OpenOffice.org Training, Tips, and Ideas

TechTarget Article: Just Say No to Unnecessary Tabs and Carriage Returns (and Say Yes to Better Interoperability With Microsoft Office)

I've written an article for TechTarget that's not really about using OpenOffice.org per se. It's more about good document construction and formatting. 

The thing is, though, when you do the formatting correctly, lots of nice things happen. The document looks more professional, it's far easier to update, and goes between Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org more easily with fewer formatting snafus. And it's not just between those two office suites--better-formatted documents transfer better between different versions of the same office suite, different platforms, and different computers.

It's all about letting the software do a bit of the work, based on what makes sense for it and its environment, rather than laying down the law yourself with manual things like tabs and carriage returns. Instead, you want to just use the formatting capabilities in the program, typically under Format > Paragraph. Doing this, as well as giving your document some wiggle-room and not cramming content into each page, will make a bi-office-suite life go more smoothly.

Separation of format and content. It's not just for XML anymore.

Note: This isn't wildly revolutionary stuff, at least not in the world of publishing and techwriting that I started in 15 years ago. (We had a templates guardian who would threaten to break our knees if we even created an unauthorized style, much less did manual formatting like the stuff described in the article.) But in the--oh, let's say "real world"--where you just sit down at your desk and try to churn out reports for that crazy boss of yours, or when you come from a programming background where vi was your text editor, this could be new and useful info.

The article is based on my experience, as well as what makes sense logically. I've seen a lot of documents that have the manual formatting mentioned in the article, when I go out to train and consult. The first thing I do when I'm looking at a problem document for a client is to choose View > Nonprinting Characters and something manual almost always turns up. There'll be extra tabs, unexpected soft returns, spaces instead of indenting, etc.

I also encounter fewer conversion issues with documents I create, than people in the world at large seem to. I was puzzled by this before I started training, but then realized that it was probably my techwriter/desktop publishing background making the difference.

So--this is just an explanation and an implied caveat. I don't double-dog guarantee that your conversion problems between MS and OpenOffice.org will dribble away to nothing if you format your documents as I recommend. But my experience is that it should help, much of the time.

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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