OpenOffice.org Training, Tips, and Ideas

When in doubt, right-click.

When in doubt, right-click.

The right-click context menu gives a very nice list of many of the operations you can do with the selected item. Not everything, of course, but it's a good place to start. (Click to see a bigger version.)

Summary of new features in OpenOffice.org 2.3

Here’s a summary of the features from the 2.3 new features list that I considered the most useful or important to write about. This page  http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/New_Features_2.3 about the new features is an excellent guide, as well.

General

• This is convenient for anyone who prints to multiple printers, all over the world. You can load or ignore the printer settings for your documents. This means you don’t end up accidentally printing to the printer in building 4 which is on the opposite side of the country, just because you were on a business trip there last week and that’s where you last printed your document.
  

• If your document isn’t wider than the OpenOffice.org window, then it will be centered in the window, not left-aligned.
  

• Lots of locale information was added, for locations such as Tagalog, Frisian, and Hausa.
  

Writer and Web

• The HTML editor now has a preview feature. Choose File > Preview in Web Browser and the document opens in the default browser.

• I love this feature. You know how when you get a hyperlink but then want to retype it or reformat it, but clicking on it takes you to the target of the link? No more. You can select hyperlinked text all you want; you now have to Ctrl Click to open a link. This is very nice.
  

• The notes say that there is a new compatibility option on Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer > Compatibility: Do Not Justify Alignment in Lines Ending With Manual Line Break. However, I’m mentioning this because I couldn’t see it. The illustration shows the compatibility options that are there.
  

• When you open the Styles and Formatting window (Format > Styles and Formatting), you can set what kinds of styles you wanted to see: Applied, Custom, Automatic, etc. Previously, you had to reset this every time you opened a new document or re-opened OpenOffice.org. Now, thankfully, that category will stick. The setting is saved per application. However, the choice you make for Paragraph, Character, Frame, List, or Page doesn’t stick.
  
  

• When you right-click on text, you used to see Default as one of the options. Now you see Default Formatting, which is clearer. (Default Formatting is a great way to just clear out any extraneous formatting and apply the default style to the selected item.) This is a very nice feature regardless of the text; for one thing, it’s the best way to remove the hotlink from a URL.
  

• A new export filter lets you export to MediaWiki format. Choose File > Export and select MediaWiki in the file format list.

Calc

• This is a very, very smart change. By default, the print options for Calc are now set to Print Only Selected Sheets and Suppress Output of Empty Pages. If the Print Only Selected Sheets option is enabled, the Calc page preview shows only the displayed sheet and the message “There is nothing to print.” To change these options, choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Calc > Print, or choose File > Print and click the Options button.
  

• Here’s another very smart change that will screw up all my documentation. :) The SUM icon on the main Calc toolbar has changed. Now you can select the range of numbers to add, click the SUM icon, and get the total in the first cell below the selected range. Phew. But if you liked it the old way, it still works that way, too.
  

• Graphics can be linked to macros. This should help with Excel compatibility.
  

• The Excel export filter now handles the cotangent functions COT, ACOT, COTH, and ACOTH.

• Calc now supports inline matrix/array constants in formulas. An inline array is surrounded by curly braces '{' and '}'. Elements can be each a number (including negatives), a logical constant (TRUE, FALSE) or a literal string. See this link for more detail. http://sc.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=features&msgNo=230

• You can now use dynamic ranges, rather than absolute ranges defined with $, in lists in Data Validity. Choose Data > Validity, and under the Criteria tab select Cell Range from the list.
  
  

• The GETPIVOTDATA function returns a result value from a DataPilot table, so it can be used in a cell formula.
  

Mail Merge, Databases, and Forms

• The infamous checkbox on the print message when you print a mail merge document, Do Not Show Warning Again, is gone. Phew! See this blog http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2006/10/how_to_get_the_.html for why that caused problems.
  
  

• This is nice. When you choose File > Print with a mail merge document, in the Mail Merge window, you can choose to save the document as separate documents or as one document.
  
  

• Unfortunately, in Base there is still no File > Export or File > Import feature. File > Export does appear, but it’s dimmed.

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Creating Keyboard Shortcuts in OpenOffice, including Assigning Keyboard Shortcuts to Styles, a GREAT Feature

One of the complaints people have when switching from any software package to another is that the keyboard shortcuts that they're used to don't work anymore.

However, in OpenOffice.org you can set your keyboard shortcuts pretty much any way you want. You can even assign shortcut keys to styles. This means that:

• You can blow through formatting quickly without using the Styles and Formatting window
• You can set up styles, put them in the default template that your users use, then just give them all quick reference guides that might look like this:

         

        Text with hanging left indent   In WordPerfect was [whatever]  In OpenOffice Ctrl F4
        Heading indented from left and right   In WordPerfect was [whatever]  In OpenOffice Ctrl F6
        Back to normal text   In WordPerfect was [whatever]  In OpenOffice Ctrl Q

Assigning a Keyboard Shortcut to a Task

1. Create or open a document in the program where you want to apply the shortcut. You'll be able to choose that program, such as Writer, or all of OpenOffice.org, as the context in which the shortcut will work.

2. Choose Tools > Customize, Keyboard tab.

3. Select the program, such as Writer, or OpenOffice.org, at the top.

4. Use the Category and Function lists at the bottom to select the feature you want to assign a shortcut to. You have to be willing to spend some time looking but you'll eventually get a sense of where things are.

5. Find the keyboard shortcut, in the Shortcut Keys list in the top half of the window, that you want to assign. If it's already assigned to something, that's fine. Select the keyboard shortcut you want.

6. Click Modify. The shortcut will be assigned to the item.

7. If you want to remove a shortcut key from an item, select it in the Keys list and click Delete.

8. Click OK.

Assigning a Keyboard Shortcut to a Style

You might find it easier to just use a keyboard shortcut for styles, than to double-click them in the Styles and Formatting window. (Format > Styles and Formatting.)

To use a keyboard shortcut for a style, you do pretty much the same thing.

1. Create or open a document in the program where you want to apply the shortcut. You'll be able to choose that program, such as Writer, or all of OpenOffice.org, as the context in which the shortcut will work.

2. Choose Tools > Customize, Keyboard tab.

3. Select the program, such as Writer, or OpenOffice.org, at the top.

4. In the Category list, scroll to the bottom and select Styles. Expand the + next to it and select the category of style: Paragraph, Page, etc. Then in the Function list select the specific style. Select the shortcut you want from the Shortcut Keys list and click Modify.

5. Click OK.

Remember, the style has to be in the document where you use the shortcut key, otherwise of course it won't work.

Giving the Configurations You've Made to All Users

Shortcut keys are stored here in XP:

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

If you want everyone to have the same shortcuts, you can modify that file, then copy it to other machines or user directories. This is the directory on XP; different for Vista. (Grrr.....my impression of Vista is, OK, it's pretty because it looks like Mac, but I am sure sick of the blue screen of death.)

In Vista, it's

\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\OpenOffice.org2\user\config\soffice.cfg\
modules\swriter (or other module)\accelerator\en-US\current.xml

If you're having trouble finding the location, just make a change, then search your system for files that were recently modified, or contains a word in the change you made.

Here's what it looks like.

xlink:href=".uno:StyleApply?Style:string=HangingIndent&
FamilyName:string=ParagraphStyles" accel:shift="true" accel:mod1="true"/>

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

Another "classic" post! These are perennial questions and through reposting I'll be able to get these to come up as searchable in blog searches.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Making a Watermark

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To make the graphic lighter, select it. The Picture toolbar should appear but if it doesn't, choose View > Toolbars > Picture. Use the Brightness icon to make the graphic lighter and use the Contrast icon to decrease contrast.

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

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

Dragging a Cell in a Spreadsheet

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

Unless you do this.

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

Now you can drag the cell wherever you want.

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Creating Automatic Backups and Specifying Where They're Located in OpenOffice

Always have a backup. That's up there with wear your seatbelt, eat your vegetables, and always have cab fare on a first date.

OpenOffice.org has a backup system that lets you create a backup copy of your documents, anywhere you want. Not a bad idea, eh? Here's how you do it.

1. Choose Tools > Options > Load/Save > General.

Mark the checkbox for always making a backup.

2. In the same big window, open the OpenOffice.org category. Click the Paths option and select the Backups item. This is where the backups will be created. If that's fine, leave it as is.

If you want the backups elsewhere, click Edit, specify the new location, and click OK.

3. Click OK to save all the changes you made in the settings window.

For every new document you create, then each time you edit that document, a backup of the previous version will be created. Your backups will be created with a BAK extension in the location you specify.

 

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

 

(Originally posted in October 2005.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Turn off the word completion.

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

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

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

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

3. Use the automatic formatting to create handy shortcuts.

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

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

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

B. Click New, then click OK.

C. Click the Options tab and be sure that both checkboxes for the top item, Use Replacement Table, are marked. That just means "use the stuff in the Replace tab."

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

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

4. Display the icons that you want.

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

When you’re done, just click OK.

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

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

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

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

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

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

(First posted March 2006)

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

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

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

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

Features include:

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

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

Getting the Design

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

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

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

Creating the Colors

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

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

To create your own colors:

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

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

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

Creating the Nav Graphic

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

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

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

Creating the Web Page Master

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

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

And I also removed the table borders.

Adding the Graphic to a Document and Additional Formatting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then I did the same for the left nav bar.

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

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

Tweaking

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

Pasting in the Content

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

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

Posted the pages. Did some retweaking.

That's All.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Making a Watermark

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dragging a Cell in a Spreadsheet

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

Unless you do this.

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

Now you can drag the cell wherever you want.

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TechTarget Article: Using Customization Tools to Ease Migration Problems, and Just Make OpenOffice Easier to Use

I've written an article for TechTarget on the general theme of using the customization tools in OpenOffice.org to make life better for users. Whether they're just using OpenOffice (or StarOffice), or switching from Microsoft Office, you can customize toolbars, menus, and keyboard shortcuts to make life easier.

Here's how it starts--thanks to Louis for the story and to Scott for his pivotal role.

"One of my blog readers reports that, when he migrated his organization to OpenOffice.org, he didn't even tell the users that they were switching to a different office suite. He just said that there was going to be a big upgrade. Then, he and his migration cohorts modified the OpenOffice.org menus and toolbars to resemble the Microsoft Office layout and phrasing as much as possible (without violating copyright, of course) and gave that configured version to the users. He reports very few problems with the migration.

"I love that story. Is the biggest problem with change simply that it is change?"

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OpenOffice.org openoffice training open source open source training web publishing education Microsoft Office Office 2007 open source burning software  free software 

TechTarget Article: Autotext and Auto Formatting Shortcuts

This isn't totally new content since I've done a similar blog post, but it's very useful stuff.  It's about AutoText and automatic formatting options, so that you can create shortcuts of special characters, a signature, standard legal text, graphics, or several pages of all of the above. You can use the keyboard or insert them with the mouse.

http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/tip/1,289483,sid39_gci1183532,00.html

Useful Icons in the OpenOffice Standard Toolbar That I Should Use More

I'm such a dyed-in-the-wool menu user that I often ignore the very useful icons on the Standard toolbar in OpenOffice.org. This is the toolbar, usually at the top of your work area; click the picture here to see it fullsize.

Some of these icons are only in Writer, or only in Calc. See the end of this post for what to do to add icons that you don't see but think should be available.

Mail Merge (the simple one) - You can get to it without adding it to your menu, by clicking this icon.

Then this window appears, and you can go on from there. (In the next window, choose to use an existing data source.)

Pasting - The Paste icon is fine but you can click and hold down on it, and get extra options which are nice when pasting between different applications, or when you want the pasted content to be linked to the original. The options vary depending on what and where you copied, and where you're pasting.

Page Preview - You can choose File > Page Preview too, but this is quicker.

Data Sources - Click the Data Sources icon instead of choosing View > Data Sources. Then you'll see your actual data sources, as you'd expect.

Click to see a bigger version.

Zoom - Click Zoom to see a bigger version of your document (or a smaller version).

When you click that icon, you get this window.

Show Draw Functions - You can choose View > Toolbars > Drawing, but this is a lot quicker.

Here's the toolbar you get.

Sort Ascending, and Sort Descending - Select cells in your spreadsheet and use these icons to sort quickly.

Navigator - Click this icon to see the Navigator, a very useful tool for seeing what's in your document, and going to different parts of it. It's most effective with larger documents.

Here's the navigator.

New Document From Template - This is much quicker than choosing File > New > Documents and templates.

You get the same window you'd expect.

New Document - This is a little easier than choosing File > New. Click and hold down on the icon to get the choices.

Table - Just click and hold down on this icon and choose the dimensions of your table.

Show Nonprinting Characters - To show things like carriage returns and tab marks, click this icon.

Here's what they look like, showing (they don't print).

If You Don't See All These Icons (Like the New Document From Template Icon)
Click  and hold down on the downward-pointing black triangle on the standard toolbar.

Then choose Visible buttons.

Then find anything without a checkmark next to it, and select it to add it to your toolbar.

To make sure you have room for all the icons, select anything with a checkmark that you don't want, and hide it.

Back From Frankfort, Kentucky

I'm back from a fun week of training in Frankfort, Kentucky where I learned more about desktop support, what to wear to the Derby, and "Doctor Hobo" than I ever dreamed possible.

Here are a few things we talked about implementing that I wanted to reinforce as very useful--especially if you have a lot of users who might not be wild about the change, and want to help ensure consistency and ease-of-use.

• Templates, templates, templates! Make the templates, set'em up in clearly named categories, and point users at them. For best results, store the templates centrally on a server.  To make a template, choose File > Templates > Save, or just copy it to the templates directory of your OOo installation on the server. To point users to that location, choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Paths, select the Templates line, click Edit, and add a location.  See more in this blog on templates.
• Configure the menus and toolbars! You can make menus that say "Admissions Department" and it's not going to take any training at all to get the folks in the Admissions Department to use that menu. Then stick whatever you want in there. Choose Tools >  Customize to modify or create menus and toolbars. When you add items, you can choose to rename the menu or toolbar item so that it says "Use This For Printing Envelopes" or even "Diane, This Is For You". See more in this blog on toolbars.
• To skip blank Address2 lines, just use the mongo mail merge wizard: Tools > Mail Merge Wizard. This is a bit complex so just set it all up with the content and the database users need, then make a template and point them to the template. You might need to fuss with the database setup to be sure that the users' systems recognize it if you've got the template and database on a central server; one thing to try is Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Base > Database and register the database. See more in this blog on the big wizard.
• If you have a lot of forms with fill-in fields (the usual gray fields that pop up to let you enter something), consider creating a form from File > New >  XML Form Document. This gives you the data entry form tools but you can use them easily for forms that just need to be filled in and printed, or filled in and saved. You can create dropdown lists for instance that make it easier for the people filling in the fields to know what the correct possible values are. When you create the form, make it a template too, then point users to it. Here's a blog on tweaking forms created with the wizard, which isn't exactly what you might want but it's a step in the right direction.

Those were the big implementation ideas that we bandied about and I think are darned useful for anyone who needs to work with a lot of users.  If you have other ideas along these lines, let me know!

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

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

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

Using  the Automatic Formatting to Create Handy Shortcuts

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

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

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

2. Click New, then click OK.

3. Click the Options tab and be sure that both checkboxes for the top item, Use Replacement Table, are marked. That just means "use the stuff in the Replace tab."

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

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

AutoText: Storing and Quickly Inserting Text and Graphics

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

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

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

GOOD

BAD

2. Choose Edit > Autotext.

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

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

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

6. Click Close.

 

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

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

The autotext will appear in the document.

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

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

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

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Get Ready to Save a Lot of Time: Using the Web Wizard as an OpenOffice/Microsoft Office PDF Batch Convert Program

Note: If you're not familiar with PDF, read this post. If you do a lot of online publishing of your PDFs, see this post to take advantage of links.

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Psst! Do you like PDF?

Do you like easy, free ways to convert to PDF?

Do you have a bunch of PDF files you need to convert at once? I'm talking PDF batch convert.

Do you need to convert web pages to PDF?

And are you the type who doesn't mind just a bit of a hack to get cool results?

Then you are going to love this feature.

You might not have noticed a PDF Batch Convert feature in OpenOffice.org 2.0. That's because it's a Web page wizard, under File > Wizards > Web Page. This is OK—the Web wizard has some really cool features for web publishing but I'm all about PDF so that's what I'm concentrating on.

All right. Here we go. We're going to start the Web wizard, select the OpenOffice.org files you want to convert to PDF, specify where the output goes, ignore the extraneous HTML files in the output directory, and have ourselves a really dandy PDF batch convert process.

1. Choose File > Wizards > Web Page. You'll get this window. (Click it to see a larger image if you want.)

2.  Just click Next.

3. Now you'll see the window where you put the files to convert to PDF.  (Click it to see a larger image if you want.) Just click Add and find the files—Writer files, whatever you want. You can select all the files in the directory at once; just hold down Ctrl and select.

4. Now you say, convert these to PDF for me, please. For each file, select it and in the dropdown list, select the format to convert to. Select PDF for press for higher quality.

5. When you've specified PDF for each, click Next a few times to get to the last window.
6. Specify the directory where you want the PDF files created.

7. Then just click Finish.

8. The PDFs will be created in the directory you specified—but inside a Content directory, along with an index.html file and other stuff.

9. Just open the content directory, and you'll see your PDFs.

Isn't it slick? I think it's great, and wanted to make sure you know about it since I just stumbled upon it on my own.

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Now, there's a teeny issue. On my Windows desktop, but not my laptop, this doesn't work.It works the first time but not the second time.  A message pops up saying the files aren't there, and to run repair.  Running Repair  doesn't work. The bug has been filed but not a lot of people get it. So if this doesn't work for you, just wait for the next rev, or try it on another machine.

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Tags

OpenOffice.org    pdfconverter    expresspdf    html to pdf   open source   html   web publishing  convert to pdf   convert   education   Microsoft Office  batch  PDF    printing   

What I'm Learning This Week in OpenOffice Training in Largo, Florida

I always learn something when I teach a StarOffice or OpenOffice class. In Green River, Wyoming two weeks ago, I learned how to redock the slide pane in Impress/Draw (for some versions of the software). Click here to see the post.

I also learned that cleaning the dash on a Subaru can knock your hazards on, and they don't flash so it looks like they're your regular lights. I also learned that Green River Imports is a very fine car-fixing establishment that doesn't laugh at you when you bring in your car for something like that.

This week I'm in Largo, Florida at the City of Largo. The weather is gorgeous. I'll post pictures when I get back. I'm teaching an all-Linux set of classes this week--notable, the City of Largo completely skipped Microsoft Office. Never had it or Windows running for the city. Fabulous.

A few of the things I learned from student questions, or things that students discovered and told me about,  include:

- You can just click somewhere in a table, then choose Table > AutoFormat, to apply an autoformat--you don't need to select the whole table.

- When you're putting spacing between columns under Format > Page, Columns, or for a section too, it won't accept a space between the columns if you type the measurement. You have to use the arrows to put in the spacing.

- I should have seen this earlier but in mail merge documents, you need to specify the printer before you print. In labels or envelopes just click the Options tab and specify the printer. Or in any created document, choose File > Print Properties and select the printer. Then choose File> Print, click Yes to print a form letter, be sure the Printer radio button is selected, and click OK. Used to be, you got a chance after that window to specify the printer. Not anymore.

- The mail merge wizard in 2.0.1 now does let you do manual editing when you set up the contents and layout of the address block, so it's now less annoying.

 

- To sort a data source for mail merges, so that for instance everything prints in order by zip code, here's what you do. Choose File > Open to open the data source, the .odb file. Double-click the table you're basing the mail merge on. In the editing window, click the column you want to sort by, and click one of the sort icons, Sort Ascending or Sort Descending. Then do your mail merge. If you need to then change the sort for another mail merge, just repeat these steps.

- I've been reminded that it's not a bad idea to just export your Impress slides to PDF and run your presentation in Adobe Acrobat. (In OOo, File > Export as PDF.) For anyone looking for an OpenOffice.org Impress viewer application, PDF might be all you need. Granted, it won't run your cool effects but unless you're presenting on something where you need to demonstrate motion, you don't technically need custom animation or slide transitions.

You can of course also export to HTML and to Flash; I haven't played enough with Flash to know how the transitions come over, if at all.

- Hyperlinks transfer over to PDF!!! This did not happen in 1.x. However, in 2.0 OpenOffice.org, any hyperlink in a document such as a hyperlinked table of contents or any link period, transfers to the PDF when you choose File > Export as PDF. This is GREAT.  To create a plain old hyperlink, select some text to link and click the Hyperlink icon on the top toolbar.

- In labels, to go from one frame to another on the keyboard (or to go from one label to another, period), press Esc  Tab  Enter. Intuitive, huh? You can also choose Tools > Customize, click Keyboard, and set up a control key for it.

- Cuban food is yummy. I had a pork with black beans and rice thing the other day for lunch. However, when you carry the bag of Cuban food the wrong way, the black beans leak out of the container, out of the paper bag, and splash all over your light beige suit, when you don't have time to drive back to the hotel to change.  However,  my polyester suit from the fine folks at Target was easy to dab down and get clean with just soap and water. So that was a relief. (I mostly love Target, but will take this opportunity to plead with them to carry tall sizes in pants and jeans.)

 

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Tags: OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org, Open Office, StarOffice, StarOffice training, openoffice.org training, openoffice training, education, open source, city government, Largo

TechTarget.com Article: The new toolbar system in OpenOffice.org 2.0

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

I wrote an article for TechTarget.com on the new toolbars in OpenOffice.org 2.0.

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How to Create Your Own Toolbar, and Manage 2.0 Icons and Toolbars

Note: See also a related article I wrote for TechTarget.com.

I've been updating my workbooks to OpenOffice.org 2.0. One of the big differences is the look and feel, i.e. the toolbars. They have different icons to show you how to see the whole toolbar, and you view them differently.

It's not hard, but it's definitely different than 1.x. So here's an excerpt from my OpenOffice.org 2.0 Core Office Suite workbook that describes how to do a bunch of stuff with the new toolbar system.

• Create your own toolbar or add icons to an existing toolbar with the Customize Toolbar option
• View toolbars, dock or undock toolbars, and view extra icons with the Visible Buttons option

Things That Can Be Confusing At First, Explained

Starting to use a new piece of software, especially when you're used to a different one that you loved that was mercilessly taken from you by Earl the IT guy, can be a little confusing.

Here are a few of the things new users encounter the most, from troubleshooting and a little confusion to frequently asked questions about how to make the software do what you want it to.

Don't worry about the JRE unless you're making databases.

The install for 1.x will ask you where your JRE is. If your reaction is to think, well, maybe you left it in your other pants, or that Dallas was cancelled years ago, don't worry about it. Just say you're not using one. If you end up wanting one later, you can get it from Sun (java.sun.com) or for OpenOffice.org 2.0 you can download the Windows version with the JRE built right in.

To be honest....*you* told OpenOffice.org to “take over” your Microsoft files.

In some versions of OpenOffice.org 1.x, the default was to have Windows automatically associate OpenOffice.org with your .doc, .xls, and .ppt Microsoft files. So that when you innocently double-click one of those files, expecting Microsoft Office to pop up, now OpenOffice.org does instead.

That is because you merrily clicked OK when the installation asked you whether you wanted that.  (Or Earl the IT guy did when he installed it.)

In OpenOffice.org 2.0, it is not the default, though you get the same window asking if you want that asociation.

If OpenOffice.org is starting when you double-click your Word, Excel, or Powerpoint files, and you want to change it so Microsoft Office starts, here's how. The steps vary between versions of Windows so if it doesn't match exactly, keep in mind the principles are the same.

1. Open My Computer or your Windows Explorer.
2. Under the Tools menu, choose Folder Options.
3. In the window that appears, click File Types.
4. In the Extensions column of that window, find the .DOC extension that has OpenOffice.org or StarOffice next to it.
5. Select that line in the list.
6. Click Change.
7. Another window will appear. Find Microsoft Word.
8. Click OK.

If you need to do Excel files and Powerpoint too, repeat steps 4-8. However, instead of DOC, find XLS and change it to Micorosoft Excel, and find PPT and change it to Microsoft Powerpoint.

Sherry in Accounting can't open your OpenOffice.org file

You've heard that Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org are compatible, that Microsoft can open OpenOffice.org documents and vice versa.

Well, yes. But Microsoft Office is a bit uncooperative, so you need to do an extra step to make up for it. When you send an OpenOffice.org document to a Microsoft Office user, you need to save your OOo document in a Microsoft Office format. Then send that document.

So for instance, let's say you've got a budget.odt document, or budget.sxw document, in OpenOffice.org.

1. Choose File > Save As.
2. In the Save As window, click the Save As Type list and find Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP.
3. Click Save.
4. Then write your email and attach that new budget.doc file. Send that file to the Word user.

If the person you're sending the document to doesn't need to change the document, just needs to read and/or print it, it's best to send a PDF. You'll never have any formatting problems between OOo and MS because everyone can read PDFs.

Just click the PDF icon on the object bar, name the file something like budget.pdf, then attach that document to your email.

Why are Word documents screwed up when you open them in OpenOffice.org?

OpenOffice.org 2.0 took a lot of steps to help documents go between the two applications a whole lot better. They did some low-level coding, they changed the default margins of new documents (sometimes it's the simple things), and generally did a whole bunch of work to make transitions easier.

Here are some things you can do when that's just not enough.

• Turn on the marks that show how the document was created. Choose View > Nonprinting Characters. If you see a bunch of carriage return marks (the backwards P), a bunch of extra tabs, or anything else that seems weird, delete them and reformat. The issue is typically not incompatibility, just different settings for how far apart tabs are and other settings. (Using lots of tabs will usually get you into trouble anyway, so try to use indenting or just paragraph formatting under Format > Paragraph to indent text or do other formatting.)

The following illustration shows tabs and carriage returns.

• Text boxes can come over weird periodically. If you've got a text box that you want connected to a graphic, do this. Choose Insert > Frame, click OK, and resize the frame to fit the graphic and text box. Then cut and paste the graphic inside the frame, and do the same with the text box. Rearrange them as necessary. Then the text box and graphic will stay together.

• Check the wrapping with graphics that aren't doing what you expect. Select the graphic, right-click and choose Wrap > No Wrap or Wrap > Page Wrap. Drag the graphic nearer to where you want it, and try adding a carriage return (blank line) above and below the graphic.

• Switch bullets to graphics, not fonts (normal bullets). Fonts can be a little weird. Select the bulleted list, choose Format > Bullets and Numbering, click on the Graphics tab, and select the bullets you like.

Where are the reveal codes?

For WordPerfect users, reveal codes are life. But with OpenOffice.org, asking for reveal codes is kind of like asking where the woodpile is. You don't actually need them since you don't have a woodburning stove. Or most of the same problems you have with WordPerfect and Microsoft Office formatting. To make something bold, just select the text with your mouse or the keyboard arrow keys, and click the Bold icon. To take off that formatting, do the same thing. If formatting is being really weird and not obeying you, select the text and choose Format > Default and start over. The key point is, select all the text you want to format, apply the formatting—and you're good to go.

Why aren't there any templates for OpenOffice.org?

There are a bunch, they're just not installed with it.

Here are some:

http://documentation.openoffice.org/Samples_Templates/User/template/index.html

Here are others:

http://ooextras.sourceforge.net/

If they're in zipped or tarred format after you download them, unzip them or untar them.

Then find where OpenOffice.org was installed on your computer, and go to the openoffice.org\share\templates\en-US\ directory. (Or instead of en-US, which indicates the language, you might find en-CA, or another directory for your language.) Copy the template files to that directory. If you want you can create a directory inside en-US such as book_templates, downloaded_templates, etc. Then choose File > New > Templates and documents, and you'll see the templates you added.

Also note that OpenOffice.org can open all your Microsoft Office templates. So just convert them to OpenOffice.org by opening them or using the batch convert tool (File > Wizards > Document Converter), then put them in the same directory noted early.

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Tags: OpenOffice.org  open office  OpenOffice.org training  open office training  open source  open source training  StarOffice  Linux  PDF  education  Google  tips 

Making OpenOffice.org Work the Way You Want It

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

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

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

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

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

1. Turn off the word completion.

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

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

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

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

3. Use the automatic formatting to create handy shortcuts.

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

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

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

B. Click New, then click OK.

C. Click the Options tab and be sure that both checkboxes for the top item, Use Replacement Table, are marked. That just means "use the stuff in the Replace tab."

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

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

4. Display the icons that you want.

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

When you’re done, just click OK.

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

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

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

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

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Some of My Favorite Cool OpenOffice.org Features

   

Everyone's got their favorite features that make life easier, more fun, or both. Here are a few of my favorites.

Making PDFs Straight From OpenOffice.org

One of the greatest, most convenient features is the ability to make Adobe Acrobat PDFs from any OpenOffice.org document. Why is this cool? Because anyone can read a PDF document no matter what software they have (since everyone has the little program for reading PDFs). It’s the perfect way to send a document to someone else, if they don’t need to change your document.

Just click on the handy PDF icon on the top of your work area, give it a name and specify a location for the PDF file, and click Save. Then email that mydocument.pdf or quarterlyreport.pdf document.

If you want more control over the PDF, choose File > Export as PDF, name the file, then set options in the next window.

Send Document as Email

To make it even quicker, choose File > Send > Document as PDF Attachment. That starts your mail program, creates a new mail document, AND attaches a PDF of your current document to that email. It really doesn’t get much slicker.

Or if you don't need a PDF, just choose File > Send > Document as Email.

Paste Icon for Inter-Text-Document Pasting

When you're pasting from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.org, or from OpenOffice.org 2.0 to OpenOffice.org 1.x, you're not going to get text. You're going to get a frame of text or an icon object.

What I've done to get around this is to use Notepad as an intermediary. But it's a whole lot easier to use OpenOffice.org's multiple paste format features. Either choose Edit > Paste Special and choose unformatted or formatted text, or just click on the paste icon and choose your option. Formatted Text (RTF) usually works just fine.

Make the Icons a Decent Size

Choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org (or StarOffice) > View and make sure the icons are large enough. I like to see my icons, not squint at them.

The List Object Bar and the List Formatting Window

I used to curse the indenting and levels of OpenOffice.org lists until I started using the specialized object bar. Choose View > Toolbars > Bullets and Numbering, or just make a list and the floating one pops up.

Also, when you're developing complex list formatting, always use the numbering/bullets formatting window (Format > Bullets and Numbering) and use only the last two tabs, Options and Positioning. These are the only tabs that let you specify specific formatting that's different for each level.

Make Shortcuts

This was in my configuration blog too but I really like it. The same tab where you turned off word completion (Tools > AutoCorrect, Replace) has a really great feature for creating shortcuts. Let’s say you type the word supercalfragilisticexpealidocious a zillion times a day, or your name and title, or anything kinda long. You can set up a shortcut for it.

Just choose Tools > AutoCorrect and click on the Replace tab. In the left-hand field type your shortcut like sig and in the right-hand field, type the word you’re tired of typing all the time. Click New, then click OK. In your document, type the shortcut, followed by a space, and your word will appear.

Making My Own Color and Other Fills

I might be pickier than most about the color I want for drawings, but for one thing, I don't like the greens that come with OpenOffice.org. Too dark or too limey. So I make my own.

Choose File > New > Drawing, then choose Format > Area and click the Color tab. Or just choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org (or StarOffice) > Colors.

Click Edit and fiddle til you have the color you want.

Click OK, then type a new name in the main color field and click Add. The new color now shows up in all color lists including the font color lists.

Following the navigation for doing this in Draw, you can make your own gradients, hatches, and bitmaps in the same window.

3D Shapes

In Draw and in Writer, you can use the 3D shapes to, well, draw 3D shapes. Even better, you can make them intersect. Draw two shapes, select one, cut it, select the other one, press F3, and paste. Then move them together.

 

To change their orientation, click on each shape once to get green handles, then again to get red handles, and swivel them around.

I'm not sure how useful this is to everyone but it sure is cool.

You can also convert any item to 3D, in Draw. Choose File > New > Drawing and create any shape, even text. Then right-click on the shape and choose Convert > To 3D. Shazam.

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