appropriate selection for Range Contains Column Labels.

Now select Custom Sort Order and select the one you want.

Click the Sort Criteria tab and select the column to sort by that contains the corresponding kind of data.

Click OK.

And you get your results.

Wondering "Where did that sort order come from?"

Wondering "Could I perhaps make my own sort order, like President Vice-President Secretary Treasurer or High Card, Pair, Two Pair, Trips, and so on?"

You will have your questios answered in the next installment of Sorting.

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A podcast: Solveig Talks to Barton George from Sun

I ran into Barton George at LinuxWorld in August. Barton develops relationships with the various GNU/Linux communities as well as Sun's relationship with the FSF.

Barton and I chatted about various things; read about them here  and/or listen here.

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Sorting: More powerful sorting using the Sort window

You want to do some good, hard sorting. Not just sorting by the first column, but by perhaps the third column. Maybe you want to sort first by state, then by city, then by last name. For that, you need the Sort window under Data > Sort.

You have your data.  Select all the data to sort, and either select the headings or not. You're good either way.

Choose Data > Sort.

Click the Options tab. You need to tell Calc whether you've got headings selected or not. If you've got headings selected, you want the option shown, "Range Contains Column Labels," to be selected. If you didn't, unmark it.

Now click the Sort Criteria tab. If you selected headings you'll see the headings themselves; if you didn't then you'll just see Column A, etc. Select the column to sort by, and Ascending or Descending.

Click OK.

You get your results. Here, the amounts under the column for the year 2000 are sorted in ascending order.

Now, let's look at a different set of data. You have a lot of people from the same state, and several cities per state. In this case you might want to just sort by last name, but you could also group by location. So you'd sort by state (the broadest category), then city, then alphabetically by last name. Click the image to see more detail.

Select the data, with or without headings, and choose Data > Sort. In the Options tab, be sure to select the Range Contains Column Labels option if you selected headings.

In the Sort Criteria tab, select first State, then City, then Last Name.

Click OK.

You get your results. Here's a closeup of one section, followed by the complete data. Click either to see them closeup.

This window that I've covered in this blog entry is pretty much what you need. If you want to go a little farther and sort by something else, like days of the week in the order they come, not alphabetical order, tune in for the next sorting blog.

IBM's already making a difference: publicity about new office suites

Here's the article, on CNet.

"After years of watching Microsoft rake in billions of dollars from its desktop software franchise, its competitors are pouncing.

IBM on Tuesday announced the release of Lotus Symphony, a suite of free desktop applications based on the OpenOffice.org open-source product...." and so on.

Now, this article is about seven years too late since Sun had StarOffice out there a while ago. But Sun didn't....really....go gangbusters marketing StarOffice. There were the tshirts and bus ads, yes, a year or so ago, but not much else that I saw.

Let's hope the publicity, and recognition of OpenOffice.org and its variants, continues!

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OpenOffice.org 2.3 has been released!

http://www.openoffice.org/

This is the version with the new charting tool. See blogs here and here.

Also, take a look at this. I will be writing about it soon.
It's a fancy new report writer tool extension.

http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/reportdesign

 

And it seems like that would be enough, but today is also a day to, well, note (certainly not celebrate, that would be unsportsmanlike ;> ) that the EU has upheld its judgment against Microsoft, and the big ol' fine.

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Sorting: Your basic everyday sorting

In the mood of fall cleaning and to celebrate having gotten my office organized, I'm going to blog this week about sorting. Today, it's just basic run-of-the-mill sorting using the sorting icons on the toolbar.

Let's say you've just got this list, and you want to sort it alphabetically.

Select it, without selecting any data you don't want sorted.

Click either the A-Z or Z-A icon.

You get your results.

Be sure not to select any headings, i.e. the word Employee in this case, or you get this result, which you don't want.

What if you have something like this, though? Something with multiple columns.

Here's the thing. Selecting, say, the 2000 column and clicking a sort icon will NOT give you good results. It will sort just the data in the 2000 column and leave all the other data behind. So all of a sudden your data is wrong.

You cannot specify the column to sort by, using the simple sort icons. That's covered in my next blog entry on sorting.

Here's what you can do. You can sort by the first column in the data set. You select ALL the data, again without the headings.

You click the sort icon you want.

And you get your results; the data is sorted by the first column. That's your only choice.

If you had selected just one column, the data would be goofed up.

For more control over sorting, tune in for the next sorting blog.

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Educators, this is for you! The first K-12 Open Minds (open source software) conference is October 9-11, 2007 in Indianapolis, Indiana.

The first K-12 Open Minds conference is going to be held October 9 - 11, 2007, in Indianapolis, Indiana. The kick-off reception is Tuesday, the 9th, with the regular conference sessions on Wednesday and Thursday, the 10th & 11th.

The Open Minds Conference is the first national K-12 gathering for teachers, technicians and educational leaders to share and explore the benefits of open source in education. Virtual Learning Environments that provide 24X7 access to teaching and learning resources, cutting-edge and easy-to-use desktop applications, coupled with powerful management tools and low-cost computer strategies make the classroom of tomorrow available today!

Schools around the United States and the world are discovering the the benefits of open source software. In Indiana alone, over 100,000 students use open source software every day. Not only does open source save money, it allows schools to extend the benefits of technology more broadly, affording a better education to students.

I think this is the must-attend event of the year relating to Free and Open Source Software in K-12 education.  There are currently over 55 planned conference sessions, covering a the use of Linux and Open Source use in classroom, teaching, technical, and leadership aspects.

The individual registration fee is $100, or $89 each for groups of three or more. Register on the website or call Anthony Yanez, Registration Coordinator, at 800.940.6039, extension 1348.  Compared to other conferences I've been to, this is a huge bargain.

This is a great opportunity to really find out how much you can benefit, and how much money you can save, by using open source software. And of course to learn enormous amounts about using the software.

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Back to School: Creating cute graphic-filled borders in OpenOffice Writer like you can in Microsoft products

One of the nice things about Microsoft products is that they have a lot of prefab goodies.  OpenOffice.org is a little more of a from-scratch situation. But you have much more flexibility, and you can still do a lot of great stuff. It's not easy, at least not using this approach, to add borders all around, but you can do it in the top and bottom.

Step 1: Add graphics to the gallery.
You can find lots of great graphics on the Internet by googling for "free clip art." For the purposes of borders, keep an eye out for graphics that are small, i.e. under an inch by an inch, and also that have some white space around them.

Step 2: Learn to use the feature documented here.
I'll also describe it in this blog but that's another one that talks about using it in general. Can't hurt to skim that blog.

Step 3: Use this blog entry to add top and bottom headers and footers with any appropriately sized graphic in your gallery.

NOTE: To take out the repeating background borders in this blog, use the instructions here or just Undo (Ctrl Z or use the Undo icon) to go back to not having a background border.

How to Create Graphical Top and Bottom Borders in the Header and Footer

First, open your document.

Turn on the header and footer. Choose Insert > Header > Default, then Insert > Footer > Default.

You now have headers and footers. The graphics will repeat in the background of each to create the graphical border.

Next, turn on the Gallery by choosing Tools > Gallery or clicking the Gallery icon.

Find a category you like, then find a graphic you want to use. Drag the graphic into the document to see how big it is, if you don't know. This one, for instance, is too big. To delete it, just select it so that the green handles are showing, in the document, and press Delete on your keyboard. You can also press Ctrl Z or use the Undo icon.

This one is better. It's a good size, plus there's some white space around the graphic so that when it tiles, you won't see part of another row of the graphic.

Delete the graphic from the document once you know which one you're going to use.

Click in the header.

Right-click on the graphic, in the gallery, and choose Insert > Background > Header.

The graphic will appear, repeating, but not all of it will show at first.

Click in the header and press Return once or more times to add more space, to show the entire graphic.

If part of the graphic is showing on the right side, click in the header and move your mouse over the ruler, at the edge of the right margin. When your mouse becomes a 2-ended arrow, click and hold down, and drag to the left or right to show the amount of graphic you want.

Then only whole graphics will show.

Then click in the footer, and do the same thing. Insert the same graphic, or another graphic if you want, in the background of the footer, then adjust it as necessary the same way you adjusted the header.

Choose File > Page Preview to see the document.

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IBM's coming to the OpenOffice.org party

Information Week puts it very nicely.

IBM's participation could make OpenOffice.org a more serious threat to Microsoft's stranglehold on the productivity software market.

Here's what I think. Benefits:
- Money
- Connections to a zillion enterprises across the world
- Money
- Name recognition among end users, which Sun doesn't have
- Money
- It's entirely possible they'll be throwing some marketing dollars behind OpenOffice.org

But here's something else. People who hear of OpenOffice.org think "Why is it free?" "What's open source?" "What's up with this craaaaazy communist kind of software development?" My point is, there's  nervousness surrounding something that's free and open source and not Controlled. (Anyone with experience with normal controlled software projects knows that's no guarantee of success, a good product, releasing on time, releasing at all, etc., but that's a separate issue.)

IBM has such a buttoned-down, conservative, reliable, "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" image that that might be the single biggest advantage about IBM's participation.

As the old Klingon saying goes, "Only Nixon could go to China." Perhaps only IBM could get OpenOffice.org on 51% of desktops.

Read more:

Desktop Linux

Information Week

Getting a Picture from a Document Into the Gallery

I've already written about how to get a graphic from a file on your computer into the Gallery. But how do you get a graphic you like, that's just sitting in some OpenOffice document, into the Gallery? You could just copy it and paste it from that document to others, but putting it in the Gallery is more convenient.

1. Open the document containing the graphic.

2. If the gallery isn't showing, open the gallery by choosing Tools > Gallery or clicking on the Gallery icon.

3. Select the theme, the category you want to put the graphic in, in the gallery.

4. If you want to make a new one, click New Theme. Type the new name and click OK. Then select that theme in the Gallery.

5. Select the graphic. Release the mouse.

6. Click and hold down, and keep holding down on the graphic, for at least two seconds. Don't release the mouse, and drag the graphic into the gallery.

7. The graphic will appear in the gallery, at whatever location is set up as your gallery location, in a subdirectory for draganddrop.

You can set or change your gallery paths here. Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Paths.

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Making Illustrated Callouts With Clip Art From the Gallery, and the OpenOffice Callout Drawing Tools

I love the callouts in OpenOffice.org. I also love that they're available in Draw, Impress, Writer, and Calc.

To get started, just choose View > Toolbars > Drawing. If there isn't a checkmark next to the Drawing option, select it.

Now look for the Drawing toolbar. It usually appears at the bottom of your work area.

Adding a Graphic

You can choose Insert > Picture > From File to add a graphic if you know where it is. Or just choose Tools > Gallery to turn on the picture gallery, and drag in a graphic from there. Click here to learn more about using the Gallery, including adding graphics to it.

Adding a Callout

You can choose Insert > Picture > From File to add a graphic if you know where it is. Or just choose Tools > Gallery to turn on the picture gallery, and drag a graphic into your document.

1. Be sure you've got the Drawing toolbar on, according to the instructions at the top of this blog.

2. Find the Callouts icon.

3. Click and hold down on the black triangle to the right of the Callouts icon.

4. Click on the tool you want. Move your mouse into the drawing area.

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5. Click and hold down, drag your mouse down and to the right (or up and to the left) and you'll see the callout being drawn.

6. Release the mouse, the callout you drew appears.

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7. Select a different fill color for the callout.

8. Select different line width, style, and color for the callout.

9. Double-click in the graphic; the cursor will appear.

10. Type the callout.

11. If the text is too big, click the callout border, find a handle, and drag the handle to resize the callout.

12. Double-click in the callout to select the text so you can change the font, then select a font from the dropdown window.

13. Drag the point of the callout to where it needs to be; it will change sides if necessary. Alternately, drag the callout to a different position in relation to the graphic.

And you're done!

From Draw or Impress: Exporting the Graphic to Reuse Later (for Use in the Gallery, on a Web Page Like This Blog, or Any Other Reason)

You can copy and paste to Writer or Calc. However, if you want to add your graphic with callout to the Gallery, put it in a web page, or anything else more reusable, do this.

Select everything you want to export. You can select everything manually, press Ctrl A, or just draw  a box with your mouse (not the box tool) completely around the items to select.

Choose File > Export.

Specify the location to export to and name the file. Select the format, not HTML but JPG, PNG, or something similar.

Click Save.

If a message prompts you to make some choices, either click OK accepting the options, or make your choices. For instance, with JPG, the highest number is the best quality.

 

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Creating a Dropdown List in Calc That References a Range of Values Elsewhere in the Spreadsheet

I just started using feature this recently, for my LinuxWorld presentation. It's very nice. Anytime you can reference some text, rather than embedding it in the formatting, it's good.

Some background: under Data > Validity, you can control what people can enter in spreadsheets, and offer them help in the form of lists, help tips, etc.

I wrote about the Validity tools here

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

and elsewhere on my blogs. However, what I haven't talked about yet is how to make a dynamic list.

Let's say you've got a spreadsheet documenting the year's performance for the 120 people in your company, one sheet for each person. They're summarizing what they've done this year, and you want them to list the projects they've worked on. You would like to list the Official projects rather than having them type in whatever. So you want a dropdown list. Howeve, you don't want to have those projects typed in that dropdown list because then if you change it, or use this spreadsheet next year, you'll have to correct the list 120 times. (You can copy and paste, but still.)

So you make a list of the projects that references a cell range in a sheet called Projects, say, and all you need to do is update that one cell range to make all the lists update.

Here's how you do it.

1. Click in the cell where you want the list to appear. If you want the list in multiple cells, select multiple cells.

2. Choose Data > Validity.

3. Select Cell Range in the list.

4. Type the range. To type a range in the same sheet , type something like this:

$F$1:$F$20

You need the $ to make the reference absolute.

If the range is in a different sheet, add the absolute sheet reference in front, like this.

$Projects.$F$1:$F$20

5. Click OK.

Then if you need to, just change the contents of the cell range and the list updates. Previous entries in those spreadsheets containing entries no longer in the list do not change.

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Taking Your Microsoft Office Templates, and Making Them Available in OpenOffice.org or StarOffice

If you have a bunch of Microsoft Office templates that you love, you can just choose File > Open in OpenOffice.org to use them. However, if you want them to be available in the wizard when you create a new presentation, or available from File > New > Templates and Documents in OpenOffice.org, you need to do two things: convert them to OOo format, and put them where OOo expects to find them.

Converting Your Microsoft Office Templates to OpenOffice.org/StarOffice 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: Approach 1
(Use Approach 2 if this doesn't work)
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.

Pointing to Templates to Use: Approach 2 (Usually Need to Do This for Impress)
1. Copy the directory of converted copies.
2. Paste it into this directory:
openoffice\share\template\en-us (or whatever your language is)
3. If they don't show up in the wizard, restart OpenOffice.org and your computer if necessary

If You Only See One of the PowerPoint Templates That You Converted, in the OpenOffice Wizard
See this entry.

For More Information on Templates
For more information on templates, see this post, which includes this information.

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Opening CSV and .TXT delimited files as spreadsheets in OpenOffice.org Calc

How do you open this

as this?

If you just choose File > Open, a text file will open in Writer.

Here's how to open it as a spreadsheet.

Choose File > Open.

In the File Type list, select Text CSV. The easiest thing is to click in the file type list and type T four times.

Then select the file you want and click Open.

You'll see this window. It might not look right at first.

So be sure to select the right delimiter (and deselect the wrong ones) in the Separated By section.

If it's a fixed-width file, select Fixed Width then drag the field separator to the right spots.

Click OK. You'll see the file in spreadsheet format.

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Very nice features in the gallery for putting graphics in the background on OpenOffice Writer

I learned this while training the fine folks at the Bainbridge Island School District. And man, it just goes to show that I should listen more to my own advice, which is:

When in doubt, right-click.

Here's the Gallery. It's a wonderfully customizable convenient area for storing images or video. (OR VIDEO.) There's not much in it but you can add whatever you like, using whatever legal clipart you can find anywhere. One excellent site is  http://www.teacherfiles.com/clip_art.htm

(Click any of these graphics to see them bigger.)

Click the Gallery icon or choose Tools > Gallery to add or show. It looks like a little framed picture, five from the left below.

Here are directions for using the gallery, including adding to it.

To add a graphic from the gallery to your document, just drag it in.

Now, a seemingly different topic. It's ever so slightly complicated, not really but not wildly obvious, to add graphics to the background of a document.

To put just one graphic in the background of whatever text it's by, you right-click on it and choose Wrap > In Background.

Now it's in the background.

To fade it, you click on the graphic, and in the Picture toolbar that appears, type 50% or more in the Transparency field and press Enter.

In another approach, to put a graphic in the background of the paragraph, or in the background of the entire document or at least all pages in the document with the current page style applied, you choose Format > Page or Format > Paragraph,  click Background, select Graphic, browse for the graphic, specify Tile Position or Size, and click OK.

To add it to the background of the header or footer, just click the Header or Footer tab of that same page style window, and click More.

Hey. There's an easier way, with the gallery. THERE IS A CATCH WHICH I EXPLAIN AT THE END OF THIS BLOG. NOT A BIG CATCH FOR MOST PEOPLE, BUT THERE IS A CATCH.

Show the gallery. Choose Tools > Gallery or click the little gallery icon.

Find the theme you want, the category at the left.

Find the picture you want.

Right-click on the graphic and choose Insert > Background> Page, Background or Header/Footer.  NOTE THAT THE DEFAULT FOR THIS IS FOR THE GRAPHIC TO APPEAR REPEATEDLY TO FILL THE AREA YOU SPECIFY.

To get the Header or Footer option, you need to have clicked in the header or the footer.

(To turn on a header or footer, choose Insert > Footer > Default or Insert > Header > Default.)

And there you are. It appears as it should based on your choice.

Background of page

Background of paragraph (sometimes it doesn't fit that well, so the first approach I mentioned earlier is better.)

Background of a header or footer. Note that if the graphic is big as shown the graphic won't all show at first.

So just click in the header or footer and press Enter to add space til the graphic shows sufficiently.

Undoing

If you want to undo it, then either press Ctrl Z or click Undo as many times as necessary, or

1. Choose Format > Page or Format > Paragraph, and click the Background tab.

2. Select Color instead of Graphic in the list at the top.

3. Select No Fill and click OK.

Issues
Now, the only thing is that:

- You can't fade it using this approach; you need to make the graphic file itself lighter.

- It repeats, it tiles, by default. To modify it:

     Choose Format > Page, Background tab and choose Position or Area instead. Position just puts it in one place, Area changes the size and aspect ratio of the graphic to fill the area.

    Choose Format > Page, Header tab or Footer tab, then click More and ditto above.

   Choose Format > Paragraph, Background tab, and ditto above.

Pretty dandy, eh?

ONE BIG FAT WARNING ABOUT THIS.

This does not STAY in the document if you save it in .doc format. You MUST save it in .odt format. Otherwise it will go away.

If you add graphics to the background of the header, footer, paragraph, or page, you have the exact same problem. Somehow Word format doesn't like background graphics.

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Darkening the OpenOffice Impress or Draw Grid, and Changing the Increments

I was going to blog about this straight-up, but then I thought, hey, I've got this already in my book. So I've posted an excerpt from the book, a three-page PDF of the instructions for using the grid, plus darkening the grid and increasing the number of increments. 

The instructions are for Draw but apply to Impress as well; when you choose Tools > Options as in the instructions, just choose either Draw, or Impress, whichever application you want to modify the grid for.

Download grid.pdf

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Addon tools for OpenOffice.org Writer

I received this information a while ago and have been meaning to blog about it for some time.

http://nothickmanuals.info/doku.php/writertools

After a cursory look, it's a set of macros that provide the following tools:

• Lookup Tool allows you to lookup the currently selected word in several online references, including Cambridge Dictionaries, WordNet, and Google Define.
• Google Translate allows users to quickly translate selected text fragments between different languages using the Google Translate service.
• Show on the Map tool allows you to select a city, a street name, or a postal code and map it using the Multimap service.
• Email Backup can be used to quickly send a backup copy of the currently opened document to a specified email address.
• Multi-format Backup macro saves the currently opened Writer document in the Word, RTF, and TXT formats. The backup files are stored in a separate folder with a date stamp. On Linux, the macro also archives the resulting folder using the tar utility.
• Remote Backup allows you to quickly save a backup copy of the current document on a FTP server.
• Convert to DokuWiki converts the current document into DokuWiki format.
• Start/Stop Timer tool can be used to keep tabs on time spent on the currently opened document and save the time data (the document name, used time, and date) in the accompanying WriterDB database.
• Word Hunt Game is a simple game, where you have to guess the word randomly picked by Writer.
• Word of the Day tool picks and displays a random word and its definition from the from the accompanying WriterDB database. As a writer, you may often come across a new word or an interesting expression. The WriterDB database allows you to store your language findings in one place, while the Word of the Day tool helps you to keep them active in your memory.
• Add to Basket tool copies the currently selected text fragment into the basket table in the WriterDB database. It’s perfect for storing notes and text snippets.

The web site states that the Writer’s Tools extension is released under GNU GPL and that Writer’s Tools is very much a work in progress.

Once installed, you get this menu.

The lookup tool, for instance, gives you this window at first:

You then get this window or a similar one with the results.

Converting to docuwiki looks like this:

I got an error trying to use the add to basket feature. I might or might not have fully set up the database correctly.

Here's the first window of the translation feature:

And the results.
Places to Stay and Things to Do was translated into Plätze zum zu bleiben und Sachen zum zu tun by Google.

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Printing Envelopes in OpenOffice.org Writer (Repost)

I ran into Christian Einfeldt at Linuxworld, who mentioned that he had some questions about printing  envelopes. It's a good perennial topic, so I'm rereposting.

(Originally posted December 2, 2005)

I get a lot of questions about envelopes. A lot. I wrote an article for TechTarget.com about how to do envelopes in OpenOffice.org 2.0.

I included some templates there; here are the same envelope templates for OpenOffice.org 2.0.

• Envelope template, not hooked up to a data source, using frames
• Envelope template, not hooked up to a data source, not using frames

The article is long and detailed. Here are the key points.

• You need to get to know your printer and let it know to expect envelope shapes, not letter or A4 shapes.

• You also need to fiddle around for a while and figure out where--left, right, perpendicular, parallel--in the tray your printer expects envelopes. Buy a box of cheap envelopes and expect to waste a few while you experiment.

• Then make sure that your envelope document is set up to print to the envelope size your printer is expecting. Envelope 10 is good.

• You can type in your data for the envelope or use a data source. My article goes over both.
• The simplest way is to just choose File > New > Envelope, then Format > Page Size and instead of Letter or A4, choose Envelope 10 and change the orientation to landscape.  Then either with standard margin formatting or with frames, put the text where you want.
• As another way to create the envelope document, you can also choose Insert > Envelope, and use the three-tabbed window that appears.
• Print the envelopes separately from your letter or other document that goes with the envelope. It complicates things too much with the paper size that the printer expects.

Then just print the envelope. (If you're using data sources, click Yes in the dialog box that appears asking if you want to print a form letter.)

The next time you want envelopes, just use that same document you already created, and change the addresses. Either save the document in myimportantdocuments\envelopes, or if you're a template kind of person, make it a template. (File > Templates > Save, select a category and name the template, then choose File > New > Templates and Documents and pick your envelope template.

Note: Doing it in 2.0 is quite similar to how to do it in OpenOffice.org 1.1. Here are my posts how to do that; they're excerpted from my OpenOffice.org workbooks.

• OpenOffice.org 1.x Mail Merges, Envelopes, and Labels
• OpenOffice.org 1.x Plain Labels and Envelopes

Tip on Printer Setup
Some of the pain of envelopes is the printer setup. Here's a GREAT tip from Miriam:
"I just read your envelope printing tip. Instead of constantly changing and checking the printer settings, I add another instance of the printer, configure it for envelopes and name it "envelope." When I want to print an envelope I choose this printer instead of the default one. That way my settings are always the same."

Envelope Mantra
Here's the other main point I want to make sure everyone understands.

Envelopes aren't too bad once you figure out how to do it the first time. Honest.

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A Huge Printable PDF Article on Advanced Report Techniques, Including SQL-Based Calculated Fields on Reports

I realized that while this was published on TechTarget, I hadn't made much of a big deal of it here.

Here it is. Lots of fun, techy stuff about reports. Here's the TOC.

A Quick Review of the Report Writer Tool

What You Can Do in the Query Design Tool and SQL View

What You Can Do With Report-Specific Fields

Quick-and-Dirty Reports

Creating Your Own Reports Using the Next Record Field

Powerful Reports Can Be Fun....If You Enjoy Getting Your Hands Dirty

 

Here's the link. It's a big PDF.

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Pump up the Format Paintbrush with a double-click

I sometimes wish I could just format my documents with mind control. But until I develop that power, there are several options. Styles. The toolbar. And to speed things up once you've done things right, the Format Painbrush icon.

So. This is how it usually works.

You have some text. You format one part of it the way you want. It's got maybe three or four different formatting attributes, so a pain to do it over and over again.

So you select the piece that's formatted

And click the Format Paintbrush icon once

And move your mouse to another word (you see the effect of the Format Paintbrush icon because your mouse pointer is now a paint bucket)

And select it, and you get the same formatting. But nowyou're done. You have to click the Format Paintbrush icon again to get more formatting juice.

So to keep formatting as long as you want, then select the formatted text like you normally would, then doubleclick the Format Paintbrush icon.

Then keep selecting as many words or letters as you want to have formatted the same way as the text you selected.

Click the Format Paintbrush icon once when you're done to stop the formatting.

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Correcting a Small Annoyance: OpenOffice Calc Spreadsheet Cells Don't Wrap By Default, Plus Making a Spreadsheet Template

Me, I like cell contents to wrap.

This is wrapping.

This is not wrapping.

This is more not wrapping.

So, wrapping is nice.

You can make cell contents wrap by selecting one, two, five, or all the cells, then choosing Format > Cells, clicking the Alignment tab, and selecting the Wrap Text Automatically option.

But then, when you cut the contents out of a wrapped cell, those wrapping attributes aren't applied any longer. This is a small point but one I find annoying. Look at this first example, where I applied the Wrap formatting to alllll cells in the spreadsheet.

Now here I cut out the middle item, paste it to the right, and type in the empty cell. The Wrap formatting left along with the contents.

Correcting the Problem
There are a few ways to get around this. Here's one way. Just redefine the cell Default Cell Style to be wrapped.

- Choose Format > Styles and Formatting.
- Right-click on Default and choose Modify.

- In the Alignment tab, select Wrap Text Automatically.

- Click OK.

Now forever and ever, for that spreadsheet, all cells will wrap period. (You can overwrite them on a cell by cell basis if you like.)

If you want to set up allllll  new spreadsheets to be like this so you don't need to redefine the default style for every new spreadsheet, do this.

- Create a new spreadsheet.
- Define the default style as wrapping as shown in the last set of instructions. Before you click OK, set up any other formatting that you want to always be there by default. For instance, you might want the font to be different.

Or you might want the number format to be always a specific, different format.

- Click OK.

- Choose File > Templates > Save.

- Select the My Templates category (or another if you want) and name the template something obvious.

- Click OK.

- Choose File > Templates > Organize.

- In the left-hand pane, open the category you choose previously when saving the template. Find the template. Right-click on it and choose Set as Default Template.

- Click Close.

Now, when you create a new spreadsheet, it'll be based on that template you created: cells will all wrap, they'll all have the font you wanted, etc.

To go back to the regular way of creating new spreadsheets, just choose File > Templates > Organize again, right-click on the template, choose Reset Default Template > Spreadsheet.

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Important Note on OpenOffice Writer Styles

I was talking to my friend Simon the other day (who's a fabulous flight instructor and photographer in the Denver area, plus Java instructor) about what to present at LinuxWorld.

We were talking about styles and how that's something that can help people be more efficient. The conversation turned to list styles, and I mentioned that list styles and paragraph styles are totally different. List styles contain only list attributes, no text or paragraph formatting attributes. Simon's jaw dropped, he was very surprised. So I decided to make sure that was clear here.

Background
To apply, create or modify styles, choose Format > Styles and Formatting. Select the right category of style at the top: paragraph, character, frame, page, or list/bulleting.  Select text then double-click the style you want to apply.

To create or modify, just right-click on the white area and choose New, or right-click on an existing style and choose Modify.

Specifics on List Versus Paragraph Styles 

List styles, list formatting, is all about attributes of the list. Indenting of the list. Bullets or numbering of the list. Etc. You cannot control the font through the list formatting window.

And here are the attributes you can apply to paragraph styles.

To apply font formatting and list formatting to a list, using styles, you apply a paragraph style AND a list style. The following screen shot shows the paragraph style that's applied, then the list style that's applied.

This paragraph style is applied to the list.

And this list style is also applied to the list.

Now, applying two styles is a bit extra work so you can link the two styles. If there's a paragraph style that you only use with lists, then you can say, hey, whenever I apply this paragraph style, then also apply this list style.  Then you don't have to take the extra step of applying the list style; that'll happen automatically. However, remember that this happens ALL the time, so you want to do this only with a paragraph style that is ALWAYS applied to lists.

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Useful OpenOffice Calc Formulas and Related Tricks

First of all: if you want some great tips on using OpenOffice.org formulas, go to www.openofficetips.com or http://www.richhillsoftware.com/  (same site).

But here are some that I think are useful: formulas, related items, and calculations built into Edit > Paste Special.

FORMULA -- you can display the formula for any cell.   

=FORMULA(B6) shows you the formula from B6. 

To display formulas by other means, choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Calc > View, and under the Display area, choose Formulas.

To copy and paste only cells that contain  formulas, copy, then choose Edit > Paste Special. Select only Formulas and click OK.

Paste Special, using the Operations section.

You can add, subtract, multiply, or divide values of one set of cells with another.

Here's an example of adding.
- You have two sets of cells.

- Copy a set of cells.

- Select the other set of cells and choose Paste Special.

- In the window that appears, choose All in the left column, then under Operations choose Add.

- Click OK.
- The cells you copied are added to the cells you pasted.

Here's what before and after for division look like. The second set of numbers, that you paste onto, are divided by the ones you copied.

Copy one set


The second set is divided by the first set

ISBLANK returns TRUE if a cell is blank.

This isn't as flashy, but ISBLANK(cellreference) or ISBLANK(cellrange) can be used for error checking or just seeing if you've got blanks where you shouldn't. For a cell range, it would be something like =ISBLANK(A5:A55).

INFO is a slightly obscure but perhaps useful formula.

Here are the possible values. Click the F(x) icon on the main toolbar, double-click the INFO formula and you'll see this window.

Here are some example values.

 

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Dropdown lists in OpenOffice.org Calc

Dropdown lists are a mainstay of many spreadsheets and forms. They help you control what people can enter, as well as giving them ideas for what types of things they might say.

You can make dropdown lists in a couple ways, at least, in OpenOffice.org. The simplest way is to use the tools accessed under Data > Validity. The lists are easy to make, plus you can easily use the values in formulas. In the following illustration, the value in B2, selected from a dropdown list, is referenceable in another cell.

Another way you can use the values in the dropdown list (among many) is to concatenate them. Click the following illustration to see it larger. The formula

=CONCATENATE(B2;" is an excellent source of information.")

sucks in the text in the dropdown list in B2.

So how do you make this list? I'll tell you.

1. Click in the cell where you want the list.

2. Choose Data > Validity.

3. In the list at the top, choose List as the type of information.

4. Select the various options you want.

- Allow blank cells: just what it sounds like. This means you don't have to select a value from the list, but if you type even one blank space, you can get the error message. More on that later.
- Show selection list: you definitely want this. What's the point of a list if you don't see it? Plus, then it's hard to figure out which cell has the list, to go back and modify it. (To modify an existing list, just select it and choose Data > Validity again.)
- Sort entries ascending: alphabetical order sorting. If you don't mark this, the items appear in the order you entered them.

5. Type the items you want in the list. Just press Enter to get to each new line.

6. Click OK. You'll see the list. Select something from the list. However, note that you can still type something that's not in the list, in addition to selecting something in the list.

7. If you want to require that people only enter something from the list, you need to do one more step. (You didn't have to click OK at that point; I just had you do that to show you the effect of not setting an error alert.) Select the cell where the dropdown list is and choose Data > Validity again.

8. Select the Error Alert tab.

9. You need to select the Show Error Message checkbox, select an error type (Stop is what you want to enforce selection of an item from the list), and optionally type the error title and error content.

10. Now click OK again.

11. Now when you try to type something different in the list, you get the error message you created.

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Why Open Source Matters: A Larger View

When I teach, one of the most common questions about OpenOffice.org is "How can it be free?"

I answer with a hodgepodge of topics from "Sun wanted to piss off Bill Gates" to "you know how your printer is really cheap but the cartridges are more expensive?" to "well, when geeks go home and want to relax, they don't play volleyball, they code." And I vow to read The Cathedral and the Bazaar when I get home.

I'm traveling soon so I'll be able to fulfill that vow before my next training class. Before I delve into the official or popular views of open source software, however, I'm going to open up the chest of my own opinions. Here's one thought. Software development is an odd combination of useful for mass numbers of people, and fun for others to develop. Usually, things that are fun enough to do voluntarily are not that useful to other people.  There might not be as much of a benefit to millions of people from group collaboration in, say, acting or singing or lounging around in the back yard -- other more traditionally enjoyable activities. But there are enough people who enjoy, or are significantly rewarded by in nonmonetary forms, software development, to create a lot of usable software. And it's far more useful for the rest of us to have a free office suite, than for a bunch of people around the world to have united to read some great novels while sipping gin and tonics. ;>

So this is one way it's possible for open source software to be, metaphorically, delicious and calorie-free because, well, it's different. The context and assumptions of the nature of software development are different than other products and services.

Then there's others' opinions that I want to share and expand on. I came across this article/blog which I thought was another interesting angle on open source from a larger standpoint.

It's not really hot news; it's about the keyword that characterizes Web 2.0 and all the associated buzzwords: participation. But I haven't talked about that theme much on this blog, having generally focused on specifics like exactly what to choose to make an inter-subdocument cross reference show up. Thus I'd like to emphasize the link between OpenOffice.org and the big ideas.

The article mentions the attempts to create an online encyclopedia.

"Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales were running into problems on the other side of the Atlantic. Together they were working on Nupedia, an encyclopedia they planned to make available to the public, free of charge, via the Internet. They considered it the ultimate democratization of knowledge. Sanger and Wales found renowned academics who were prepared to write entries for the site as well as to edit others’ contributions. Great plan. But it had one drawback: It was impossible to get anything done. Two years in, Nupedia included only 24 articles. “The pace was horrible,” Wales says now."

And then they discovered wikis. They opened up the process and now of course wikipedia is the first place many of us look for information if we just want a definition, some background and examples....in fact, an online encyclopedia entry.

Open source information goes much farther back than that. The Professor and the Madman chronicles the development of the Oxford English Dictionary, or OED, begun in the late 1890s. Where did many of the entries, many excellent entries come from? An inmate of Broadmoor who was imprisoned for murder. On the up side, he was still a very intelligent man, and of course had plenty of time to write definitions. I don't want to imply anything about today's software developers ;> with this analogy, but simply to point out that a venerable, dignified, and very old mainstay of our culture was developed with participation from many outside sources rather than an officially appointed and restricted group.

Let's keep in mind that  the odds of any software project successfully producing the desired outcome, on schedule, are roughly on par with going on a diet before your high school reunion and getting to your ideal weight in time. The structure of a standard project doesn't seem to be that much of a benefit. "It's impossible to put a precise number on the failure rate," says Karl Fogel, author of Producing Open Source Software, "but anecdotal evidence from over a decade in open source, some casting around on SourceForge.net, and a little Googling, all point to the same conclusion: the rate is extremely high, probably on the order of 90 to 95 percent."

Obviously, open source software can fail too. But my point is that developing outside the cube farm is not the risk.

Free software  seems odd to a lot of people, I think, because it's just new. We get free entertainment through TV; free information all over the place on the Internet; and overpriced $5 1000-calorie macchiatos while we're enjoying the free stuff.

The simplicity and rigidity of money = value , in an environment of better communication and participation, can't be applied as uniformly anymore. Barter, whether actual or less obvious, has a role too: you're bartering your willingness to dig a little on the Internet for information instead of being handed a thick manual. (And for those who have read through thick software manuals, sometimes they're worth the price of the software....sometimes they're not.)

I've been sitting here, staring across the coffee shop (past my $2 iced tea) trying to come up with a splendid, eloquent final sentence that ties everything together. So far, no luck. I will go with something like "Open source is more normal than you think, and was providing many valuable, reliable, free products long before Linux came along."

Simple Summer Tips for Easier Use of OpenOffice.org Writer

In the summer season, I want to throw out some nice easy-going simple tips.

(I also just took three blues-dancing lessons, my quads are burning and apparently my Norwegian-Lutheran upbringing did not, as perhaps one might assume, prepare me for a sensuous blues dancing career or even hobby. I am thus feeling very very very beginnerish, and  very sympathetic to those who might not have been using OpenOffice.org heavily since 1999.)

Anyway. Here's the summer vacation reading equivalent of some everyday OpenOffice.org tips. Some new, some not. It's just how I use the program, things that make it easier.

* I always start OpenOffice.org by starting Writer, then keep it open and create or open new Calc, Writer, Base documents, etc. I probably run OOo slower than some people but I like having all the documents open, and just creating or opening new ones from the menu of whatever OpenOffice.org document's menu is available.

* I use, as much as possible, the File > Recent Documents menu. Any document you've created and closed recently is likely to show up there.

* Undo, undo, undo. You can use the Undo icon, or just press Ctrl Z and keep going. OpenOffice is set up for 20 undoes and you can set it for farther back under Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Memory.

You can undo multiples at a time by clicking and holding down on the Undo icon and choosing multiple items by selecting as many as you want.

*Select multiple non-contiguous pieces of text by holding down Ctrl. Select the first word or character, then hold down Ctrl, hold down the next word, release Ctrl, and so on. When you're done, release the mouse, and the Ctrl key. Then you can apply the same formatting, or other action, to all of them at once.

* Use styles! Just Heading1 through Heading3, and Text Body, will save you a lot of time. Select the text, then select the style from the dropdown list shown.

* Edit the existing styles rather than creating new ones. Apply the styles, then if you don't like them just edit them and everywhere they're applied, they'll change. Select anything with a particular style applied that you want to edit, right-click, and choose Edit Paragraph Style. (This of course works only for paragraph styles.)

A window appears where you can change any attributes of the formatting that you want. Click the tab you want, make the changes, click another Tab and make changes, etc. then click OK.

The change will be applied to any text where that paragraph style was applied. As with any modification to or creation of a style, the changes apply only in the current document.

* Keep your cats off the desk. My cat Winston loves to lay his head on the Esc key. And wackiness ensues.

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An equivalent of the Word's Outline View, with the OpenOffice.org Writer Navigator

Who hasn't had one of these experiences?

• You're writing your guide to gardening, you're looking at the headings for your garden-preparation chapter, and you realize you have made instructions for the compost pile a level-3 small section when it should really be a chapter of its own.
  
• You think, re-reading the first draft of your novel, "No, the dream sequence should come first to grab people, and I'll put the conversation between Grimelda and her guru in chapter five after the chariot race."
• You are tired of scrolling through your document and you want to just go directly to the section on shoe-making so you can add the cool new stuff about suede. Or you've put in a table, or a graphic, and you want to go directly to it to make some changes.
• ou're writing a 680-page document and you just want to read through the main heading titles and make sure that they're in a good order, that you're using parallel grammatical structure, that you're capitalizing correctly, etc.

In Word you might use the Outline view. In OpenOffice Writer, you use the Navigator.

Press F5 and you'll see the Navigator window.

First: What you need to do in your document to make sure the Navigator works for you

You must either use the Heading1 through Heading10 styles on the text that is used as your document headings. Or you can apply other styles to your headings and set them up at the right levels; choose Tools > Outline Numbering. (See this entry for more on outline numbering.)

Applying the heading styles

This picture shows how to apply the Heading1-Heading10 styles in a simpler  example, a document about bread.

Modifying how the heading styles look

If you don't like how the Heading1-Heading10 styles look, right-click on any text with the style you don't like applied to it, and choose Edit Paragraph Style. Make your changes in the formatting window that appears and click OK.

Then: What you can do with the Navigator

You can:

• View all the headings in your document: just the top levels, just the top and second levels, and on down
• Jump from one section to another just by double-clicking
• Jump to other items in the navigator such as tables, bookmarks, or charts, just by double-clicking
• Turn chapters into sections by demoting and vice versa
• Easily drag sections to different places in your document to re-order the document: not just chapters but any section that starts with a Heading1-Heading10 style, or with whatever styles you set up under Outline Numbering.

Viewing the Headings

In the Navigator, press F5. You'll see all the headings. The icon labeled Heading Levels Shown lets you see only Heading1s, only Heading1s and Heading2s, etc.

Click as shown to view the number of heading levels you want.

Jumping from one section to another

I'm currently at the top of the document.

I double-click the Breweries and Wineries sub-section and bam, that's what's displayed in the document itself.

Jump to other objects in the document: tables, bookmarks, etc.

I double-click the Table1 item (I don't name my tables but you can when you choose Insert > Table) and immediately it's displayed.

Change chapters to sections and vice versa by promoting and demoting heading levels

Let's say I want the Romance section to be less important, a heading level or two down. It's currently assigned the Heading2 style so it's at level 2.

I can just click on it, then click the Demote Level icon as many times as needed to move the section to where I want it. I clicked it once so now Romance is at level 3. (And Jazz and other sections below it were moved down, as well.)

Ditto for making sections more important; click the Promote Level icon.

Re-order sections in the document

Let's say I want the chapter Getting Here and Getting Around to be earlier in the document, not last. It's a Heading1 and I don't want to change that, but it's now starting on page 22 (look in the bottom left corner) and I want it earlier in the document.

I click Promote Chapter and it's now earlier in the document. It's at the same level, as you can see by the applied style, but it's now on page 16 as you can see in the lower left corner.

I can do the same thing with lower-level sections. I can take the By Train subsection here, currently before By Car

click Demote Icon, and now it's the last section in the document, not second to last. It's after the By Car section.

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Inserting Stored, Reusable Information in OpenOffice Writer: One of the Most Useful Features in OpenOffice.org

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 piece of text like your name, your company's motto, or anything else such as special characters
• Autotext lets you put in huge amounts of text and graphics, with the formatting

Using  the Automatic Formatting to Create Handy Shortcuts

Let’s say you type the word supercalfragilisticexpealidocious a zillion times a day, or your name and title. As much as you might like to type, it's repetitive work.

Or let's say that you need to use any of the special characters like accents or Greek letters. You can insert them the long way if you want.  Choose Insert > Special Characters, scroll through, switch fonts as necessary, select what you want, and click OK. But that takes a long time.

Whatever you want to type, you can set up a shortcut for it.

To do this:

First, get the text you want to reuse ready. Like get your special character inserted in the document, or think about exactly what motto or title or name it is that you want to get into your document more quickly.

Now choose Tools > AutoCorrect and click on the Replace tab.

1. In the left-hand Replace field type your shortcut like sig and in the right-hand field.

2. In the right-hand With field, type your name or motto or paste in the special character that you've already inserted in your document.

3. Click New.

4. 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."

5. Click OK.

6.  In your document, type the shortcut, followed by a space, and your words or special character will appear.

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. Or in the AutoText window, click Paths. You can add or delete paths there.

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

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A Useful Hack for Storing Text or Editable Pictures You Need to Reuse, in OpenOffice Impress Presentations

My friend Ben Horst wrote to me with a question about how to store editable content in a presentation that you reuse periodically. Like a few buttons formatted a particular way, text boxes, anything that can't easily be drawn and formatted and has to look a certain way.

My answer was, well, kind of a hack, but I think it's useful enough to point out.

What Doesn't Work, But Is Useful For Other Things

In Writer, you've got Autotext, a very nice way to store text or graphics that you need to reuse. (Create the text or graphics you need, choose Edit > AutoText, hold down the button with the arrow and choose New. Also name it and create a shortcut. Then click OK. Type the shortcut followed by F3 to insert the text in any document on that computer.)

But not in Impress.

Throughout the application, you have the Gallery where you can store gifs, jpgs, etc. But this isn't any good for storing, for instance, text boxes.

The Hack I Came Up With
If you've got editable things you would like to conveniently access in a presentation, just store them in either the Handouts view or the Notes view.

Click the Handouts tab at the top of the work area, and just add whatever you need. This of course assumes you don't need to give handouts of this presentation. In this illustration there's a text box and a smiley face shape.

Or use the notes view. You can use plain text as shown or the same graphical elements as shown in Handouts view.

The items in those views don't show in the normal view.

So store your reusable stuff in one of those views, then copy and paste from there to wherever you need it. It's not a perfect solution but it works.

Note: If all you need is reusable attributes, remember styles.

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How the New OpenOffice Chart Tool Works When You Don't Specify a Data Range

I've talked about the new chart tool in previous blogs here and here.

In both of those, though, I assumed that you would be selecting the data range in the Calc spreadsheet or Writer table before inserting the chart. Which you normally would be.

 

If you choose Insert > Chart in Calc, in the new tool, without a range selected, it's not much use. You get a big blank chart.

In Writer, however, at least in this stage of development of the tool, you get something different when you choose Insert > Object > Chart with no data range selected. Thanks to Linda from Largo for pointing this out.

It's not much good like that, of course, so right-click on it and choose Chart Data Table to input some data.

You get this window where you can not only fill in the names on the X and Y axes and the data, but you can add and remove rows and columns of data, and move rows and columns around.

This is nice if you have the data written down somewhere but not in a chart or table, and it's just quicker to slam in the data manually than to base it on a chart or table. It took about twenty seconds to make this chart. (It would have taken more if I'd had any actual data on penguins and marmots as pets. ;>  )

That was the chart data table, and then I just clicked the red X in the upper right corner to close and update the chart. Here's what it looks like.

This chart approach does lack titles, and X and Y axis titles. However, you can just make them with text boxes. Choose View > Toolbars > Drawing (deselect the chart first) and use the Text tool to draw a text box outside of the chart area. Type what you want in the text box, then drag it into the chart area.

In this example, I also clicked on and shrank the inner data part of the chart to leave room for the title I created with the text tool.

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A Simple Way to Do Labels in OpenOffice Writer: When You Just Want to Type or Paste the Content

Here's how to just print out a few labels very simply.

I follow this procedure when I ship out books. Let's say I've got five people who've ordered books directly from me through PayPal or Amazon. I've got five emails in my inbox, with five addresses. So I need to make five labels.

I describe the simple but more labor-intensive way in the following steps. Then at the end I show what I actually do that adds a little bit of one-time extra setup and makes the whole process much simpler.

1. Choose File > New > Labels.* (See note at end.)

In this window, look at the two lists in the lower right corner. Pick the right layout, usually Avery Letter, and the kind of labels you're using (the number is on the box or envelope) like 8160.

2. Click the Options tab and make sure that the Synchronize checkbox is NOT marked.

3. Click New Document.

4. You'll see the new empty label document.

5. Now just type the content you want in each box. OR copy and paste. In my example, I copy the address from my email and paste it into the box.

If you've already used up some of the labels on the physical sheet you're going to print onto, then just start pasting or typing in the next available box.

If you have trouble clicking in a box to type, click somewhere in the blank margin around the area where the boxes are, then click in the middle of the box. You'll then see a normal blinking cursor and you'll be able to type.

6. To format the text differently, you could do a few different things. Pick any of the following; I recommend b or c.

a - Just format every text box the same, manually.

b - Format the first text box how you want it, and select some of the formatted text. Then DOUBLE-CLICK the Paintbrush icon.

Select every additional text box with text to format the same way.

Then CLICK the Paintbrush icon again and you're done.

c - Format the first text box how you want it. With some formatted text selected, choose Format > Styles and Formatting. Click and hold down on the far right icon and choose Update Style. All the other boxes will be formatted the same way.

7.  Now just stick the label sheet in your printer and print. If you want more than one sheet of labels, then just print out these, then type the new addresses over the old addresses and print a second sheet. (Or save this sheet, then choose File > Save As and save the sheet under a different name, and type the second set of addresses over the old addresses.)

* NOTE: What I actually do instead of steps 1-4 and 6 is open the label template that I created. I went through this entire process, then formatted the text the way I wanted it. I formatted the text in the first label box the way I wanted it. Then I choose Format > Styles and Formatting, I clicked and held down the mouse on the far right icon, and chose Update Style, as in step 6-c above.  After that, I chose File > Templates > Save. I named the template Labels and clicked OK.

That's what I did to create the template the way I wanted it. Then instead of step 1, I choose File > New > Templates and Documents, and pick Labels from my list of templates.

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Leaving a trail of breadcrumbs (using bookmarks) in OpenOffice Writer

You can use the Navigator for a huge number of things to find your way throughout a Writer document. Read more in this post. 

I want to point out something specific today.  You can insert bookmarks in a Writer document, and use the Navigator to find them.

Let's say that you occasionally don't write a document perfectly and completely the first time.  Maybe you're writing a manual and the subject matter expert who has the info on the new storage feature doesn't come back til next week. You have three paragraphs you need to ask her about in your manual. Plus, you've got a couple paragraphs that need to be updated next month when the new patch goes out.

Or you're writing a tourism brochure and you need more input in various sections from sponsors, and from the Parks and Rec.

How do you mark those sections?

You could make them bright blue, or put in notes, but your editor is a stickler for clean docs, plus this is in a beta release so it needs to look good.

One good solution is to insert bookmarks to mark items that need to be checked or otherwise noted.

1. Click where you need to insert the bookmark.

2. Choose Insert > Bookmark.

3. Name the bookmark and click OK.

4. The name appears in the Navigator. (Press F5 to display it.)

5. When you need to go back to the section, press F5 to display the navigator.  Expand the Bookmarks item shown.

6.  Double-click the bookmark to go to.

7. You'll go to the paragraph where you inserted the bookmark. Now, do whatever you need to, for that section.

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Calc Basics: Never Type When You Can Drag

If you're new to spreadsheets, or want to make sure you're working as efficiently as possible, this post is for you.

Whenever you have a lot of similar entries to make, think drag.

Here's an example.

You've got these budget figures for 2006. The 2007 budget figures are going to be 15% more.

So you create a formula for cell C2 multiplying B2 by 1.15 to get the correct figure for C2.

There's the result, and it's correct.

But it can get really tiring, and you can potentially introduce errors, by retyping formulas like this for every additional cell. You could type the same formula, with the reference to B3, B4, B5, etc. but that would be a lot of work and not efficient.

So instead, do this. Click on the cell where you already have the correct formula, and find the tiny handle in the lower right corner. Click and hold down your mouse on that handle, and drag down through all the cells where you want that same formula.

Here's what it looks like when you're dragging, before you release the mouse.

And here's what it looks like when you release the mouse.

All the formulas and results are correct, as you can see by clicking in one of the cells.

You Can Drag Things Other Than Formulas

You can drag words like the days of the week and months.

Drag

and release

You can drag numbers.

Drag

and release.

You can set up a specific increment, like 1 1 or 1 3 5 or whatever you want, then select all the cells in the pattern and drag, then release.

Set up the pattern

then drag and release.

If you drag a word that the system doesn't recognize, then you just get a bunch of those words, which might be what you want in some circumstances.

So whenever you want to repeat something, or increment a number or standard value like a month or day, Think Drag.

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Going to a specific page in OpenOffice Writer, Using the Navigator

Here's a quick tip for how to go to a specific page.

- Press F5 to bring up the Navigator. (Read more about this great tool here.)

- You'll see one field with a number in it. That's the page number field.

- Type the page number to go to, and press Enter.

- You'll go to that page.

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Using the Navigator to get around in an OpenOffice Calc spreadsheet

I've been talking about using the Navigator in Writer. Here are a few ways to use the Navigator in OpenOffice.org Calc spreadsheets.

Press F5, and you'll see the Navigator. It's got sections for the different standard things you might want to look for.  I'm going over the navigation items this time rather than the dragging and database items.

Click the graphic to see a bigger version.

Switching Sheets
If you have a lot of sheets, you might prefer to switch between using the Navigator's list. Just double-click on a sheet to go to that sheet.

Range Names
This is just a way to name a particular range of one or more cells.  To create the ranges, just select the cells and choose Insert > Names > Define. Name the range (no spaces) and click OK.

Then when you doubleclick the name in the Navigator, you'll go to that range.

Notes, Charts, Graphics, Drawing Objects, Etc.
Insert a note under Insert > Note.
Insert a chart under Insert > Chart.
Insert a graphic under Insert > Picture > From File.
Insert a drawing object by using the toolbar under View > Toolbars > Drawing.

Then the items you insert show up in the Navigator. Double-click any item listed to go to it.

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PDF Reference to the New OpenOffice.org Chart Tool

I've done an overview/walkthrough of the new OpenOffice.org charting tool that will be released with version 2.3. It's a procedural approach, so to supplement it here's a PDF reference to some of the more complicated windows. I'll be including it and similar information in an update of my workbooks and Guidebook as soon as 2.3 has been released, and I'll provide the update to the book in PDF form, as well, so those of you who've already purchased the Guidebook can have the new chart info.

A note on the new chart tool -- in this window, you can specify multiple noncontiguous ranges. However, sometimes especially when they're in another sheet, they don't seem to take. Might just be a bug not worked out yet.

 

So for now, to more reliably add noncontiguous sections, just skip that window in the wizard, click next, and use this window. Click Add, then you'll get an item called Unnamed Series for which you can set the range of cells for the name (label/heading), the categories (must be the same as all other data series) and the Y values.

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The new OpenOffice.org Charting Tool Coming in OpenOffice.org 2.3

For anyone who has grown weary of the current OpenOffice chart tool, or for anyone who has attended my classes and grown alarmed at hearing that charting is as much art as science, there is some relief in sight.

The chart tool has been improved significantly, and it's going to be included in OpenOffice.org 2.3, to be released roughly sometime this fall. If you're curious, you can download the developer version containing the chart tool here.

Read more
Download

Here's a comment from Pete who appears to be involved in the chart development.

Thanks for the nice overview. 
Please mentions also that many limitions will be overcome with the next
release. It's not only about a new (and shiny :) ) wizard. For example
multiple data series will be possible. Error bar for most kind of
charts will be possible. Regression lines with the function and R^2 are
implemented too. The performance regarding large data sets is improved.
EXCEL im- and export was improved considerably. Many of these features
are essential for engineers, students and scientists in their daily
job.
Worth to read:
http://graphics.openoffice.org/chart/whatsnewinchart2.html

However, there is still a long list of existing issues though OOo is
close to perfection. Any Volunteers will to finish the few remaining
items?
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/buglist.cgi?issue_type=DEFECT;issue_type=TASK;issue_type=PATCH;issue_status=UNCONFIRMED;issue_status=NEW;issue_status=STARTED;issue_status=REOPENED;email1=;emailtype1=exact;emailassigned_to1=1;email2=;emailtype2=exact;emailreporter2=1;issueidtype=include;issue_id=;changedin=;votes=;chfieldfrom=;chfieldto=Now;chfieldvalue=;short_desc=;short_desc_type=substring;long_desc=;long_desc_type=substring;issue_file_loc=;issue_file_loc_type=substring;status_whiteboard=;status_whiteboard_type=substring;keywords=;keywords_type=anytokens;field0-0-0=component;type0-0-0=equals;value0-0-0=Chart;field0-0-1=short_desc;type0-0-1=substring;value0-0-1=chart;field0-1-0=short_desc;Submit%20query=Submit%20query&order=issues.issue_id

Here's a tour of it. I'm getting to know the details myself right now, but this is the gist. OK, a fairly detailed gist.

Here's the basic data we're working with.

I like to select the data since it means less typing, or just less dragging, later. Select the data and choose Insert > Chart. You get this. Click this and any other illustrations to see them bigger.

Window 1: Chart Type
Note that you get a preview of the chart as you go along, in the document. This preview of course disappears when you click Cancel without creating a chart.

There are more up front variations, it seems. Here are a few.

Who doesn't love an exploded donut?

Or a nice XY Scatter.

Or a Net.

A Column and Line with options for how many lines.

And here are the 3D options.

In this window you just pick a type, a variation, any associated options, and you click Next.

Window 2: Data Range

Here you get the choices for what data is involved. Normally in a simple chart you could just have A1 to D5 in a contiguous block. But when you don't have that, you get to specify that ahead of time. Not that this is new but it's more obvious and easier.

You could change the range just by typing something different in the Data Range field. In this, I skip the D column entirely. Use a semicolon to separate non-contiguous ranges of data.

You also have the option, again not new, to have the data in rows or in columns.

Rows

Columns

And you also get the options at the bottom of the window, First Row as Label and First Column as Label. This is the same kind of thing you specify when sorting; you're saying, if you check the box, that the first row is identifying data, not data to be charted, and ditto with the first column. You usually want to mark both. Or at least I do.

Here's what the chart looks like with both boxes marked.

And the same chart with both unmarked.

Click Next.

Window 3: Data Series

Here, you get even more control over exactly what cells are used for the labels (Names) and for the data (Y-Values). For instance, if you wanted the label for Sales to not be Sales but to be some other term off in cell J14, you could enter $J$14 instead in the Range for Name field shown.

Select Names, then select each of the items in the Data Series list and make changes if necessary for them in the Range for Name and Categories fields.

Then select Y-Values, and do the same thing for each item in the Data Series list.

If you want to add an entirely new set of data to the chart, just click Add. You'll get an Unnamed Series. Then set the Name and YValues for that one, too. Or click Remove to remove any chunk of data in the Data Series window from the chart.

Note that the Categories will be the same for all data series. If you change them for one item in the Data Series list, they'll change for all.

When done, click Next.

Window 4: Chart Elements
You're nearly there. This is the simple stuff.

Then click Finish. And you've got your chart.

Modifying the Chart Once It's Created
Modifying after creation is a tish less twitchy though not that fundamentally different.

One thing: used to be, you could just select the chart by clicking on it once, right-click, and choose to change the data series. Now you just need to double-click it, then right-click and choose Data Ranges.

Essentially,  you double-click the chart, then either rightclick, use the Format menu, or use the Format toolbar. You can also double-click on an item in the chart.

The menu and toolbar have a fewer options, which will take getting used to but is a little simpler.

Here's the menu, and the toolbar after it.

To make a change to a particular bar in this chart, you do essentially the same thing as you used to. Double-click the chart, click on one of the bars to get the data series, then click on the specific bar to modify.

- Third click

- Fourth click

- Options under Object Properties (right-click, double-click, or use menu or toolbar)

- And results

To change titles, just double-click on them and type (after the requisite click, then double-click). This is the same as before.

Overall, not a makeover top to bottom. But nicer. I'm not a frequent chart user, so please give me your comments on what is the most useful.

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Quick Tips on Sections in OpenOffice Writer

Sections are great. They're a way to partition off part of the content of a text document and treat it differently.

Quick Overview of Sections
Select your text that you want treated differently, choose Insert > Section, and choose any of the options in this window and the tabs such as Columns, Background, etc.

When you insert a section, it just means the content you selected is now partitioned off and assigned the attributes you specified in the Insert Section window.

This section below is in two columns with a gray background, because I used the Columns and Background tabs to apply those settings.

For this next sample section, I didn't select any text -- I just choose Insert > Section, chose Link, and specified the legal.odt file.   Here are those settings in the section window.

And here are the results. The contents of the legal.odt file got sucked into my current document where I inserted the link. Now anytime somebody changes the contents of the legal.odt file, those changes show up in the my document, too, since I've linked to that file.

To edit the section, choose Format > Section and select the section to change options for or delete.

I could write a whole bunch about sections. However, the main point of this blog is to point out a few things about knowing which section you're in.

Managing Sections
Name your sections. When you have more than one section in a document, things can get confusing if you don't name them.

So when you choose Insert > Section to create the section, type something more clearly memorable for the name.

Or if you've already got sections, choose Format > Section and rename them.

The current section name is displayed in the lower right corner of your document.  If you're not sure what section you're in, click in it. Look in the lower right corner, as shown.

Also if you click in a section and choose Format > Section, the section name will be highlighted.

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It's Wedding Season, and OpenOffice.org Is Here For You

Who wants to pay for someone else to make your wedding invitations? (Or programs, or whatever.)

Use OpenOffice for your wedding invitations.

This of course prompts the objection, "But there aren't any templates in OpenOffice."

Well, there are some. But that's not important. Because there are also Microsoft Word wedding invitation templates out there. Just open them in Writer and you're good.

There aren't a lot of free wedding invitation templates out there but if you can find one, just use it. Also, here's my vague attempt at one. Right-click on the link and choose to save to your computer.

http://openoffice.blogs.com/openofficeblogtemplate.ott

Here are some tips for making your own.

- Unless you're doing fancy really graphically oriented stuff, use Writer.

- Set the size of the invitation here. Format > Page, Page tab, and specify the width and height. Then specify the margins and click OK. You'll want .5 if you want the border lines in a bit from the edge, and 0 inches if you want a background design to go all the way to the border.

- Set borders here. Format > Page, Borders tab. Be sure to specify where you want the borders, i.e. which sides, then the style, then the color.

- - Set a background color or graphic here. Format > Page, Background tab. You'll need to click the Browse button to go find the graphic.

- If you want to make your own background graphic, you could create it in Draw. File > New > Drawing. Then Format > Area, Bitmaps tab, and choose a foreground and a background color. Click to make a design, then click Add and save it. This is just one of the ways to make a design.

Then draw a big rectangle at least as big as the invitation, select Bitmap as the type of fill in the toolbar at the top of the work area, and your bitmap as the fill. Also make the border Invisible.

Then select the rectangle, choose File > Export, export it as PNG, and use that as your background graphic.

- If you've got a full background in your Writer document, you'll need a Frame to put the words in. Choose Insert > Frame, and set options like the width and height, and the background color which could be white or a complementary color to the background or borders.

- Another way you can put a graphic in the background is just to insert it, then put it in the background. Choose Insert > Picture > From File. Navigate to the graphic file and select it. Then right-click on it and choose Wrap > In Background.

To lighten it, click on it and the Picture toolbar will appear. Use the Transparency field to lighten it, or use some of the other icons on the toolbar.

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Much easier, much simpler ways to print the contents of a database in OpenOffice.org Base

I've been so caught up in the complicated tools and cool hacks that I've forgotten about the really simple ways to get data from a database into a Writer document.

I'm so embarrassed.

Here's a simple way to bring in data, whether it's still in fields, or just plain text. You probably want to use this instead of the Reports feature, and instead of the Next Record field under Insert > Fields > Other, Database tab.

Here are some screen shots. I'll do more on this later but I just wanted to slap these options out there so you know about them.

Click any of the screen shots to see them bigger and in more detail.

1. Create a new text document and choose F4.

2. Click the + by your database, click the + by the word Table (or Query) and click the table or query you want to print.

3. Click the blank gray square shown, to the left of the first fieldname.

4. Click and hold down on that gray square and drag into the document.

5. Now you have various options.

Pick the option you want, insert the fields you want, apply any relevant formatting, and click OK.

Table

Fields

Text

Then print. If you bring in the data in fields, when you choose Print, click Yes when prompted and DON'T click the checkbox.)

Again, if you're printing in fields, you cna print to files or a printer. To select specific records, select the first record, hold down Ctrl, select another record, and so on.

 

 

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Inserting Page Breaks, and Dragging the Page Breaks to Where You Want Them, in OpenOffice Calc

See also this post and this post on printing spreadsheets.

In Word, I believe, and possibly other applications, you can drag the default page breaks to where you want them, in print preview.

In OpenOffice.org Calc, there is no feature to do this in the page preview window.

But there sure as heck is one in the Page Break Preview window. You can insert page breaks, and drag default or inserted page breaks to where you want them.

Turning on Page Break Preview
Choose View > Page Break Preview. To turn it off, choose View > Normal.

Here's what it looks like.

Inserting a Manual Page Break
You can do this anytime, regardless of whether Page Break Preview is on. However, this illustration shows it on. Click on a row or column, and choose Insert > Manual Break. The appropriate selection will be available.

Dragging Page Breaks
Move your mouse over the page break and watch for the mouse pointer to turn into a two-ended arrow.

Then drag it right or left, up or down. The page break will change position accordingly.

If you drag an end or side page break into the document, then the column(s) or row(s) will appear as shown and they won't print. This is one way to control what prints, along with page ranges (select cells and choose Format > Print Ranges > Define for the first one in a document; Format > Print Ranges > Add for subsequent ones).

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Printing Only the Sheets and Pages You Want, in OpenOffice.org Calc

this post and this post on printing spreadsheets.

You're going along, minding your own business, doing your spreadsheet. You print. Ten minutes later the irate printer guy comes along, saying "Would you mind not printing 200 pages at once????"

You're irritated since you just....well, you just MEANT to print the current sheet which has three pages.

But when you click Print or choose File > Print and don't modify this in any way, you print the WHOLE spreadsheet. Possibly including blank pages.

There are several ways to change this.

To print only the current sheet by default and prevent any blank pages from printing:

Choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Calc > Print.

Select both options shown. Click OK. Now only the current sheet will print, and no blank pages will be printed.

To do this on the fly for each time you print.
Choose File > Print, click Options, then set the options in the options window that appears. This will make the change only for the current print job.

To select more than one sheet to print:
Click on the first sheet you want to print. Then hold down Ctrl and select any other sheet(s).

Or for contiguous sheets, click on the first sheet you want to print. Then hold down Shift and select the last sheet you want to print.

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What would you like to learn about in online training sessions?

I've just discovered (belatedly) GoToMeeting.com and other applications like it, and I'm pretty excited. GoToMeeting.com allows you to see my screen and call in so you can hear me. From what I can tell, it also lets me give up screen control to students and lets me see what's on your screen.

It looks like a great, simple, convenient way for me to do online instructor-led training.

It only runs on Windows, but I hope that Linux users will compromise and be able to use a Windows computer for training. 

Soon,  I plan to use GoToMeeting.com to give  online training, as well as occasional free seminars.  I'll need to do some thinking and see how initial classes go, but it looks like I could do any of the  following:

- periodic free seminars
- training at a reasonable price for any individuals who want to sign up, with a minimum number of students for a class to run
- training for an organization: just like my normal onsite training, but without travel expenses
- Short one-on-one tutoring or document trouble-shooting sessions.

The training would probably be no more than 2 hours at a time, though I could chain several together over a period of days or weeks to teach larger topics.

But the key question is: what topics do you want? Basics, specific tricks, configuration, styles and templates, databases, calc printing, creating org charts, converting problem documents -- ?? I'll take lots and lots of suggestions! 

Also, when would you want training? During work hours, evenings, weekends?

Let me know!

Thanks,
Solveig

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Best export graphics for OpenOffice Draw

I've done some testing with the quality of export from Draw. I'm not absolutely wildly impressed with any but PNG and JPG seem to be best. Oddly, EPS gets bitmappier and so does GIF.

Note: The graphic was already shrunk once and reduced in quality; I'm just looking for comparisons between the four types and they all kinda seem to be the same.

Here's a file where you can look at the different files exported and inserted in Writer. I mainly looked at the edges of the thought bubbles.

HOWEVER.

Check out what PDF export looks like. Couple sizes, regular and with the graphic preshrunk in Draw.

The quality for those is fabulous. Extremely smooth lines on the thought bubble.

Unfortunately, you can't insert PDFs in a Writer doc.

But keep in mind that PDF export of lines is fabulous. If you have a Draw doc that you need printed as is, export to PDF if you need to send the file to others, don't export to the graphics formats.  Just be sure to export with no graphics reduction if graphics quality is your main goal. Lossless Compression is the option you want.

 

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Support OpenOffice.org: Add it to your resume!

Ben Horst writes:

For a long time I’ve been listing OpenOffice.org as a software application among those on my resume. I figure those who don’t know it will ignore it, while those who are aware of open source will be excited and consider it a standout feature (not necessarily that I know how to use it, since it’s pretty easy, but that I’m proud and brave enough to call attention to it).

[Remember to include the keyword StarOffice, as well, since Sun is quietly hiring again.]

Read more:

http://www.solidoffice.com/archives/527

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

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

Here's the Styles and Formatting window, docked.

Here's the Styles and Formatting window,  undocked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Updating the Preview in Your Mail Merge Docs so You See Different Data in Every Field

This is a very specific but annoying problem for which I've found a workaround (thanks to the smart folks in the training department at MASCO! ;> ).

A Little Background: Synchronize
So, you've got a mail merge doc. It's labels. You've set it up to Synchronize, so that when you make a change to the upper left address and click Synchronize, all other addresses take on the same updates. I.e. if you make the text blue, or insert a graphic, or whatever, you just make the change in one place and it updates all the others. This is a very nice feature.

Here's where you set synchronize. File > New > Labels, and in the Options tab select Synchronize contents.

Here's what a new sheet of labels looks like with the Synchronize floating button:

Here's what it looks like when you change the formatting for the upper left address:

Here's what it looks like when you then click Synchronize:

A Little Background: Preview
As you can see above, you see the field names, not the field contents, in mail merge documents. To see the contents, press F4 to view your data sources. Expand the data source you're using, select the table you're using, click the blank gray box that's circled to select all the rows, and click the also-circled icon called Data to Fields.

Here's what it all looks like.

But! What Happens When You Preview, Then Synchronize???????
Let's say you've previewed so you can see the data .Then you think, "Hey, the font needs to be different, and I want it to be green." So you make that change to the upper left frame like normal, you click Synchronize....and you get this. All the content is the same.

Don't Worry: It's Easy to Fix
You just click that same Data to Fields icon. Select all the data just like before, click the Data to Fields icon again, and this refreshes the display and gives you back the normal content.

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Suppressing Blank Address2 Fields in OpenOffice.org Labels, Envelopes, or Other Documents, for Mail Merges

Note: Everything is case sensitive. Also when you type the two "" quotes, don't put a space between them. If you have spaces in your database, this won't work. Either change the database field names, or create a query based on the table, and change the field names in the query. Then base the labels on the query.

Here it is -- suppressing a blank Address2 field in your mail merges. It's not extremely simple, but it's reasonably straightforward and it works.

Here's the situation we're addressing. Sometimes your addresses have two lines for the address part, sometimes they don't.

Bob Jones
101 Main
Suite 55
Boulder, CO 80022

Marion Silverman
888 105th Ave
Broomfield, CO 82211

But you have to put in the <Address2> field for everybody, since it's a mail merge. The setup has to be the same.

<Firstname> <Lastname>
<Address1>
<Address2>
<City>, <State>, <Zip>

But with this approach, your addresses look like this.

Bob Jones
101 Main
Suite 55
Boulder, CO 80022

Marion Silverman
888 105th Ave

Broomfield, CO 82211

Ick. How do you suppress that second Address2 line and the corresponding carriage return if there's no content for a particular record, for that Addres2 field?

Select the Address2 field in your mail merge document, choose Insert > Section, and create a conditionally hidden section with this formula.

databasename.tablename.fieldname EQ ""

Here are the details, using an example of labels.

1. Create the labels for mail merge as usual. File > New > Labels, select your database and tables, insert the fields, etc.

2. Choose the Synchronize Contents checkbox.

3. Click New Document.

4. Here are the labels.

5. Turn on nonprinting characters if they're not on already.

6. Select the first soft return, shown selected.

7. Press Return or Enter to replace it with a hard return.

8. Repeat, to make them all hard returns.

9. Click Synchronize to update the other labels to be the same.

10. Select the Address2 field.

11. Choose Insert > Section.

12. Name the section Suppress. Select the Hide checkbox and type the following condition. The screen shot shows the syntax.

Syntax
databasename.tablename.fieldname EQ "" � �(the last part is two double quotes together)

Example
databasewithtwoaddresslines.Table1.Address2 EQ ""

NOTE: if you are using the Thunderbird address book as a data source, you need to use square brackets if the field name includes a space (i. e.: [Address 2]=="") to hide the second line of the address if it the Address 2 field is blank.)� I would suggest in general avoiding field, table, or database names with spaces.

http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=43528&highlight=

Click the screen shot to see it bigger. It shows the syntax, not an actual example.

13. Click Insert.

14. Click Synchronize.

15. Now preview the data or print the data and you'll see that it prints correctly.

15. If you need to change the section, select it in the first address and choose Format > Section. Select the one named Suppress for the master label and make changes, then click OK. Click Synchronize again in the labels.

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Huge, detailed list of links for using macros in OpenOffice.org

This huge and excellent list was put together by the helpful and brainy folks at www.oooforum.org, including SergeM.

http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=50952

I don't write macros myself, but if there's something you're doing with macros that you can't find help with on that page, I imagine you're doing something with macros that's either very advanced, like gene research, or something that just isn't possible.

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The beginning of a big fat blog on where all the OpenOffice settings and configurations are stored

I got an excellent question today: where are the AutoFormats stored?

They're not per document, like styles, which is nice. However, they are per user/per machine.

In Windows, they're stored by default here.

documents and settings\username\Application Data\OpenOffice.org2\user\config\autotbl.fmt

On Linux it should be in a similar location relative to where the user data is stored.

General Default Location for Individual Customizations

In Windows, settings are often here.

Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\OpenOffice\user

Default Locations for Templates, AutoTexts, Backups, AutoCorrect, Gallery, Temporary Files, My Documents (default location for File > Open) and Graphics (default location for Insert > Picture > From File) -- and How to Change or Add Locations

You can check, and change, the location of AutoCorrection settings and AutoTexts, plus other items under Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Paths.

Click the picture to see a bigger version.

For each, to add or change paths, select the line and click Edit.  You'll see this window. If there are two or more you can delete paths that aren't the default path. Click Add to add additional paths.

Here's an overview from the online help about each category.

 

Type	Description
AutoCorrect	Contains the settings of the AutoCorrect dialog box.
AutoText	Your AutoTexts are stored in the specified folder.
My Documents	You can see this folder when you first call the Open or Save dialog.
AutoCorrect	This folder stores your own AutoCorrect texts.
AutoText	This folder stores your own AutoText texts.
Gallery	New Gallery themes are stored in this folder.
Graphics	This folder is displayed when you first call the dialog for opening or saving a graphic object.
Backups	Automatic backup copies of documents are stored here.
Templates	In this folder you can store your own templates.
Temporary files	This is where OpenOffice.org puts its temporary files.

 

Setting a Specific Location for a Category of AutoTexts
When you create AutoTexts under Edit > AutoText, you can add a category. Click Category, enter the name of the category, and select the location to store the file for this category from the dropdown list. The list comes from the paths set for AutoTexts under Tools > Options.

Click the graphic to see it bigger.

If you want to put this category in a different location, you can do it on the fly, kind of. Cancel out to the main AutoText window and click Path.  Then click Add to add a new path.

Now when you create a new AutoText category, you can select the new path from the dropdown list.

Go to that directory and you'll see a file with the category as its file name. You can copy this file to other computers, and point users to where the file is.

Locations for Customizations to Spellcheck

Look for the wordbook directory in the location under Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\OpenOffice\user (or the user directory on that computer) for customizations made to spellcheck.

Locations for Plugins

Look for the plugins  directory in the location under Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\OpenOffice\user (or the user directory on that computer). This folder contains the plugins that you installed in OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice.org recognizes the plug-ins installed in Netscape, Mozilla, or the Microsoft Internet Explorer, so you normally do not need to install plug-ins in this folder.

 

What's Coming

In the coming month I'm going to put together a big fat blog on configuration: how to make sure that a whole bunch of users can have the settings or values you specify for:

• styles/templates
• macros
• menus and toolbars
• colors
• and much more

Please leave a comment if there's a configuration location you'd like to know about or something you've picked up that would be useful. Thanks!

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