OpenOffice 3.3 User Manual

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Getting Started

with

OpenOffice.org 3.3

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This document is Copyright © 2005–2010 by its contributors as listed below. You may distribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either the GNU General Public License (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html), version 3 or later, or the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), version

3.0 or later.

Contributors

Jean Hollis Weber Michele Zarri Magnus Adielsson Thomas Astleitner Richard Barnes Agnes Belzunce Chris Bonde Nicole Cairns Daniel Carrera JiHui Choi Richard Detwiler Alexander Noël Dunne Laurent Duperval Spencer E. Harpe Regina Henschel Peter Hillier-Brook Richard Holt John Kane Rachel Kartch Stefan A. Keel Jared Kobos Michael Kotsarinis Peter Kupfer Ian Laurenson Dan Lewis Alan Madden Michel Pinquier Andrew Pitonyak Carol Roberts Iain Roberts Hazel Russman Gary Schnabl Robert Scott Joe Sellman Janet Swisher Jim Taylor Alex Thurgood Barbara M. Tobias Claire Wood Linda Worthington

Feedback

Please direct any comments or suggestions about this document to:

authors@documentation.openoffice.org

Publication date and software version

Published 30 November 2010. Based on OpenOffice.org 3.3.

You can download

an editable version of this document from

http://oooauthors.org/english/userguide3/published/

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Contents

Chapter 1

Introducing OpenOffice.org......................................................................................... 9

What is OpenOffice.org?.......................................................................................... 10

The advantages of OpenOffice.org...........................................................................11

Minimum requirements........................................................................................... 12

How to get the software...........................................................................................12

How to install the software...................................................................................... 13

Extensions and add-ons........................................................................................... 13

How to get help........................................................................................................ 13

Starting OpenOffice.org........................................................................................... 14

Parts of the main window.........................................................................................17

What are all these things called?............................................................................. 22

Starting a new document......................................................................................... 23

Opening an existing document................................................................................23

Saving a document................................................................................................... 24

Renaming and deleting files.................................................................................... 25

Using the Open and Save As dialogs.......................................................................25

Using the Navigator................................................................................................. 27

Undoing and redoing changes.................................................................................28

Closing a document..................................................................................................29

Closing OpenOffice.org............................................................................................ 30

Using OpenOffice.org on a Mac............................................................................... 30

Chapter 2

Setting up OpenOffice.org......................................................................................... 31

Choosing options for all of OOo............................................................................... 32

Choosing options for loading and saving documents...............................................46

Choosing language settings.....................................................................................51

Choosing Internet options........................................................................................53

Controlling OOo’s AutoCorrect functions................................................................ 54

Chapter 3

Using Styles and Templates.......................................................................................55

What is a template?................................................................................................. 56

What are styles?....................................................................................................... 56

Applying styles......................................................................................................... 57

Modifying styles....................................................................................................... 59

Creating new (custom) styles...................................................................................61

Copying and moving styles......................................................................................62

Deleting styles......................................................................................................... 64

Using a template to create a document...................................................................65

Creating a template................................................................................................. 66

Editing a template.................................................................................................... 68

Adding templates using the Extension Manager.....................................................69

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Setting a default template....................................................................................... 70

Associating a document with a different template..................................................71

Organizing templates...............................................................................................72

Examples of style use............................................................................................... 73

Chapter 4

Getting Started with Writer....................................................................................... 76

What is Writer?........................................................................................................77

The Writer interface.................................................................................................77

Changing document views....................................................................................... 79

Moving quickly through a document.......................................................................80

Working with documents.........................................................................................81

Working with text..................................................................................................... 82

Formatting text........................................................................................................ 90

Formatting pages..................................................................................................... 94

Adding comments to a document............................................................................. 98

Creating a table of contents..................................................................................... 99

Creating indexes and bibliographies.....................................................................100

Working with graphics........................................................................................... 100

Printing.................................................................................................................. 100

Using mail merge................................................................................................... 100

Tracking changes to a document...........................................................................101

Using fields............................................................................................................ 101

Linking to another part of a document..................................................................101

Using master documents.......................................................................................104

Creating fill-in forms.............................................................................................. 104

Chapter 5

Getting Started with Calc........................................................................................105

What is Calc?......................................................................................................... 106

Spreadsheets, sheets and cells..............................................................................106

Parts of the main Calc window..............................................................................107

Opening and saving CSV files................................................................................109

Navigating within spreadsheets............................................................................ 111

Selecting items in a sheet or spreadsheet.............................................................115

Working with columns and rows............................................................................ 117

Working with sheets...............................................................................................118

Viewing Calc.......................................................................................................... 120

Entering data using the keyboard.........................................................................123

Speeding up data entry..........................................................................................124

Sharing content between sheets............................................................................ 127

Validating cell contents.......................................................................................... 127

Editing data............................................................................................................ 128

Formatting data..................................................................................................... 129

Autoformatting cells and sheets............................................................................133

Formatting spreadsheets using themes.................................................................134

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Using conditional formatting.................................................................................134

Hiding and showing data.......................................................................................134

Sorting records...................................................................................................... 136

Printing.................................................................................................................. 137

Chapter 6

Getting Started with Impress...................................................................................144

What is Impress?.................................................................................................... 145

Starting Impress.................................................................................................... 145

Parts of the main Impress window.........................................................................145

Workspace views....................................................................................................149

Creating a new presentation..................................................................................153

Formatting a presentation..................................................................................... 156

Adding and formatting text.................................................................................... 159

Adding pictures, tables, charts and media............................................................ 163

Working with slide masters and styles...................................................................166

Adding comments to a presentation...................................................................... 171

Setting up the slide show....................................................................................... 172

Running the slide show.......................................................................................... 173

Chapter 7

Getting Started with Draw....................................................................................... 174

What is Draw?........................................................................................................ 175

The Draw workspace............................................................................................. 175

Choosing and defining colors................................................................................. 178

Positioning objects with snap functions................................................................. 179

Positioning objects with guiding lines...................................................................181

The basic drawing shapes...................................................................................... 182

Drawing geometric shapes.................................................................................... 187

Selection modes..................................................................................................... 189

Selecting objects.................................................................................................... 190

Moving and dynamically adjusting an object’s size...............................................191

Editing objects....................................................................................................... 193

Using styles............................................................................................................ 195

Special effects........................................................................................................ 195

Combining multiple objects................................................................................... 198

Aids for positioning objects....................................................................................199

Inserting and editing pictures............................................................................... 199

Working with 3D objects........................................................................................ 199

Exporting graphics................................................................................................. 199

Adding comments to a drawing.............................................................................200

Chapter 8

Getting Started with Base.........................................................................................201

Introduction........................................................................................................... 202

Planning a database............................................................................................... 203

Creating a new database....................................................................................... 204

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Creating database tables....................................................................................... 205

Defining relationships............................................................................................ 213

Creating a database form...................................................................................... 215

Accessing other data sources................................................................................ 229

Using data sources in OpenOffice.org...................................................................231

Entering data in a form.......................................................................................... 235

Creating queries.................................................................................................... 237

Creating reports..................................................................................................... 245

Chapter 9

Getting Started with Math....................................................................................... 253

What is Math?........................................................................................................ 254

Entering a formula................................................................................................. 255

Customizations....................................................................................................... 260

Formula layout....................................................................................................... 262

Numbering equations............................................................................................ 265

Chapter 10

Printing, Exporting, and E-mailing..........................................................................267

Introduction........................................................................................................... 268

Quick printing........................................................................................................ 268

Controlling printing............................................................................................... 268

Exporting to PDF................................................................................................... 277

Exporting to other formats.................................................................................... 284

E-mailing documents............................................................................................. 284

Digital signing of documents.................................................................................287

Removing personal data........................................................................................ 288

Chapter 11

Graphics, the Gallery, and Fontwork........................................................................289

Introduction........................................................................................................... 290

Adding images to a document................................................................................ 290

Modifying and positioning graphics.......................................................................294

Managing the OpenOffice.org Gallery................................................................... 294

Creating an image map.......................................................................................... 297

Using OOo’s drawing tools.................................................................................... 298

Using Fontwork...................................................................................................... 301

Chapter 12

Creating Web Pages................................................................................................. 307

Introduction........................................................................................................... 308

Relative and absolute hyperlinks...........................................................................308

Creating hyperlinks............................................................................................... 309

Saving Writer documents as web pages................................................................312

Creating web pages using a Wizard.......................................................................313

Saving Calc spreadsheets as web pages................................................................317

Saving Impress presentations as web pages.........................................................317

Saving Draw documents as web pages.................................................................. 321

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Chapter 13

Getting Started with Macros...................................................................................322

Your first macros.................................................................................................... 323

Creating a macro...................................................................................................328

Sometimes the macro recorder fails...................................................................... 332

Macro organization................................................................................................ 333

How to run a macro............................................................................................... 338

Extensions.............................................................................................................. 342

Writing macros without the recorder....................................................................342

Finding more information...................................................................................... 343

Chapter 14

Customizing OpenOffice.org....................................................................................345

Introduction........................................................................................................... 346

Customizing menu content.................................................................................... 346

Customizing toolbars............................................................................................. 349

Assigning shortcut keys......................................................................................... 353

Assigning macros to events................................................................................... 355

Adding functionality with extensions..................................................................... 355

Appendix A

Keyboard Shortcuts..................................................................................................358

Introduction........................................................................................................... 359

General keyboard shortcuts...................................................................................360

Defining keyboard shortcuts..................................................................................362

Further reading......................................................................................................362

Appendix B

Open Source, Open Standards, OpenDocument.....................................................363

Introduction........................................................................................................... 364

A short history of OpenOffice.org.......................................................................... 364

The OpenOffice.org community............................................................................. 364

How is OpenOffice.org licensed?...........................................................................364

What is “open source”?.......................................................................................... 365

What are “open standards”?.................................................................................. 365

What is OpenDocument?........................................................................................ 365

Frequently asked questions................................................................................... 366

File formats OOo can open....................................................................................367

File formats OOo can save to................................................................................. 369

Exporting to other formats.................................................................................... 370

Index.......................................................................................................................... 371

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Chapter 1

Introducing

OpenOffice.org

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What is OpenOffice.org?

OpenOffice.org (OOo) is both a software product and a community of volunteers who produce and support the software.

Note

Because someone else owns the trademark OpenOffice, the correct name for both the open-source project and its software is OpenOffice.org.

The OpenOffice.org software is a freely available, full-featured office productivity suite. If you have used previous versions of OpenOffice.org, you might want to look over the new features lists at http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/3.0/,

http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/3.1/, http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/3.2/, and http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/3.3/.

OOo’s native file format is OpenDocument, an open standard format that is being adopted by governments worldwide as a required file format for publishing and accepting documents. OOo can also open and save documents in many other formats, including those used by several versions of Microsoft Office.

OOo includes the following components.

Writer (word processor)

Writer is a feature-rich tool for creating letters, books, reports, newsletters, brochures, and other documents. You can insert graphics and objects from other components into Writer documents. Writer can export files to HTML, XHTML, XML, Adobe’s Portable Document Format (PDF), and several versions of Microsoft Word files. It also connects to your email client.

Calc (spreadsheet)

Calc has all of the advanced analysis, charting, and decision-making features expected from a high-end spreadsheet. It includes over 300 functions for financial, statistical, and mathematical operations, among others. The Scenario Manager provides “what if” analysis. Calc generates 2-D and 3-D charts, which can be integrated into other OOo documents. You can also open and work with Microsoft Excel workbooks and save them in Excel format. Calc can export spreadsheets to Adobe’s PDF and to HTML.

Impress (presentations)

Impress provides all the common multimedia presentation tools, such as special effects, animation, and drawing tools. It is integrated with the advanced graphics capabilities of OOo’s Draw and Math components. Slide shows can be further enhanced with Fontwork’s special effects text, as well as sound and video clips. Impress is compatible with Microsoft’s PowerPoint file format and can also save your work in numerous graphics formats, including Macromedia Flash (SWF).

Draw (vector graphics)

Draw is a vector drawing tool that can produce everything from simple diagrams or flowcharts to 3-D artwork. Its Smart Connectors feature allows you to define your

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own connection points. You can use Draw to create drawings for use in any of OOo’s other components, and you can create your own clip art and add it to the Gallery. Draw can import graphics from many common formats and save them in over 20 formats, including PNG, HTML, PDF, and Flash.

Base (database)

Base provides tools for day-to-day database work within a simple interface. It can create and edit forms, reports, queries, tables, views, and relations, so that managing a connected database is much the same as in other popular database applications. Base provides many new features, such as the ability to analyze and edit relationships from a diagram view. Base incorporates HSQLDB as its default relational database engine. It can also use dBASE, Microsoft Access, MySQL, or Oracle, or any ODBCcompliant or JDBC-compliant database. Base also provides support for a subset of ANSI-92 SQL.

Math (formula editor)

Math is OOo’s formula or equation editor. You can use it to create complex equations that include symbols or characters not available in standard font sets. While it is most commonly used to create formulas in other documents, such as Writer and Impress files, Math can also work as a standalone tool. You can save formulas in the standard Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) format for inclusion in web pages and other documents not created by OOo.

The advantages of OpenOffice.org

Here are some of the advantages of OpenOffice.org over other office suites:

• No licensing fees. OOo is free for anyone to use and distribute at no cost.

Many features that are available as extra cost add-ins in other office suites (like PDF export) are free with OOo. There are no hidden charges now or in the

future.

• Open source. You can distribute, copy, and modify the software as much as

you wish, in accordance with either of OOo’s Open Source licenses.

• Cross-platform. OOo3 runs on several hardware architectures and under

multiple operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Solaris.

• Extensive language support. OOo’s user interface is available in over 40

languages, and the OOo project provides spelling, hyphenation, and thesaurus dictionaries in over 70 languages and dialects. OOo also provides support for both Complex Text Layout (CTL) and Right to Left (RTL) layout languages (such as Urdu, Hebrew, and Arabic).

• Consistent user interface. All the components have a similar “look and feel,”

making them easy to use and master.

• Integration. The components of OpenOffice.org are well integrated with one

another.

– All the components share a common spelling checker and other tools,

which are used consistently across the suite. For example, the drawing tools available in Writer are also found in Calc, with similar but enhanced versions in Impress and Draw.

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– You do not need to know which application was used to create a particular

file. For example, you can open a Draw file from Writer.

• Granularity. Usually, if you change an option, it affects all components.

However, OOo options can be set at a component level or even document level.

• File compatibility. In addition to its native OpenDocument formats, OOo

includes PDF and Flash export capabilities, as well as support for opening and saving files in many common formats including Microsoft Office, HTML, XML, WordPerfect, and Lotus 1-2-3 formats. New in OOo3 (using an extension): the ability to import and edit some PDF files.

• No vendor lock-in. OOo3 uses OpenDocument, an XML (eXtensible Markup

Language) file format developed as an industry standard by OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards). These files can easily be unzipped and read by any text editor, and their framework is open and published.

• You have a voice. Enhancements, software fixes, and release dates are

community-driven. You can join the community and affect the course of the product you use.

You can read more about OpenOffice.org, its mission, history, licensing, and other organizational information on the OpenOffice.org website,

http://www.openoffice.org/.

Minimum requirements

OpenOffice.org 3.x requires one of the following operating systems:

• Microsoft Windows 2000 (Service Pack 2 or higher), XP, Vista, or 7

• GNU/Linux Kernel version 2.4 and glibc 2.3.2 or higher (starting with OOo 3.3

glibc2 version 2.5 or higher is required)

• Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) or higher

• Solaris 10 OS or higher

Some OpenOffice.org features (wizards and the HSQLDB database engine) require that the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.5.x or higher be installed on your computer. Although OOo will work without Java support, some features will not be available. You can download OOo for some operating systems with or without JRE included. If you have a slow machine and do not often need the features requiring JRE, you can try to disable it to speed up the loading of the program.

For a more detailed (and up-to-date) listing of requirements, see the OpenOffice.org website, http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/source/sys_reqs_30.html.

How to get the software

Many new computers come with OpenOffice.org installed. In addition, most Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu, include OpenOffice.org.

If you need to install it yourself, you can download the installation package from the project’s home page or by using a Peer to Peer client such as BitTorrent. Instructions for BitTorrent are here: http://distribution.openoffice.org/p2p/.

The installation package is approximately 150MB. People with slow Internet connections may prefer to purchase a copy on a CD or DVD from a third-party distributor. The project maintains a list of distributors, but the distributors are not

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connected with, nor endorsed by, OpenOffice.org.

http://distribution.openoffice.org/cdrom/sellers.html

How to install the software

Information on installing and setting up OpenOffice.org on the various supported operating systems is given here:

http://download.openoffice.org/common/instructions.html.

You can also download the more detailed Installation Guide from

http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation.

Extensions and add-ons

Extensions and add-ons to enhance OpenOffice.org are collected in the official extensions repository, http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/. Most are free, but some are not. See Chapter 14 (Customizing OpenOffice.org) for more information.

How to get help

This book, the other OOo user guides, the built-in Help system, and user support systems assume that you are familiar with your computer and basic functions such as starting a program, opening and saving files.

Help system

OOo comes with an extensive Help system. This is your first line of support for using OOo.

To display the full Help system, press F1 or select OpenOffice.org Help from the Help menu. In addition, you can choose whether to activate Tips, Extended tips, and the Help Agent (using Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > General).

If Tips are enabled, place the mouse pointer over any of the icons to see a small box (“tooltip”) with a brief explanation of the icon’s function. For a more detailed explanation, select Help > What's This? and hold the pointer over the icon.

Free online support

The OpenOffice.org community not only develops software, but provides free, volunteer-based support. Users of OOo can get comprehensive online support from community venues such as newsgroups, forums, or mailing lists. There are also numerous websites run by users that offer free tips and tutorials.

Free OpenOffice.org support

Users Mailing List

Free community support provided by a network of hundreds of experienced users. You must be subscribed to post messages. To subscribe, send a blank email to

users-subscribe@openoffice.org

List archives are here:

http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ SummarizeList? listName=users

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Free OpenOffice.org support

Documentation Project

Templates, user guides, how-tos, and other documentation.

http://documentation.openoffice.org/

Paid support and training

Alternatively, you can pay for support services. Service contracts can be purchased from a vendor or consulting firm specializing in OpenOffice.org.

A list of independent consultants and the services they offer, listed alphabetically by region and then by country, is provided on the OpenOffice.org website,

http://bizdev.openoffice.org/consultants.html.

Starting OpenOffice.org

The most common way to launch any component of OOo is by using the system menu, the standard menu from which most applications are started. On Windows, it is called the Start menu. On GNOME, it is called the Applications menu. On KDE it is identified by the KDE logo. On Mac OS X, it is the Applications menu.

When OOo was installed on your computer, in most cases a menu entry for each component was added to your system menu. (If you are using a Mac, see note below.) The exact name and location of these menu entries depend on the operating system and graphical user interface.

Note for Mac users

You should see the OpenOffice.org icon in the Applications folder. When you doubleclick this icon, OpenOffice.org opens at the Start Center (Figure 10).

Starting from an existing document

You can start OOo by double-clicking the filename of an OOo document in a file manager such as Windows Explorer. The appropriate component of OOo will start and the document will be loaded.

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Note for Windows users

If you have associated Microsoft Office file types with OOo, then when you doubleclick on a *.doc (Word) file, it opens in Writer; *.xls (Excel) files open in Calc, and *.ppt (PowerPoint) files open in Impress.

If you did not associate the file types, then when you double-click on a Microsoft Word document, it opens in Microsoft Word (if Word is installed on your computer), Excel files open in Excel, and PowerPoint files open in PowerPoint.

You can use another method to open Microsoft Office files in OOo and save in those formats from OOo. See “Opening an existing document” on page 23 for more information.

Using the Quickstarter under Windows

The Quickstarter is an icon that is placed in the Windows system tray during system startup. It indicates that OpenOffice.org has been loaded and is ready to use. (The Quickstarter loads library *.DLL files required by OOo, thus shortening the startup time for OOo components by about half.) If the Quickstarter is disabled, see “Reactivating the Quickstarter” if you want to enable it.

Using the Quickstarter icon

Right-click the Quickstarter icon in the system tray to open a pop-up menu (Figure

1) from which you can open a new document, open the Templates and Documents dialog, or choose an existing document to open. You can also double-click the Quickstarter icon to display the Templates and Documents dialog.

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Figure 1: Quickstarter pop-up menu

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Disabling the Quickstarter

To close the Quickstarter, right-click on the icon in the system tray, and then click Exit Quickstarter on the pop-up menu. The next time the computer is restarted, the Quickstarter will be loaded again.

To prevent OpenOffice.org from loading during system startup, deselect the Load OpenOffice.org during system start-up item on the pop-up menu. You might want to do this if your computer has insufficient memory, for example.

Reactivating the Quickstarter

If the Quickstarter has been disabled, you can reactivate it by selecting the Load OpenOffice.org during system start-up checkbox in Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Memory.

Using the Quickstarter in Linux

Some installations of OpenOffice.org under Linux have a Quickstarter that looks and acts like the one described above for Windows (the checkbox on the Memory page is labeled Enable systray quickstarter).

Preloading OOo under Linux/KDE

In Linux/KDE, you can use KDocker to have OOo loaded and ready for use at startup. KDocker is not part of OOo; it is a generic “systray app docker” that is helpful if you open OOo often.

Starting from the command line

You may want to start OOo from the command line (using the keyboard instead of the mouse). By using the command line, you have more control over what happens when OOo is started. For example, using the command line, you can tell Writer to load a document and print it immediately, or to start without showing the splash screen.

Note

Most users will never need to do this.

There is more than one way to start OOo from the command line, depending on whether you have installed a customized version or the standard download from the OOo website.

If you installed using the download on the OOo website, you can start Writer by typing at the command line:

soffice -writer / ooffice -writer

owriter

Writer will start and create a new document. Likewise, you can start other OOo components from the command line; in Windows:

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Type of document Component Command-line option

Text Writer

-writer

Spreadsheet Calc

-calc

Drawing Draw

-draw

Presentation Impress

-impress

Formula Math

-math

Database Base

-base

Web page Writer

-web

To see a list of options you can use when starting Writer at the command line in Windows, type:

soffice -?

Below is a list of some of the more popular options.

Option Description

-help Get a complete list of options.

-nologo Do not show the startup screen.

-show <odp-file> Start presentation immediately.

-view <documents ...> Open documents in viewer (read-only) mode.

-minimized Start OOo minimized.

-norestore Suppress restart/restore after fatal errors.

-invisible No startup screen, no default document, and no UI.

This is useful for third-party applications that use functionality provided by OOo.

If you have a customized version of OOo (such as the one provided by Linux Mandrake, Gentoo, Debian and Ubuntu), you can start Writer by typing at the command line: oowriter

Although the command syntax differs, the effect is identical: it starts OOo with an empty Writer document.

Parts of the main window

The main window is similar in each component of OOo, although some details vary. See the chapters in this book about Writer, Calc, Draw, and Impress for descriptions of those details.

Common features include the menu bar, the standard toolbar, and the formatting toolbar at the top of the window and the status bar at the bottom.

Menu bar

The Menu bar is located across the top of the OOo window, just below the Title bar. When you choose one of the menus listed below, a submenu drops down to show commands.

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• File contains commands that apply to the entire document such as Open, Save,

and Export as PDF.

• Edit contains commands for editing the document such as Undo: xxx (where

xxx is the command to undo) and Find & Replace. It also contains commands to cut, copy, and paste selected parts of your document.

• View contains commands for controlling the display of the document such as

Zoom and Web Layout.

• Insert contains commands for inserting elements into your document such as

Header, Footer, and Picture.

• Format contains commands, such as Styles and Formatting and AutoCorrect,

for formatting the layout of your document.

• Table shows all commands to insert and edit a table in a text document.

• Tools contains functions such as Spelling and Grammar, Customize, and

Options.

• Window contains commands for the display window.

• Help contains links to the OpenOffice.org Help file, What’s This?, and

information about the program. See “How to get help“ on page 13.

Toolbars

OOo has several types of toolbars: docked, floating, and tear-off. Docked toolbars can be moved to different locations or made to float, and floating toolbars can be docked.

The top docked toolbar (default position) is called the Standard toolbar. The Standard toolbar is consistent across the OpenOffice.org applications.

The second toolbar across the top (default location) is the Formatting toolbar. It is a context-sensitive bar that shows the relevant tools in response to the cursor’s current position or selection. For example, when the cursor is on a graphic, the Formatting bar provides tools for formatting graphics; when the cursor is in text, the tools are for formatting text.

Displaying or hiding toolbars

To display or hide toolbars, choose View > Toolbars, then click on the name of a toolbar in the list. An active toolbar shows a checkmark beside its name. Tear-off toolbars are not listed in the View menu.

Submenus and tear-off toolbars

Toolbar icons with a small triangle to the right will display submenus, tear-off toolbars, and other ways of selecting things, depending on the icon.

Figure 2 shows a tear-off toolbar from the Drawing toolbar.

The tear-off toolbars can be floating or docked along an edge of the screen or in one of the existing toolbar areas. To move a floating tear-off toolbar, drag it by the title bar. See “Moving toolbars” below.

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Figure 2: Example of a tear-off toolbar

Moving toolbars

To move a docked toolbar, place the mouse pointer over the toolbar handle (the small vertical bar to the left of the toolbar), hold down the left mouse button, drag the toolbar to the new location, and then release the mouse button (Figure 3). To move a floating toolbar, click on its title bar and drag it to a new location (Figure 4).

Floating toolbars

OOo includes several additional context-sensitive toolbars, whose defaults appear as floating toolbars in response to the cursor’s current position or selection. For example, when the cursor is in a table, a floating Table toolbar appears, and when the cursor is in a numbered or bullet list, the Bullets and Numbering toolbar appears. You can dock these toolbars to the top, bottom, or side of the window, if you wish (see “Moving toolbars” above).

Chapter 1 Introducing OpenOffice.org 19

Figure 3: Moving a docked toolbar

Figure 4: Moving a floating toolbar

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Docking/floating windows and toolbars

Toolbars and some windows, such as the Navigator and the Styles and Formatting window, are dockable. You can move, resize, or dock them to an edge.

To dock a window or toolbar, hold down the Control key and double-click on the frame of the floating window (or in a vacant area near the icons at the top of the floating window) to dock it in its last position.

To undock a window, hold down the Control key and double-click on the frame (or a vacant area near the icons at the top) of the docked window.

Customizing toolbars

You can customize toolbars in several ways, including choosing which icons are visible and locking the position of a docked toolbar. You can also add icons and create new toolbars, as described in Chapter 14.

To access a toolbar’s customization options, use the down-arrow at the end of the toolbar or on its title bar.

To show or hide icons defined for the selected toolbar, choose Visible Buttons from the drop-down menu. Visible icons are indicated by an outline around the icon. Click on icons to select or deselect them.

Right-click (context) menus

You can quickly access many menu functions by right-clicking on a paragraph, graphics, or other object. A context menu will pop up. Often the context menu is the fastest and an easier way to reach a function. If you are not sure where a function is located in the menus or toolbars , you can often find it by right-clicking.

20 Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3.3

Figure 5: Customizing toolbars

Figure 6: Selection of visible toolbar icons

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Status bar

The status bar is located at the bottom of the workspace. It provides information about the document and convenient ways to quickly change some features. It is similar in Writer, Calc, Impress, and Draw, although each component includes some component-specific items.

Common status bar items are described below.

Page, sheet, or slide number

Shows the current page, sheet, or slide number and the total number of pages, sheets, or slides in the document. Double-click on this field to open the Navigator. Other uses of this field depend on the component.

Page style or slide design

Shows the current page style or slide design. To edit the current page style or slide design, double-click on this field.

Unsaved changes

An asterisk (*) appears here if changes to the document have not been saved.

Digital signature

If the document has been digitally signed, an icon shows here. You can double-click the icon to view the certificate.

Object information

Displays information relevant to the cursor’s position or the selected element of the document. Double-clicking in this area usually opens a relevant dialog.

Zoom slider and percent

To change the view magnification, drag the Zoom slider, or click on the + and – signs, or right-click on the zoom level percent to pop up a list of magnification values from which to choose.

Double-clicking on the zoom level percent opens the Zoom & View Layout dialog.

Chapter 1 Introducing OpenOffice.org 21

Figure 7: Left end of status bar in Writer

Figure 8: Right end of status bar in Writer

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What are all these things called?

The terms used in OpenOffice.org for most parts of the user interface (the parts of the program you see and use, in contrast to the behind-the-scenes code that actually makes it work) are the same as for most other programs.

A dialog is a special type of window. Its purpose is to inform you of something, or request input from you, or both. It provides controls for you to use to specify how to carry out an action. The technical names for common controls are shown in Figure 9; not shown is the list box (from which you select an item). In most cases we do not use the technical terms in this book, but it is useful to know them because the Help and other sources of information often use them.

In most cases, you can interact only with the dialog (not the document itself) as long as the dialog remains open. When you close the dialog after use (usually, clicking OK or another button saves your changes and closes the dialog), then you can again work with your document.

Some dialogs can be left open as you work, so you can switch back and forth between the dialog and your document. An example of this type is the Find & Replace dialog.

22 Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3.3

Figure 9: Dialog showing common controls: 1=Tabbed page (not strictly speaking a control) 2=Radio buttons (only one can be selected at a time) 3=Checkbox (more than one can be selected at a time) 4=Spin box (click the up and down arrows to change the number shown in the text box next to it, or type in the text box) 5=Thumbnail or preview 6=Drop-down list from which to select an item 7=Push buttons

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Starting a new document

You can start a new, blank document in OOo in several ways.

When OOo is open but no document is open (for example if you close all the open documents but leave the program running), the Start Center is shown. Click one of the icons to open a new document of that type, or click the Templates icon to start a new document using a template.

You can also start a new document in one of the following ways.

• Use File > New and choose the type of document.

• Use the arrow next to the New button on the main toolbar. From the drop-

down menu, select the type of document to be created.

• Press Control+N on the keyboard.

• Use File > Wizards for some special types of documents.

If a document is already open in OOo, the new document opens in a new window.

Opening an existing document

When no document is open, the Start Center provides an icon for opening an existing document or choosing from a list of recently-edited documents.

Chapter 1 Introducing OpenOffice.org 23

Figure 10: OpenOffice.org Start Center

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You can also open an existing document in one of the following ways.

• Choose File > Open...

• Click the Open button on the main toolbar.

• Press Control+O on the keyboard.

In each case, the Open dialog appears. Select the file you want, and then click Open. If a document is already open in OOo, the second document opens in a new window.

In the Open dialog, you can reduce the list of files by selecting the type of file you are looking for. For example, if you choose Text documents as the file type, you will only see documents Writer can open (including .odt, .doc, .txt); if you choose Spreadsheets, you will see .ods, .xsl, and other files that Calc opens.

You can also open an existing document that is in an OpenDocument format by double-clicking on the file’s icon on the desktop or in a file manager such as Windows Explorer.

If you have associated Microsoft Office file formats with OOo, you can also open these files by double-clicking on them.

Note

Under Microsoft Windows you can use either the OOo Open and Save As dialogs or the ones provided by Microsoft Windows. See “Using the Open and Save As dialogs” on page 25.

Saving a document

To save a new document, do one of the following:

• Press Control+S.

• Choose File > Save from the menu bar.

• Click the Save button on the main toolbar.

When the Save As dialog appears, enter the file name, verify the file type (if applicable), and click Save.

To save an open document with the current file name, choose File > Save. This will overwrite the last saved state of the file.

Password protection

To protect an entire document from being viewable without a password, use the option on the Save As dialog to enter a password.

1) On the Save As dialog, select the Save with password option, and then click Save. You will receive a prompt (Figure 11).

2) Type the same password in both fields, and then click OK. If the passwords match, the document is saved password protected. If the passwords do not

24 Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3.3

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match, you receive an error message. Close the message box to return to the Set Password dialog box and enter the password again.

Caution

OOo uses a very strong encryption mechanism that makes it almost impossible to recover the contents of a document in case you lose the password.

Writer and Calc provide a second level of protection, which allows a file to be viewed but not changed without a password; that is, the file opens in read-only mode.

Saving a document automatically

You can choose to have OpenOffice.org save files for you automatically. Automatic saving, like manual saving, overwrites the last saved state of the file. To set up automatic file saving:

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

2) Mark Save AutoRecovery information every, and set the time interval.

Renaming and deleting files

You can rename or delete files within the OOo dialogs, just as you can in your usual file manager. However, you cannot copy or paste files within the dialogs.

Using the Open and Save As dialogs

You can choose whether to use the OpenOffice.org Open and Save As dialogs or the ones provided by your operating system.

To view or change which type of dialog OpenOffice.org uses:

1) Choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > General.

2) Select the Use OpenOffice.org dialogs option.

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Figure 11: Entering a password for a document

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This section discusses the OpenOffice.org Open and Save As dialogs. Figure 12 shows the Save As dialog; the Open dialog is similar.

The three buttons in the top right of the OOo Open and Save As dialogs are, from left to right:

• Go Up One Level in the folder (directory) hierarchy. Click and hold this button

for a second to drop down a list of higher level folders; to go to one of the folders on the list, move the mouse pointer over its name and release the mouse button.

• Create New Folder.

• Default Directory.

For OOo documents that have been saved with more than one version, use the Version drop-down to select which version you wish to open in read-only mode. For Microsoft Office documents, only the current version can be opened.

Use the File type field to specify the type of file to be opened or the format of the file to be saved.

The Read-only option on the Open dialog opens the file for reading and printing only. Consequently, most of the toolbars disappear, and most menu options are disabled. An Edit File button is displayed on the Standard toolbar to open the file for editing.

You can open files from the Web by typing a URL in the File name field on the Open dialog.

26 Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3.3

Figure 12: The OpenOffice.org Save As dialog

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Using the Navigator

The Navigator lists objects contained in a document, collected into categories. For example, in Writer it shows Headings, Tables, Text frames, Comments, Graphics, Bookmarks, and other items, as shown in Figure 13. In Calc it shows Sheets, Range Names, Database Ranges, Graphics, Drawing Objects, and other items. In Impress and Draw it shows Slides, Pictures, and other items.

To open the Navigator, click its icon on the Standard toolbar, or press F5, or choose View > Navigator on the menu bar.

You can dock the Navigator to either side of the main OOo window or leave it floating (see “Docking/floating windows and toolbars“ on page 20).

Click the marker (+ or arrow) by any of the categories to display the list of objects in that category.

To hide the list of categories and show only the toolbars at the top, click the List Box

On/Off icon . Click this icon again to show the list box.

The Navigator provides several convenient ways to move around a document and find items in it:

• When a category is showing the list of objects in it, double-click on an object to

jump directly to that object’s location in the document. Objects are much easier to find if you have given them names when creating

them, instead of keeping OOo’s default graphics1, graphics2, Table1, Table2, and so on—which may not correspond to the position of the object in the document.

If you only want to see the content in a certain category, highlight the category

and click the Content View icon . Until you click the icon again, only the objects of that category will be displayed.

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Figure 13: The Navigator

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• Click the Navigation icon (second icon from the left at the top of the

Navigator) to display the Navigation toolbar. Here you can pick one of the categories and use the Previous and Next icons to move from one item to the next. This is particularly helpful for finding items like bookmarks and indexes, which can be difficult to see.

The names of the icons (shown in the tooltips) change to match the selected category; for example, Next Graphic or Next Bookmark.

• To jump to a specific page in the document, type its page number in the box at

the top of the Navigator.

A bit of experimentation with the other icons will demonstrate their functions. Some component-specific uses are described in the chapters on Writer and the other components.

Undoing and redoing changes

To undo the most recent change, press Control+Z, or click the Undo icon on the Standard toolbar, or choose Edit > Undo from the menu bar.

The Edit menu shows the latest change that can be undone (see below for an example from Writer).

Click the small triangle to the right of the Undo icon to get a list of all the changes that can be undone. You can select multiple changes and undo them at the same time.

28 Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3.3

Figure 14: Navigation toolbar

Figure 15: Edit > Undo last action

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Figure 16: List of actions that can be undone

After changes have been undone, Redo becomes active. To redo a change, select

Edit > Redo, or press Control+Y or click on the Redo icon . As with Undo, click

on the triangle to the right of the arrow to get a list of the changes that can be reapplied.

To modify the number of changes OpenOffice.org remembers, choose Tools >

Options > OpenOffice.org > Memory and in the Undo section change Number of steps. Be aware that asking OOo to remember more changes consumes more

computer memory.

Closing a document

To close a document, choose File > Close.

You can also close a document by clicking on the Close icon on the document window. This button looks like the X shown in Figure 17. It may be in a different location on your operating system.

If more than one OOo window is open, each window looks like the sample shown on the left in Figure 17. Closing this window leaves the other OOo windows open.

If only one OOo window is open, it looks like the sample shown on the right in Figure

17. Notice the small X below the large X. Clicking the small X closes the document but leaves OOo open. Clicking the large X closes OOo completely.

If the document has not been saved since the last change, a message box is displayed. Choose whether to save or discard your changes.

• Save: The document is saved and then closed.

• Discard: The document is closed, and all modifications since the last save are

lost.

• Cancel: Nothing happens, and you return to the document.

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Figure 17. Close icons

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Caution

Not saving your document could result in the loss of recently made changes, or worse still, your entire file.

Closing OpenOffice.org

To close OOo completely, choose File > Exit, or close the last open document as described in “Closing a document” above.

If all the documents have been saved, OOo closes immediately. If any documents have been modified but not saved, a warning message appears. Follow the procedure in “Closing a document” to save or discard your changes.

Using OpenOffice.org on a Mac

Some keystrokes and menu items are different on a Mac from those used in Windows and Linux. The following table gives some common substitutions for the instructions in this book. For a more detailed list, see the application Help.

Windows/Linux Mac equivalent Effect

Tools > Options

menu selection

OpenOffice.org > Preferences

Access setup options

Right-click Control+click Open context menu

Ctrl (Control) z (Command) Used with other keys

F5 Shift+z+F5 Open the Navigator

F11 z+T Open the Styles and Formatting

window

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Chapter 2

Setting up

OpenOffice.org

Choosing Options to Suit the Way You Work

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Choosing options for all of OOo

This section covers some of the settings that apply to all the components of OpenOffice.org. For information on settings not discussed here, see the online help.

Click Tools > Options. The list in the left-hand box of the Options – OpenOffice.org dialog varies depending on which component of OOo is open. The illustrations in this chapter show the list as it appears when a Writer document is open.

Click the marker (+ or triangle) by OpenOffice.org on the left-hand side. A list of pages drops down. Selecting an item in the list causes the right-hand side of the

dialog to display the relevant page.

Note

The Back button has the same effect on all pages of the Options dialog. It resets the options to the values that were in place when you opened OpenOffice.org.

User Data options

Because OOo uses the name or initials stored in the OpenOffice.org – User Data page for several things, including document properties (created by and last edited by information) and the name of the author of notes and changes, you will want to ensure that the correct information appears here.

Fill in the form (shown in Figure 19), or amend or delete any existing incorrect information.

32 Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3.3

Figure 18: OpenOffice.org options

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Figure 19: Filling in user data

General options

The options on the OpenOffice.org – General page are described below.

Help - Tips

When Tips is active, one or two words will appear when you hold the mouse pointer over an icon or field, without clicking.

Help - Extended tips

When Extended tips is active, a brief description of the function of a particular icon or menu command or a field on a dialog appears when you hold the mouse pointer over that item.

Help Agent

To turn off the Help Agent (similar to Microsoft’s Office Assistant), deselect this option. To restore the default behavior, click Reset Help Agent.

Chapter 2 Setting up OpenOffice.org 33

Figure 20: Setting general options for OpenOffice.org

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Help formatting

High contrast is an operating system setting that changes the system color scheme to improve readability. To display Help in high contrast (if your computer’s operating system supports this), choose one of the high-contrast style sheets from the pull-down list.

High-contrast style Visual effect

Default Black text on white background

High Contrast #1 Yellow text on black background

High Contrast #2 Green text on black background

High Contrast Black White text on black background

High Contrast White Black text on white background

Open/Save dialogs

To use the standard Open and Save dialogs for your operating system, deselect the Use OpenOffice.org dialogs option. When this option is selected, the Open and Save dialogs supplied with OpenOffice.org will be used. See Chapter 1 (Introducing OpenOffice.org) for more about the OOo Open and Save dialogs. This book uses the OOo Open and Save dialogs in illustrations.

Document status

If this option is selected, then the next time you close the document after printing, the print date is recorded in the document properties as a change and you will be prompted to save the document again, even if you did not make any other changes.

Year (two digits)

Specifies how two-digit years are interpreted. For example, if the two-digit year is set to 1930, and you enter a date of 1/1/30 or later into your document, the date is interpreted as 1/1/1930 or later. An “earlier” date is interpreted as being in the following century; that is, 1/1/20 is interpreted as 1/1/2020.

Memory options

In the Options dialog, click OpenOffice.org > Memory. These options control how OpenOffice.org uses your computer’s memory and how much memory it requires. Before changing them, you may wish to consider the following points:

• More memory can make OpenOffice.org faster and more convenient (for

example, more undo steps require more memory); but the trade-off is less memory available for other applications and you could run out of memory altogether.

• If your documents contain a lot of objects such as images, or the objects are

large, OOo’s performance may improve if you increase the memory for OOo or the memory per object. If you find that objects seem to disappear from a document that contains a lot of them, increase the number of objects in the cache. (The objects are still in the file even if you cannot see them on screen.)

• To load the Quickstarter (an icon on the desktop or in the system tray) when

you start your computer, select the option near the bottom of the dialog. This makes OpenOffice.org start faster; the trade-off is OOo uses some memory

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even when not being used. This option (sometimes called Enable systray quickstarter) is not available on all operating systems.

View options

The options on the OpenOffice.org – View page affect the way the document window looks and behaves. Some of these options are described below. Set them to suit your personal preferences.

User Interface – Scaling

If the text in the help files or on the menus of the OOo user interface is too small or too large, you can change it by specifying a scaling factor. Sometimes a change here can have unexpected results, depending on the screen fonts available on your system. However, it does not affect the actual font size of the text in your documents.

Chapter 2 Setting up OpenOffice.org 35

Figure 21: Choosing Memory options for the OpenOffice.org applications

Figure 22: Choosing View options for OOo applications

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User Interface – Icon size and style

The first box specifies the display size of toolbar icons (Automatic, Small, or Large). The Automatic icon size option uses the setting for your operating system. The second box specifies the icon style (theme); here the Automatic option uses an icon set compatible with your operating system and choice of desktop: for example, KDE or Gnome on Linux.

User Interface – Use system font for user interface

If you prefer to use the system font (the default font for your computer and operating system) instead of the font provided by OOo for the user interface, select this option.

User interface – Screen font anti-aliasing

(Not available in Windows; not shown in Figure 22.) Select this option to smooth the screen appearance of text. Enter the smallest font size to apply anti-aliasing.

Menu – icons in menus

Causes icons as well as words to be visible in menus.

Font Lists - Show preview of fonts

Causes the font list to look like Figure 23, Left, with the font names shown as an example of the font; with the option deselected, the font list shows only the font names, not their formatting (Figure 23, Right). The fonts you will see listed are those that are installed on your system.

Figure 23. Font list (Left) With preview; (Right) Without preview

Font Lists - Show font history

Causes the last five fonts you have assigned to the current document are displayed at the top of the font list. Otherwise fonts are shown in alphabetical order.

Graphics output – Use hardware acceleration

Directly accesses hardware features of the graphical display adapter to improve the screen display. Not supported on all operating systems and OOo distributions.

Graphics output – Use anti-aliasing

Enables and disables anti-aliasing, which makes the display of most graphical objects look smoother and with fewer artifacts. Not supported on all operating systems and OOo distributions.

Tip

Press Shift+Control+R to restore or refresh the view of the current document.

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Mouse positioning

Specifies if and how the mouse pointer will be positioned in newly opened dialogs.

Middle mouse button

Defines the function of the middle mouse button.

• Automatic scrolling – dragging while pressing the middle mouse button

shifts the view.

• Paste clipboard – pressing the middle mouse button inserts the contents of

the “Selection clipboard” at the cursor position.

The “Selection clipboard” is independent of the normal clipboard that you use by Edit > Copy/Cut/Paste or their respective keyboard shortcuts. Clipboard and “Selection clipboard” can contain different contents at the same time.

Function Clipboard Selection clipboard

Copy content

Edit > Copy Control+C

Select text, table, or object.

Paste content

Edit > Paste Control+V pastes at the cursor position.

Clicking the middle mouse button pastes at the mouse pointer position.

Pasting into another document

No effect on the clipboard contents.

The last marked selection is the content of the selection clipboard.

Selection – Transparency

Determines the appearance of selected text or graphics, which appear on a shaded background. To make the shaded background more or less dark, increase or decrease the Transparency setting.

If you prefer selected material to appear in reversed color (typically white text on a black background), deselect this option.

Print options

On the OpenOffice.org – Print page, set the print options to suit your default printer and your most common printing method.

In the Printer warnings section near the bottom of the page, you can choose whether to be warned if the paper size or orientation specified in your document does not match the paper size or orientation available for your printer. Having these warnings turned on can be quite helpful, particularly if you work with documents produced by people in other countries where the standard paper size is different from yours.

Tip

If your printouts are incorrectly placed on the page or chopped off at the top, bottom, or sides, or the printer is refusing to print, the most likely cause is page size incompatibility.

Chapter 2 Setting up OpenOffice.org 37

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Figure 24: Choosing general printing options to apply to all OOo

Path options

On the OpenOffice.org – Paths page, you can change the location of files associated with, or used by, OpenOffice.org to suit your working situation. In a Windows system, for example, you might want to store documents by default somewhere other than My Documents.

To make changes, select an item in the list shown in Figure 25 and click Edit. On the Select Path dialog (not shown; may also be titled Edit Paths), add or delete folders as required, and then click OK to return to the Options dialog. Note that some items can have at least two paths listed: one to a shared folder (which might be on a network) and one to a user-specific folder (normally on the user’s personal computer).

Tip

You can use the entries in the OpenOffice.org – Paths dialog to compile a list of files, such as those containing AutoText, that you need to back up or copy to another computer.

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components

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Figure 25: Viewing the paths of files used by OpenOffice.org

Color options

On the OpenOffice.org – Colors page, you can specify colors to use in OOo documents. You can select a color from a color table, edit an existing color, and define new colors. These colors are stored in your color palette and are then available in all components of OOo.

Chapter 2 Setting up OpenOffice.org 39

Figure 26: Defining colors to use in color palettes in OOo

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To modify a color:

1) Select the color to modify from the list or the color table.

2) Enter the new values that define the color. If necessary, change the settings from RGB (Red, Green, Blue) to CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) or vice versa. The changed color appears in the lower of the two color preview boxes at the top.

3) Modify the Name as required.

4) Click the Modify button. The newly defined color is now listed in the Color table.

Alternatively, click the Edit button to open the Color dialog, shown in Figure 27. Here you can select a color from one of the color windows in the upper area, or you can enter values in the lower area using your choice of RGB, CMYK, or HSB (Hue, Saturation and Brightness) values.

The upper right color window is linked directly with the color input fields in the lower area; as you choose a color in the upper window, the numbers change accordingly. The two color fields at the lower right show the value of the selected color on the left and the currently set value from the color value fields on the right.

Modify the color components as required and click OK to exit the dialog. The newly defined color now appears in the lower of the color preview boxes shown in Figure

26. Type a name for this color in the Name box, then click the Add button. A small box showing the new color is added to the Color table.

Another way to define or alter colors is through the Colors page of the Area dialog, where you can also save and load palettes, a feature that is not possible here. In Calc, draw a temporary draw object and use the context menu of this object to open the Area dialog. If you load a palette in one component of OOo, it is only active in that component; the other components keep their own palettes.

40 Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3.3

Figure 27: Editing colors

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Font options

You can define replacements for any fonts that might appear in your documents. If you receive from someone else a document containing fonts that you do not have on your system, OpenOffice.org will substitute fonts for those it does not find. You might prefer to specify a different font from the one the program chooses.

On the OpenOffice.org – Fonts page:

1) Select the Apply Replacement Table option.

2) Select or type the name of the font to be replaced in the Font box. (If you do not have this font on your system, it will not appear in the drop-down list in this box, so you need to type it in.)

3) In the Replace with box, select a suitable font from the drop-down list of fonts installed on your computer.

4) The checkmark to the right of the Replace with box turns green. Click on this checkmark. A row of information now appears in the larger box below the input boxes. Select the options under Always and Screen.

5) In the bottom section of the page, you can change the typeface and size of the font used to display source code such as HTML and Basic (in macros).

Security options

Use the OpenOffice.org – Security page to choose security options for saving documents and for opening documents that contain macros.

Chapter 2 Setting up OpenOffice.org 41

Figure 28: Defining a font to be substituted for another font

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Figure 29: Choosing security options for opening and saving

Security options and warnings

If you record changes, save multiple versions, or include hidden information or notes in your documents, and you do not want some of the recipients to see that information, you can set warnings to remind you to remove it, or you can have OOo remove some of it automatically. Note that (unless removed) much of this information is retained in a file whether the file is in OpenOffice.org’s default OpenDocument format, or has been saved to other formats, including PDF.

Click the Options button to open a separate dialog with specific choices (Figure

30).

Macro security

Click the Macro Security button to open the Macro Security dialog (not shown here), where you can adjust the security level for executing macros and specify trusted sources.

Security options and warnings

The following options are on the Security options and warnings dialog (Figure 30).

Remove personal information on saving

Select this option to always remove user data from the file properties when saving the file. To manually remove personal information from specific documents, deselect this option and then use the Delete button under File > Properties > General.

Ctrl-click required to follow hyperlinks

In older versions of OOo, clicking on a hyperlink in a document opened the linked document. Now you can choose whether to keep this behavior (by unchecking this box). Many people find creation and editing of documents easier when accidental clicks on links do not activate the links.

The other options on this dialog should be self-explanatory.

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documents

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Figure 30: Security options and warnings dialog

Appearance options

Writing, editing, and (especially) page layout are often easier when you can see the page margins (text boundaries), the boundaries of tables and sections (in Writer documents), page breaks in Calc, grid lines in Draw or Writer, and other features. In addition, you might prefer to use colors that are different from OOo’s defaults for such items as note indicators or field shadings.

On the OpenOffice.org – Appearance page, you can specify which items are visible and the colors used to display various items.

Chapter 2 Setting up OpenOffice.org 43

Figure 31: Showing or hiding text, object, and table boundaries

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• To show or hide items such as text boundaries, select or deselect the options

next to the names of the items.

• To change the default colors for items, click the down-arrow in the Color

Setting column by the name of the item and select a color from the pop-up box.

• To save your color changes as a color scheme, click Save, type a name in the

Scheme box; then click OK.

Accessibility options

Accessibility options include whether to allow animated graphics or text, how long help tips remain showing, some options for high contrast display, and a way to change the font for the user interface of the OpenOffice.org program.

Accessibility support relies on Sun Microsystems Java technology for communications with assistive technology tools. See “Java options“ below. The Support assistive

technology tools option is not shown on all OOo installations. See Assistive Tools in OpenOffice.org in the Help for other requirements and information.

Select or deselect the options as required.

Java options

If you install or update a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) after you install OpenOffice.org, or if you have more than one JRE installed on your computer, you can use the OpenOffice.org – Java options page to choose the JRE for OOo to use.

If you are a system administrator, programmer, or other person who customizes JRE installations, you can use the Parameters and Class Path pages (reached from the Java page) to specify this information.

If you do not see anything listed in the middle of the page, wait a few minutes while OOo searches for JREs on the hard disk.

If OOo finds one or more JREs, it will display them there. You can then select the Use a Java runtime environment option and (if necessary) choose one of the JREs listed.

44 Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3.3

Figure 32: Choosing accessibility options

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Figure 33: Choosing a Java runtime environment

Online Update options

On the OpenOffice.org – Online Update page, you can choose whether and how often to have OOo check the OOo website for program updates. If the Check for updates automatically option is selected, an icon appears at the right-hand end of the menu bar when an update is available. Click this icon to open a dialog where you can choose to download the update.

If the Download updates automatically option is selected, the download starts when you click the icon. To change the download destination, click the Change button and select the required folder in the file browser window.

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Figure 34: Configuring Online Update

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Improvement program

On the OpenOffice.org – Improvement Program page, you can choose whether or not to participate in the OpenOffice.org Improvement Program, which collects anonymous statistics about how you use OOo.

Choosing options for loading and saving documents

You can set the Load/Save options to suit the way you work.

If the Options dialog is not already open, click Tools > Options. Click the expansion symbol (+ or triangle) to the left of Load/Save.

General Load/Save options

Most of the choices on the Load/Save – General page are familiar to users of other office suites. Some items of interest are described below.

Load user-specific settings with the document

When you save a document, certain settings are saved with it. Some settings (printer name, data source linked to the document) are always loaded with a document, whether or not this option is selected. If you select this option, these

46 Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3.3

Figure 35: Load/Save options

Figure 36. Choosing Load and Save options

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document settings are overruled by the user-specific settings of the person who opens it. If you deselect this option, the user’s personal settings do not overrule the settings in the document. For example, your choice (in the options for OOo Writer) of how to update links is affected by the Load user-specific settings option.

Load printer settings with the document

If this option is not selected, the printer settings that are stored with the document are ignored when you print it using the Print File Directly icon. The default printer in your system will be used instead.

Edit document properties before saving

If you select this option, the Document Properties dialog pops up to prompt you to enter relevant information the first time you save a new document (or whenever you use Save As).

Save AutoRecovery information every

Choose whether to enable AutoRecovery and how often to save the information used by the AutoRecovery process.

AutoRecovery in OpenOffice.org overwrites the original file. If you also choose Always create backup copy, the original file then overwrites the backup copy. If you have this set, recovering your document after a system crash will be easier; but recovering an earlier version of the document may be harder.

Save URLs relative to file system / internet

Relative addressing to a file system is only possible if the source document and the referenced document are both on the same drive. A relative address always starts from the directory in which the current document is located. It is recommended to save relatively if you want to create a directory structure on an Internet server.

Default file format and ODF settings

ODF format version. OpenOffice.org by default saves documents in OpenDocument Format (ODF) version 1.2 Extended. While this allows for improved functionality, there may be backwards compatibility issues. When a file saved in ODF 1.2 Extended is opened in an earlier version of OpenOffice.org (using ODF 1.0/1.1), some of the advanced features may be lost. Two notable examples are cross-references to headings and the formatting of numbered lists. If you plan to share documents with people who are still using older versions of OpenOffice.org, save the document using ODF version 1.0/1.1.

Size optimization for ODF format. OpenOffice.org documents are XML files. When you select this option, OOo writes the XML data without indents and line breaks. If you want to be able to read the XML files in a text editor in a structured form, deselect this option.

Document type. If you routinely share documents with users of Microsoft Office, you might want to change the Always save as attribute for documents to one of the Microsoft Office formats.

Note

Although OOo can open files in the .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx formats produced by Microsoft Office 2007, it cannot save in those formats. This capability is planned for a future release.

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VBA Properties Load/Save options

On the Load/Save – VBA Properties page, you can choose whether to keep any macros in Microsoft Office documents that are opened in OpenOffice.org.

• If you choose Save original Basic code, the macros will not work in OOo but

are retained if you save the file into Microsoft Office format.

• If you choose Load Basic code to edit, the changed code is saved in an OOo

document but is not retained if you save into a Microsoft Office format.

• If you are importing a Microsoft Excel file containing VBA code, you can select

the option Executable code. Whereas normally the code is preserved but rendered inactive (if you inspect it with the StarBasic IDE you will notice that it is all commented), with this option the code is ready to be executed.

Microsoft Office Load/Save options

On the Load/Save – Microsoft Office page, you can choose what to do when importing and exporting Microsoft Office OLE objects (linked or embedded objects or documents such as spreadsheets or equations).

Select the [L] options to convert Microsoft OLE objects into the corresponding OpenOffice.org OLE objects when a Microsoft document is loaded into OOo (mnemonic: “L” for “load”).

Select the [S] options to convert OpenOffice.org OLE objects into the corresponding Microsoft OLE objects when a document is saved in a Microsoft format (mnemonic: “S” for “save”).

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Figure 37: Choosing Load/Save VBA Properties

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Figure 38: Choosing Load/Save Microsoft Office options

HTML compatibility Load/Save options

Choices made on the Load/Save – HTML Compatibility page affect HTML pages imported into OpenOffice.org and those exported from OOo. See HTML documents; importing/exporting in the Help for more information.

Font sizes

Use these fields to define the respective font sizes for the HTML <font size=1> to <font size=7> tags, if they are used in the HTML pages. (Many pages no longer use these tags.)

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Figure 39. Choosing HTML compatibility options

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Import - Use 'English (USA)' locale for numbers

When importing numbers from an HTML page, the decimal and thousands separator characters differ according to the locale of the HTML page. The clipboard, however, contains no information about the locale. If this option is not selected, numbers will be interpreted according to the Language - Locale setting in Tools > Options > Language Settings > Languages (see page 51). If this option is selected, numbers will be interpreted as for the English (USA) locale.

Import - Import unknown HTML tags as fields

Select this option if you want tags that are not recognized by OOo to be imported as fields. For an opening tag, an HTML_ON field will be created with the value of the tag name. For a closing tag, an HTML_OFF will be created. These fields will be converted to tags in the HTML export.

Import - Ignore font settings

Select this option to have OOo ignore all font settings when importing. The fonts that were defined in the HTML Page Style will be used.

Export

To optimize the HTML export, select a browser or HTML standard from the Export box. If OpenOffice.org Writer is selected, specific OpenOffice.org Writer instructions are exported.

Export - OpenOffice.org Basic

Select this option to include OOo Basic macros (scripts) when exporting to HTML format. You must activate this option before you create the OpenOffice.org Basic macro; otherwise the script will not be inserted. OpenOffice.org Basic macros must be located in the header of the HTML document. Once you have created the macro in the OpenOffice.org Basic IDE, it appears in the source text of the HTML document in the header.

If you want the macro to run automatically when the HTML document is opened, choose Tools > Customize > Events. See Chapter 13 (Getting Started with Macros) for more information.

Export - Display warning

When the OpenOffice.org Basic option (see above) is not selected, the Display warning option becomes available. If the Display warning option is selected,

then when exporting to HTML a warning is shown that OpenOffice.org Basic macros will be lost.

Export - Print layout

Select this option to export the print layout of the current document as well. The HTML filter supports CSS2 (Cascading Style Sheets Level 2) for printing documents. These capabilities are only effective if print layout export is activated.

Export - Copy local graphics to Internet

Select this option to automatically upload the embedded pictures to the Internet server when uploading using FTP.

Export - Character set

Select the appropriate character set for the export.

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Choosing language settings

You may need to do several things to set the language settings to what you want:

• Install the required dictionaries

• Change some locale and language settings

• Choose spelling options

Install the required dictionaries

OOo automatically installs several dictionaries with the program. To add other dictionaries, be sure you are connected to the Internet, and then use Tools > Language > More Dictionaries Online. OOo will open your default web browser to a page containing links to additional dictionaries that you can install. Follow the prompts to select and install the ones you want.

Change locale and language settings

You can change some details of the locale and language settings that OOo uses for all documents, or for specific documents.

In the Options dialog, click Language Settings > Languages.

On the right-hand side of the Language Settings – Languages page, change the User interface, Locale setting, Default currency, and Default languages for documents as required. In the example, English (UK) has been chosen for all the appropriate settings.

If you want the language (dictionary) setting to apply to the current document only, instead of being the default for all new documents, select the option labelled For the

current document only.

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Figure 40: Language Setting Options

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Figure 41: Choosing language options

If necessary, select the options to enable support for Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) and support for CTL (complex text layout) languages such as Urdu, Thai, Hebrew, and Arabic. If you choose either of these options, the next time you open this dialog, you will see some extra choices under Language Settings, as shown below. These choices (Searching in Japanese, Asian Layout, and Complex Text Layout) are not discussed here.

Choose spelling options

To choose the options for checking spelling, click Language Settings > Writing Aids. In the Options section of the page (Figure 43), choose the settings that are

useful for you. Some considerations:

• If you do not want spelling checked while you type, deselect Check spelling

as you type and select Do not mark errors. (To find the second item, scroll down in the Options list.)

• If you use a custom dictionary that includes words in all upper case and words

with numbers (for example, AS/400), select Check uppercase words and Check words with numbers.

• Check special regions includes headers, footers, frames, and tables when

checking spelling.

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Figure 42: Extra pages available when enhanced language support options are selected

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Figure 43: Choosing languages, dictionaries, and options for checking

Here you can also check which user-defined (custom) dictionaries are active by default, and add or remove dictionaries, by clicking the New or Delete buttons.

Note

OpenOffice.org does not have a grammar checker, but you can install a grammar checker extension such as Language Tool and access that tool from Tools > Spelling and Grammar. See Chapter 14 for more about installing extensions.

Choosing Internet options

Use the Internet Options pages to define search engines and save proxy settings for use with OpenOffice.org.

If you are using a Netscape or Mozilla browser (such as Firefox), you can enable the Browser Plug-in so you can open OOo files in your browser, print them, save them, and work with them in other ways.

If you are using a Unix- or Linux-based operating system (including Mac OS X), an additional page of E-mail options is available, where you can specify the e-mail program to use when you send the current document as e-mail. Under Windows the operating system’s default e-mail program is always used.

Chapter 2 Setting up OpenOffice.org 53

spelling

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Figure 44: Internet options, showing E-mail page available to Linux users.

Controlling OOo’s AutoCorrect functions

Some people find some or all of the items in OOo’s AutoCorrect function annoying because they change what you type when you do not want it changed. Many people find some of the AutoCorrect functions quite helpful; if you do, then select the relevant options. But if you find unexplained changes appearing in your document, this is a good place to look to find the cause.

To open the AutoCorrect dialog, click Tools > AutoCorrect Options. (You need to have a document open for this menu item to appear.)

In Writer, this dialog has five tabs, as shown in Figure 45. In other components of OOo, the dialog has only four tabs.

54 Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3.3

Figure 45: The AutoCorrect dialog in Writer, showing the five tabs and some of the choices

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Chapter 3

Using Styles and

Templates

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What is a template?

A template is a model that you use to create other documents. For example, you can create a template for business reports that has your company’s logo on the first page. New documents created from this template will all have your company’s logo on the first page.

Templates can contain anything that regular documents can contain, such as text, graphics, a set of styles, and user-specific setup information such as measurement units, language, the default printer, and toolbar and menu customization.

All documents in OpenOffice.org (OOo) are based on templates. You can create a specific template for any document type (text, spreadsheet, drawing, presentation). If you do not specify a template when you start a new document, then the document is based on the default template for that type of document. If you have not specified a default template, OOo uses the blank template for that type of document that is installed with OOo. See “Setting a default template” on page 70 for more information.

What are styles?

A style is a set of formats that you can apply to selected pages, text, frames, and other elements in your document to quickly change their appearance. When you apply a style, you apply a whole group of formats at the same time.

Many people manually format paragraphs, words, tables, page layouts, and other parts of their documents without paying any attention to styles. They are used to writing documents according to physical attributes. For example, you might specify the font family, font size, and any formatting such as bold or italic.

Styles are logical attributes. Using styles means that you stop saying “font size 14pt, Times New Roman, bold, centered”, and you start saying “Title” because you have defined the “Title” style to have those characteristics. In other words, styles means that you shift the emphasis from what the text (or page, or other element) looks like, to what the text is.

Styles help improve consistency in a document. They also make major formatting changes easy. For example, you may decide to change the indentation of all paragraphs, or change the font of all titles. For a long document, this simple task can be prohibitive. Styles make the task easy.

In addition, styles are used by OpenOffice.org for many processes, even if you are not aware of them. For example, Writer relies on heading styles (or other styles you specify) when it compiles a table of contents. Some common examples of style use are given in “Examples of style use” on page 73.

OpenOffice.org supports the following types of styles:

• Page styles include margins, headers and footers, borders and backgrounds. In

Calc, page styles also include the sequence for printing sheets.

• Paragraph styles control all aspects of a paragraph’s appearance, such as text

alignment, tab stops, line spacing, and borders, and can include character formatting.

• Character styles affect selected text within a paragraph, such as the font and

size of text, or bold and italic formats.

• Frame styles are used to format graphic and text frames, including wrapping

type, borders, backgrounds, and columns.

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• Numbering styles apply similar alignment, numbering or bullet characters, and

fonts to numbered or bulleted lists.

• Cell styles include fonts, alignment, borders, background, number formats (for

example, currency, date, number), and cell protection.

• Graphics styles in drawings and presentations include line, area, shadowing,

transparency, font, connectors, dimensioning, and other attributes.

• Presentation styles include attributes for font, indents, spacing, alignment, and

tabs.

Different styles are available in the various components of OOo, as listed in Table 1.

OpenOffice.org comes with many predefined styles. You can use the styles as provided, modify them, or create new styles, as described in this chapter.

Table 1. Styles available in OOo components

Style Type Writer Calc Draw Impress

Page X X

Paragraph X

Character X

Frame X

Numbering X

Cell X

Presentation X X

Graphics (included in

Frame styles)

X X

Applying styles

OpenOffice.org provides several ways for you to select styles to apply.

Using the Styles and Formatting window

1) Click the Styles and Formatting icon located at the left-hand end of the object bar, or click Format > Styles and Formatting, or press F11. The Styles and Formatting window shows the types of styles available for the OOo component you are using. Figure 46 shows the window for Writer, with Page Styles visible.

You can move this window to a convenient position on the screen or dock it to an edge (hold down the Ctrl key and drag it by the title bar to where you want it docked).

2) Click on one of the icons at the top left of the Styles and Formatting window to display a list of styles in a particular category.

3) To apply an existing style (except for character styles), position the insertion point in the paragraph, frame, or page, and then double-click on the name of the style in one of these lists. To apply a character style, select the characters first.

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Tip

At the bottom of the Styles and Formatting window is a dropdown list. In Figure 46 the window shows Automatic, meaning the list includes only styles applied automatically by OOo. You can choose to show all styles or other groups of styles, for example only custom styles.

Using Fill Format mode

Use Fill Format to apply a style to many different areas quickly without having to go back to the Styles and Formatting window and double-click every time. This method is quite useful when you need to format many scattered paragraphs, cells, or other items with the same style.

1) Open the Styles and Formatting window and select the style you want to apply.

2) Click the Fill Format mode icon .

3) To apply a paragraph, page, or frame style, hover the mouse over the paragraph, page, or frame and click. To apply a character style, hold down the mouse button while selecting the characters, Clicking on a word applies the character style for that word. Repeat step 3 until you made all the changes for that style.

4) To quit Fill Format mode, click the Fill Format mode icon again or press the Esc key.

Caution

When this mode is active, a right-click anywhere in the document undoes the last Fill Format action. Be careful not to accidentally rightclick and thus undo actions you want to keep.

Using the Apply Style list

After you have used a style at least once in a document, the style name appears on the Apply Style list at the left-hand end of the Formatting toolbar, next to the Styles and Formatting icon.

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Figure 46: The Styles and Formatting window for Writer, showing paragraph styles

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You can open this list and click once on the style you want, or you can use the up and down arrow keys to move through the list and then press Enter to apply the highlighted style.

Tip

Select More... at the bottom of the list to open the Styles and Formatting window.

Using keyboard shortcuts

Some keyboard shortcuts for applying styles are predefined. For example, in Writer

Control+0 applies the Text body style, Control+1 applies the Heading 1 style, and Control+2 applies the Heading 2 style. You can modify these shortcuts and create

your own; see Chapter 14 (Customizing OpenOffice.org) for instructions.

Modifying styles

OpenOffice.org provides several ways to modify styles (both the predefined styles and custom styles that you create):

• Changing a style using the Style dialog

• Updating a style from a selection

• Use AutoUpdate (paragraph and frame styles only)

• Load or copy styles from another document or template

Tip

Any changes you make to a style are effective only in the current document. To change styles in more than one document, you need to change the template or copy the styles into the other documents as described on page 62.

Chapter 3 Using Styles and Templates 59

Figure 47: The Apply Style list on the Formatting toolbar

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Changing a style using the Style dialog

To change an existing style using the Style dialog, right-click on the required style in the Styles and Formatting window and select Modify from the pop-up menu.

The Style dialog displayed depends on the type of style selected. Each style dialog has several tabs. See the chapters on styles in the user guides for details.

Updating a style from a selection

To update a style from a selection:

1) Open the Styles and Formatting window.

2) In the document, select an item that has the format you want to adopt as a style.

Caution

Make sure that there are unique properties in this paragraph. For example, if there are two different font sizes or font styles, that particular property will remain the same as before.

3) In the Styles and Formatting window, select the style you want to update (single-click, not double-click), then long-click on the arrow next to the New Style from Selection icon and click on Update Style.

Using AutoUpdate

AutoUpdate applies to paragraph and frame styles only. If the AutoUpdate option is selected on the Organizer page of the Paragraph Style or Frame Style dialog, applying direct formatting to a paragraph or frame using this style in your document automatically updates the style itself.

Tip

If you are in the habit of manually overriding styles in your document, be sure that AutoUpdate is not enabled.

Updating styles from a document or template

You can update styles by copying or loading them from a template or another document. See “Copying and moving styles” on page 62.

60 Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3.3

Figure 48: Updating a style from a selection

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Creating new (custom) styles

You may want to add some new styles. You can do this in two ways:

• Creating a new style using the Style dialog

• Creating a new style from a selection

Creating a new style using the Style dialog

To create a new style using the Style dialog, right-click in the Styles and Formatting window and select New from the pop-up menu.

If you want your new style to be linked with an existing style, first select that style and then right-click and select New.

If you link styles, then when you change the base style (for example, by changing the font from Times to Helvetica), all the linked styles will change as well. Sometimes this is exactly what you want; other times you do not want the changes to apply to all the linked styles. It pays to plan ahead.

The dialogs and choices are the same for defining new styles and for modifying existing styles. See the chapters on styles in the user guides for details.

Creating a new style from a selection

You can create a new style by copying an existing manual format. This new style applies only to this document; it will not be saved in the template.

1) Open the Styles and Formatting window and choose the type of style you want to create.

2) In the document, select the item you want to save as a style.

3) In the Styles and Formatting window, click on the New Style from Selection icon.

4) In the Create Style dialog, type a name for the new style. The list shows the names of existing custom styles of the selected type. Click OK to save the new style.

Chapter 3 Using Styles and Templates 61

Figure 49: Naming a new style created from a selection

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Dragging and dropping to create a style

You can drag and drop a text selection into the Styles and Formatting window to create a new style.

Writer

Select some text and drag it to the Styles and Formatting window. If Paragraph Styles are active, the paragraph style will be added to the list. If Character Styles are active, the character style will be added to the list.

Calc

Drag a cell selection to the Styles and Formatting window to create cell styles.

Draw/Impress

Select and drag drawing objects to the Styles and Formatting window to create graphics styles.

Copying and moving styles

You can copy or move styles from one template or document into another template or document, in two ways:

• Using the Template Management dialog

• Loading styles from a template or document

Using the Template Management dialog

To copy or move styles using the Template Management dialog:

1) Click File > Templates > Organize.

2) In the Template Management dialog (Figure 50), set the lists at the bottom to either Templates or Documents, as needed. The default is Templates on the left and Documents on the right.

Tip

To copy styles from a file that is not open, click the File button. When you return to this dialog, both lists show the selected file as well as all the currently open documents.

3) Open the folders and find the templates from and to which you want to copy. Double-click on the name of the template or document, and then double-click the Styles icon to show the list of individual styles (Figure 51).

4) To copy a style, hold down the Ctrl key and drag the name of the style from one list to the other.

Caution

If you do not hold down the Control key when dragging, the style will be moved from one list to the other. The style will be deleted from the list you are dragging it from.

5) Repeat for each style you want to copy. If the receiving template or document has many styles, you may not see any change unless you scroll down in the list. When you are finished, click Close.

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Figure 50: Choosing to copy styles from a document, not a template

Loading styles from a template or document

You can copy styles by loading them from a template or another document:

1) Open the document you want to copy styles into.

2) In the Styles and Formatting window, long-click on the arrow next to the New Style from Selection icon, and then click on Load Styles (see Figure 48).

3) On the Load Styles dialog (Figure 52), find and select the template you want to copy styles from.

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Figure 51: Copying a style from one document to another

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Figure 52. Copying styles from a template into the open document

4) Select the categories of styles to be copied. Select Overwrite if you want the styles being copied to replace any styles of the same names in the document you are copying them into.

5) Click OK to copy the styles. You will not see any change on screen.

Note

To copy the styles from another document, click the From File button to open a window from which you can select the required document.

Caution

If your document has a table of contents, and if you have used custom styles for headings, the heading levels associated with outline levels (in Tools > Outline Numbering) will revert to the defaults of Heading 1, Heading 2, and so on when you load styles this way. You will need to change these back to your custom heading styles. This is a bug.

Deleting styles

You cannot remove (delete) any of OOo’s predefined styles from a document or template, even if they are not in use.

You can remove any user-defined (custom) styles; but before you do, you should make sure the styles are not in use. If an unwanted style is in use, you will want to replace it with a substitute style.

To delete unwanted styles, right-click on them (one at a time) in the Styles and Formatting window and click Delete on the pop-up menu.

If the style is in use, you receive a warning message.

Caution

Make sure the style is not in use before deletion. Otherwise, all objects with that style will return to the default style and retain their formatting as manual formatting. This can be a problem in a long document.

If the style is not in use, you receive a confirmation message; click Yes.

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Using a template to create a document

To use a template to create a document:

1) From the main menu, choose File > New > Templates and Documents. The Templates and Documents dialog opens.

2) In the box on the left, click the Templates icon if it is not already selected. A list of template folders appears in the center box.

3) Double-click the folder that contains the template that you want to use. A list of all the templates contained in that folder appears in the center box.

4) Select the template that you want to use. You can preview the selected template or view the template’s properties:

• To preview the template, click the Preview icon . A preview of the

template appears in the box on the right.

• To view the template’s properties, click the Document Properties icon

. The template’s properties appear in the box on the right.

5) Click Open. The Templates and Documents dialog closes and a new document based on the selected template opens in OOo. You can then edit and save the new document just as you would any other document.

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Figure 53: Templates and Documents window

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Creating a template

You can create your own templates in two ways: from a document, and using a wizard.

Creating a template from a document

To create a template from a document:

1) Open a new or existing document of the type you want to make into a template (text document, spreadsheet, drawing, presentation).

2) Add the content and styles that you want.

3) From the main menu, choose File > Templates > Save. The Templates dialog opens (see Figure 54).

4) In the New template field, type a name for the new template.

5) In the Categories list, click the category to which you want to assign the template. The category you choose has no effect on the template itself; it is simply the folder in which you save the template. Choosing an appropriate category makes it easier to find the template when you want to use it. For example, you might save Impress templates under the Presentations category.

To learn more about template folders, see “Organizing templates” on page 72.

6) Click OK to save the new template.

Any settings that can be added to or modified in a document can be saved in a template. For example, below are some of the settings (although not a full list) that can be included in a Writer document and then saved as a template for later use:

• Printer settings: which printer, single sided / double sided, and paper size, and

so on

• Styles to be used, including character, page, frame, numbering and paragraph

styles

• Format and settings regarding indexes, tables, bibliographies, table of

contents

Templates can also contain predefined text, saving you from having to type it every time you create a new document. For example, a letter template may contain your name, address and salutation.

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Figure 54: Saving a new template

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You can also save menu and toolbar customizations in templates; see Chapter 14 (Customizing OpenOffice.org) for more information.

Creating a template using a wizard

You can use wizards to create templates for letters, faxes, agendas, presentations, and Web pages.

For example, the Fax Wizard guides you through the following choices:

• Type of fax (business or personal)

• Document elements like the date, subject line (business fax), salutation, and

complementary close

• Options for sender and recipient information (business fax)

• Text to include in the footer (business fax)

To create a template using a wizard:

1) From the main menu, choose File > Wizards > [type of template required].

2) Follow the instructions on the pages of the wizard. This process is slightly different for each type of template, but the format is very similar.

3) In the last section of the wizard, you can specify the name and location for saving the template. The default location is your user templates directory, but you can choose a different location if you prefer.

4) Finally, you have the option of creating a new document from your template immediately, or manually changing the template. For future documents, you can re-use the template created by the wizard, just as you would use any other template.

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Figure 55. Creating a template using a wizard

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Editing a template

You can edit a template’s styles and content, and then, if you wish, you can reapply the template’s styles to documents that were created from that template. (Note that you can only reapply styles. You cannot reapply content.)

To edit a template:

1) From the main menu, choose File > Templates > Edit. A standard file browser window opens.

2) Select the template that you want to edit.

3) Edit the template just as you would any other document. To save your changes, choose File > Save from the main menu.

Updating a document from a changed template

The next time you open a document that was created from the changed template, the following message appears.

Click Update Styles to apply the template’s changed styles to the document. Click Keep Old Styles if you do not want to apply the template’s changed styles to the document (but see Caution notice below).

Caution

If you choose Keep Old Styles in the message box shown in Figure 56, that message will not appear again the next time you open the document after changing the template it is based on. You will not get another chance to update the styles from the template, although you can use the macro given in the Note below to re-enable this feature.

If you are using Writer, you can also use the Template Changer extension (see page 71) to reactivate the template.

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Figure 56. Update styles message

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Note

To re-enable updating from a template:

1) Use Tools > Macros > Organize Macros > OpenOffice.org Basic. Select the document from the list, click the expansion symbol (+ or triangle), and select Standard. If Standard has an expansion symbol beside it, click that and select a module.

2) If the Edit button is active, click it. If the Edit button is not active, click New.

3) In the Basic window, enter the following:

Sub FixDocV3 ' set UpdateFromTemplate oDocSettings = ThisComponent.createInstance( _ "com.sun.star.document.Settings" ) oDocSettings.UpdateFromTemplate = True End Sub 'FixDocV3

4) Click the Run BASIC icon, then close the Basic window.

5) Save the document.

Next time when you open this document you will have the update from template feature back.

Adding templates using the Extension Manager

The Extension Manager provides an easy way to install collections of templates, graphics, macros, or other add-ins that have been “packaged” into files with a .OXT extension. See Chapter 14 (Customizing OpenOffice.org) for more about the Extension Manager.

This Web page lists many of the available extensions:

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

To install an extension, follow these steps:

1) Download an extension package and save it anywhere on your computer.

2) In OOo, select Tools > Extension Manager from the menu bar. In the Extension Manager dialog, click Add.

3) A file browser window opens. Find and select the package of templates you want to install and click Open. The package begins installing. You may be asked to accept a license agreement.

4) When the package installation is complete, the templates are available for use through File > New > Templates and Documents and the extension is listed in the Extension Manager.

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Figure 57: Newly-added package of templates

Setting a default template

If you create a document by choosing File > New > Text Document (or Spreadsheet, Presentation, or Drawing) from the main menu, OOo creates the

document from the Default template for that type of document. You can, however, set a custom template to be the default. You can reset the default later if you choose.

Setting a custom template as the default

You can set any template to be the default, as long as it is in one of the folders displayed in the Template Management dialog.

To set a custom template as the default:

1) From the main menu, choose File > Templates > Organize. The Template Management dialog opens.

2) In the box on the left, select the folder containing the template that you want to set as the default, then select the template.

3) Click the Commands button and choose Set As Default Template from the drop-down menu.

The next time that you create a document by choosing File > New, the document will be created from this template.

Although many important settings can be changed in the Options dialog (see Chapter

2), for example default fonts and page size, more advanced settings (such as page margins) can only be changed by replacing the default template with a new one.

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Resetting the default template

To re-enable OOo’s Default template for a document type as the default:

1) In the Template Management dialog, click any folder in the box on the left.

2) Click the Commands button and choose Reset Default Template from the drop-down menu.

The next time that you create a document by choosing File > New, the document will be created from OOo’s Default template for that document type.

Associating a document with a different template

At times you might want to associate a document with a different template, or perhaps you are working with a document that did not start from a template.

One of the major advantages of using templates is the ease of updating styles in more than one document, as described on page 68. If you update styles by loading a new set of styles from a different template (as described on page 63), the document has no association with the template from which the styles were loaded—so you cannot use this method. What you need to do is associate the document with the different template.

You can do this in two ways. In both cases, for best results the names of styles should be the same in the existing document and the new template. If they are not, you will need to use Search and Replace to replace old styles with new ones. See Chapter 4 (Getting Started with Writer) for more about replacing styles using Search and Replace.

Method 1

This method includes any graphics and wording (such as legal notices) that exists in the new template, as well as including styles. If you do not want this material, you need to delete it.

1) Use File > New > Templates and Documents. Choose the template you want. If the template has unwanted text or graphics in it, delete them.

2) Open the document you want to change. (It opens in a new window.) Press Control+A to select everything in the document. Paste into the blank document created in step 1.

3) Update the table of contents, if there is one. Save the file.

Method 2 (Writer only)

This method does not include any graphics or text from the new template; it simply includes styles from the new template and establishes an association between the template and the document.

1) Download the Template Changer extension from

http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/ and install it as described on page

69.

2) Close and reopen OpenOffice.org. Now the File > Templates menu has two new choices in Writer: Assign Template (current document) and Assign

Template (folder). In Calc, Impress, and Draw, only the Assign Template (folder) choice is available.

3) Open the document whose template you want to change. Choose File > Templates > Assign Template (current document).

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4) In the Select Template window, find and select the required template and click Open.

5) Save the document. If you now look in File > Properties, you will see the new template listed at the bottom of the General page.

Organizing templates

OOo can only use templates that are in OOo template folders. You can create new OOo template folders and use them to organize your templates. For example, you might have one template folder for report templates and another for letter templates. You can also import and export templates.

To begin, choose File > Templates > Organize from the main menu. The Template Management dialog opens.

Note

All the actions made by the Commands button in the Template Management dialog can be made as well by right-clicking on the templates or the folders.

Creating a template folder

To create a template folder:

1) In the Template Management dialog, click any folder.

2) Click the Commands button and choose New from the drop-down menu. A new folder called Untitled appears.

3) Type a name for the new folder, and then press Enter. OOo saves the folder with the name that you entered.

Deleting a template folder

You cannot delete template folders supplied with OOo or installed using the Extension Manager; you can only delete template folders that you have created.

To delete a template folder that you have created:

1) In the Template Management dialog, select the folder that you want to delete.

2) Click the Commands button and choose Delete from the drop-down menu. A message box appears and asks you to confirm the deletion. Click Yes.

Moving a template

To move a template from one template folder to another template folder:

1) In the Template Management dialog, double-click the folder that contains the template you want to move. A list of the templates contained in that folder appears underneath the folder name.

2) Click the template that you want to move and drag it to the desired folder. If you do not have the authority to delete templates from the source folder, this action copies the template instead of moving it.

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Deleting a template

You cannot delete templates supplied with OOo or installed using the Extension Manager; you can only delete templates that you have created or imported.

To delete a template:

1) In the Template Management dialog, double-click the folder that contains the template you want to delete. A list of the templates contained in that folder appears underneath the folder name.

2) Click the template that you want to delete.

3) Click the Commands button and choose Delete from the drop-down menu. A message box appears and asks you to confirm the deletion. Click Yes.

Importing a template

If the template that you want to use is in a different location, you must import it into an OOo template folder.

To import a template into a template folder:

1) In the Template Management dialog, select the folder into which you want to import the template.

2) Click the Commands button and choose Import Template from the drop- down menu. A standard file browser window opens.

3) Find and select the template that you want to import and click Open. The file browser window closes and the template appears in the selected folder.

4) If you want, type a new name for the template, and then press Enter.

Exporting a template

To export a template from a template folder to another location:

1) In the Template Management dialog, double-click the folder that contains the template you want to export. A list of the templates contained in that folder appears underneath the folder name.

2) Click the template that you want to export.

3) Click the Commands button and choose Export Template from the drop- down menu. The Save As window opens.

4) Find the folder into which you want to export the template and click Save.

Examples of style use

The following examples of common use of page and paragraph styles are taken from Writer. There are many other ways to use styles; see the guides for the various components for details.

Defining a different first page for a document

Many documents, such as letters and reports, have a first page that is different from the other pages in the document. For example, the first page of a letterhead typically has a different header, or the first page of a report might have no header or footer, while the other pages do. With OOo, you can define the page style for the first page and specify the style for the following pages to be applied automatically.

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As an example, we can use the First Page and Default page styles that come with OOo. Figure 58 shows what we want to happen: the first page is to be followed by the default page, and all the following pages are to be in the Default page style. Details are in Chapter 4 (Formatting Pages) in the Writer Guide.

Dividing a document into chapters

In a similar way, you can divide a document into chapters. Each chapter might start with the First Page style, with the following pages using the Default page style, as above. At the end of the chapter, insert a manual page break and specify the next page to have the First Page style to start the next chapter, as shown in Figure 59.

Changing page orientation within a document

A Writer document can contain pages in more than one orientation. A common scenario is to have a landscape page in the middle of a document, whereas the other pages are in a portrait orientation. This can also be done with page breaks and page styles.

Different headers on right and left pages

Page styles can be set up to have the facing left and right pages mirrored or only right (first pages of chapters are often defined to be right-page only) or only left. When you insert a header on a page style set up for mirrored pages or right-and-left pages, you can have the contents of the header be the same on all pages or be different on the right and left pages. For example, you can put the page number on the left-hand edge of the left pages and on the right-hand edge of the right pages, put the document title on the right-hand page only, or make other changes.

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Figure 58: Flow of page styles

Figure 59: Dividing a document into chapters using page styles

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Controlling page breaks automatically

Writer automatically flows text from one page to the next. If you do not like the default settings, you can change them. For example, you can require a paragraph to start on a new page or column and specify the style of the new page. A typical use is for chapter titles to always start on a new right-hand (odd-numbered) page.

Compiling an automatic table of contents

To compile an automatic table of contents, first apply styles to the headings you want to appear in the contents list, then use Tools > Outline Numbering to tell Writer which styles go with which level in the table of contents. See Chapter 4 for more information.

Defining a sequence of styles

You can set up one paragraph style so that when you press Enter at the end of that paragraph, the following paragraph automatically has the style you wish applied to it. For example, you could define a Heading 1 paragraph to be followed by a Text Body paragraph. A more complex example would be: Title followed by Author followed by Abstract followed by Heading 1 followed by Text Body. By setting up these sequences, you can avoid manually applying styles in most cases.

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Chapter 4

Getting Started with

Writer

Word Processing with OpenOffice.org

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What is Writer?

Writer is the word processor component of OpenOffice.org (OOo). In addition to the usual features of a word processor (spelling check, thesaurus, hyphenation, autocorrect, find and replace, automatic generation of tables of contents and indexes, mail merge and others), Writer provides these important features:

• Templates and styles (see Chapter 3)

• Page layout methods, including frames, columns, and tables

• Embedding or linking of graphics, spreadsheets, and other objects

• Built-in drawing tools

• Master documents—to group a collection of documents into a single document

• Change tracking during revisions

• Database integration, including a bibliography database

• Export to PDF, including bookmarks (see Chapter 10)

• And many more

These features are covered in detail in the Writer Guide.

The Writer interface

The main Writer workspace is shown in Figure 60. The menus and toolbars are described in Chapter 1 (Introducing OpenOffice.org).

Some other features of the Writer interface are covered in this chapter.

Status bar

The Writer status bar provides information about the document and convenient ways to quickly change some document features.

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Figure 60: The main Writer workspace in Print Layout view

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Figure 61: Left end of status bar

Page number

Shows the current page number, the sequence number of the current page (if different), and the total number of pages in the document. For example, if you restarted page numbering at 1 on the third page, its page number is 1 and its sequence number is 3.

If any bookmarks have been defined in the document, a right-click on this field pops up a list of bookmarks; click on the required one.

To jump to a specific page in the document, double-click on this field. The Navigator opens. Click in the Page Number field and type the sequence number of the required page. After a brief delay, the display jumps to the selected page.

Page style

Shows the style of the current page. To change the page style, right-click on this field. A list of page styles pops up; choose a different style by clicking on it.

To edit the current page style, double-click on this field. The Page Style dialog opens.

Language

Shows the language for the selected text. Click to open a menu where you can choose another language for the selected text

or for the paragraph where the cursor is located. You can also choose None (Do not check spelling) to exclude the text from a spelling check or choose More... to open the Character dialog.

Insert mode

Click to toggle between Insert and Overwrite modes when typing.

Selection mode

Click to toggle between STD (Standard), EXT (Extend), ADD (Add) and BLK (Block) selection. EXT is an alternative to Shift+click when selecting text. See “Working with text” on page 82 for more information about ADD and BLK.

Unsaved changes

An asterisk (*) appears here if changes to the document have not been saved.

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Figure 62: Right end of status bar

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Digital signature

If the document has been digitally signed, an icon shows here. You can double-click the icon to view the certificate.

Section or object information

When the cursor is on a section, heading, or list item, or when an object (such as a picture or table) is selected, information about that item appears in this field. Double-clicking in this area opens a relevant dialog. For details, consult the Help or the Writer Guide.

View layout

Click an icon to change between single page, side-by-side, and book layout views. You can edit the document in any view.

Zoom

To change the view magnification, drag the Zoom slider, or click on the + and – signs, or right-click on the zoom level percent to pop up a list of magnification values from which to choose. Zoom interacts with the selected view layout to determine how many pages are visible in the document window.

Changing document views

Writer has several ways to view a document: Print Layout, Web Layout, and Full Screen. To access these and other choices, go to the View menu and click on the required view. (When in Full Screen view, press the Esc key to return to either Print or Web Layout view.)

When in Print Layout, you can use both the Zoom slider and the View Layout icons on the status bar. In Web Layout, you can use the Zoom slider.

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Figure 63: View layouts: single, side-by-side, book.

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You can also choose View > Zoom from the menu bar to display the Zoom & View Layout dialog, where you can set the same options as on the Status bar. In Web Layout view, most of the choices are not available.

Moving quickly through a document

In addition to the navigation features of the Status bar (described above), you can use the main Navigator window and the Navigation toolbar as described in Chapter 1 (Introducing OpenOffice.org).

In Writer, you can also display the Navigation toolbar by clicking on the small Navigation icon near the lower right-hand corner of the window below the vertical scroll bar, as shown in Figure 65.

The Navigation toolbar (Figure 66) shows icons for all the object types shown in the Navigator, plus some extras (for example, the results of a Find command).

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Figure 64: Choosing Zoom and View Layout options.

Figure 65: Navigation icons

Figure 66: Navigation toolbar

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Click an icon to select that object type. Now all the Previous and Next icons (in the Navigator itself, in the Navigation Toolbar, and on the scroll bar) will jump to the next object of the selected type. This is particularly helpful for finding items like index entries, which can be difficult to see in the text. The names of the icons (shown in the tooltips) change to match the selected category; for example, Next Graphic, Next Bookmark, or Continue search forward.

For more uses of the Navigator in Writer, see the Writer Guide.

Working with documents

Chapter 1 (Introducing OpenOffice.org) includes instructions on starting new documents, opening existing documents, and saving documents. Chapter 3 (Using Styles and Templates) covers how to create a document from a template.

Saving as a Microsoft Word file

If you need to exchange files with users of Microsoft Word, they may not know how to open and save .odt files. Microsoft Word 2007 with Service Pack 2 (SP2) can do this. Users of Word 2003, XP, and 2000 can buy a plug-in from Oracle Corp or search on the Web for the free OpenDocument Format (ODF) plugin from Sun Microsystems.

Some users of Microsoft Word may be unwilling or unable to receive *.odt files. (Their employer may not allow them to install the plug-in.) In this case, you can save a document as a Microsoft Word file.

1) Important—First save your document in the file format used by OOo Writer (.odt). If you do not, any changes you made since the last time you saved will appear only in the Microsoft Word version of the document.

2) Then choose File > Save As. On the Save As dialog, in the File type (or Save

as type) drop-down menu, select the type of Word format you need. Click Save.

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Figure 67. Saving a file in Microsoft Word format

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From this point on, all changes you make to the document will occur only in the Microsoft Word document. You have changed the name and file type of your

document. If you want to go back to working with the .odt version of your document, you must open it again.

Tip

To have OOo save documents by default in the Microsoft Word file format, go to Tools > Options > Load/Save. See “Choosing options for loading and saving documents” in Chapter 2 (Setting up OpenOffice.org).

Working with text

Working with text (selecting, copying, pasting, moving) in Writer is similar to working with text in any other program. OOo also has some convenient ways to select items that are not next to each other, select a vertical block of text, and paste unformatted text.

Selecting items that are not consecutive

To select nonconsecutive items (as shown in Figure 68) using the mouse:

1) Select the first piece of text.

2) Hold down the Control key and use the mouse to select the next piece of text.

3) Repeat as often as needed.

Now you can work with the selected text (copy it, delete it, change the style, or whatever).

Note

Macintosh users: substitute the Command key when instructions in this chapter say to use the Control key.

To select nonconsecutive items using the keyboard:

1) Select the first piece of text. (For more information about keyboard selection of text, see the topic “Navigating and selecting with the keyboard” in the Help.)

2) Press Shift+F8. This puts Writer in “Add” mode. The word ADD appears on the status bar.

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Figure 68: Selecting items that are not next to each other

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3) Use the arrow keys to move to the start of the next piece of text to be selected. Hold down the Shift key and select the next piece of text.

4) Repeat as often as needed.

Now you can work with the selected text.

Press Esc to exit from this mode.

Selecting a vertical block of text

You can select a vertical block or “column” of text that is separated by spaces or tabs (as you might see in text pasted from e-mails, program listings, or other sources), using OOo’s block selection mode. To change to block selection mode, use Edit > Selection Mode > Block Area, or click several times in the status bar on STD until it changes to BLK.

Now highlight the selection, using mouse or keyboard, as shown below.

Cutting, copying, and pasting text

Cutting and copying text in Writer is similar to cutting and copying text in other applications. You can use the mouse or the keyboard for these operations. You can copy or move text within a document, or between documents, by dragging or by using menu selections, icons, or keyboard shortcuts. You can also copy text from other sources such as Web pages and paste it into a Writer document.

To move (cut and paste) selected text using the mouse, drag it to the new location and release it. To copy selected text, hold down the Control key while dragging. The text retains the formatting it had before dragging.

When you paste text, the result depends on the source of the text and how you paste it. If you click on the Paste icon, any formatting the text has (such as bold or italics) is retained. Text pasted from Web sites and other sources may also be placed into frames or tables. If you do not like the results, click the Undo icon or press Control+Z.

To make the pasted text take on the formatting of the surrounding text where it is being pasted, choose either:

• Edit > Paste Special, or

• Click the triangle to the right of the Paste icon, or

• Click the Paste icon without releasing the left mouse button.

Then select Unformatted text from the resulting menu.

The range of choices on the Paste Special menu varies depending on the origin and formatting of the text (or other object) to be pasted. See Figure 70 for an example with text on the clipboard.

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Figure 69: Selecting a vertical block of text

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Figure 70: Paste Special menu

Finding and replacing text and formatting

Writer has two ways to find text within a document: the Find toolbar for fast searching and the Find & Replace dialog. In the dialog, you can:

• Find and replace words and phrases

• Use wildcards and regular expressions to fine-tune a search

• Find and replace specific formatting

• Find and replace paragraph styles

If the Find toolbar is not visible, you can display it using View > Toolbars > Find.

To display the Find & Replace dialog, use the keyboard shortcut Control+F or choose Edit > Find & Replace from the menu bar.

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Figure 71: Expanded Find & Replace dialog

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1) Type the text you want to find in the Search for box.

2) To replace the text with different text, type the new text in the Replace with box.

3) You can select various options such as matching the case, matching whole words only, or doing a search for similar words.

4) When you have set up your search, click Find. To replace text, click Replace instead.

For more information on using Find & Replace, see the Writer Guide.

Tip

If you click Find All, OOo selects all instances of the search text in the document. Similarly, if you click Replace All, OOo replaces all matches.

Caution

Use Replace All with caution; otherwise, you may end up with some hilarious (and highly embarrassing) mistakes. A mistake with Replace All might require a manual, word-by-word, search to fix.

Inserting special characters

A special character is one not found on a standard English keyboard. For example, © ¾ æ ç ñ ö ø ¢ are all special characters. To insert a special character:

1) Place the cursor where you want the character to appear.

2) Choose Insert > Special Character to open the Special Characters dialog.

3) Select the characters (from any font or mixture of fonts) you wish to insert, in order, then click OK. The selected characters are shown in the lower left of the dialog. As you select a character, it is shown on the lower right, along with its numerical code.

Note

Different fonts include different special characters. If you do not find a particular special character, try changing the Font selection.

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Figure 72: The Special Characters dialog, where you can insert special characters.

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Inserting dashes and non-breaking spaces and hyphens

To prevent two words from being separated at the end of a line, press Control+Shift+spacebar after the first word to insert a non-breaking space.

In cases where you do not want the hyphen to appear at the end of a line, for example in a number such as 123-4567, you can press Control+Shift+minus sign to insert a non-breaking hyphen.

To enter en and em dashes, you can use the Replace dashes option on the Options tab under Tools > AutoCorrect Options. This option replaces two hyphens, under certain conditions, with the corresponding dash.

– is an en-dash; that is, a dash the width of the letter “n” in the font you are

using. Type at least one character, a space, one or two hyphens, another space, and at least one more letter, then a space. The one or two hyphens will be replaced by an en-dash.

— is an em-dash; that is, a dash the width of the letter “m” in the font you are

using. Type at least one character, two hyphens, and at least one more character, then a space. The two hyphens will be replaced by an em-dash.

See the Help for more details. For other methods of inserting dashes, see the Writer Guide.

Setting tab stops and indents

The horizontal ruler shows both the default tab stops and any tab stops that you have defined. Tab settings affect indentation of full paragraphs (using the Increase Indent and Decrease Indent icons on the Formatting toolbar) as well as indentation of parts of a paragraph (by pressing the Tab key on the keyboard).

Using the default tab spacing can cause formatting problems if you share documents with other people. If you use the default tab spacing and then send the document to someone else who has chosen a different default tab spacing, tabbed material will change to use the other person’s settings. This may cause major formatting problems. Instead of using the defaults, define your own tab settings, as described in this section.

To define indents and tab settings for one or more selected paragraphs, double-click on a part of the ruler that is not between the left and right indent icons to open the Indents & Spacing page of the Paragraph dialog. Double-click anywhere between the left and right indent icons on the ruler to open the Tabs page of the Paragraph dialog.

A better strategy is to define tabs for the paragraph style. See Chapters 6 and 7 in the Writer Guide for more information.

Tip

Using tabs to space out material on a page is not recommended. Depending on what you are trying to accomplish, a table is usually a better choice.

Changing the default tab stop interval

Note

Any changes to the default tab setting will affect the existing default tab stops in any document you open afterward, as well as tab stops you insert after making the change.

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To set the measurement unit and the spacing of default tab stop intervals, go to Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer > General.

You can also set or change the measurement unit for rulers in the current document by right-clicking on the ruler to open a list of units. Click on one of them to change the ruler to that unit. The selected setting applies only to that ruler.

Checking spelling and grammar

Writer provides a spelling checker, which can be used in two ways.

AutoSpellcheck checks each word as it is typed and displays a wavy red line under any misspelled words. When the word is corrected, the line disappears.

To perform a separate spelling check on the document (or a text selection) click the Spelling and Grammar button. This checks the document or selection and opens the Spelling and Grammar dialog if any misspelled words are found.

Here are some more features of the spelling checker:

• You can right-click on a word with a wavy underline to open a context menu. If

you select from the suggested words on the menu, the selection will replace the misspelled word in your text. Other menu options are discussed below.

• You can change the dictionary language (for example, Spanish, French or

German) on the Spelling and Grammar dialog.

• You can add a word to the dictionary. Click Add in the Spelling and Grammar

dialog and pick the dictionary to add it to.

• Click the Options button on the Spelling and Grammar dialog to open a dialog

similar to the one in Tools > Options > Language Settings > Writing Aids described in Chapter 2. There you can choose whether to check uppercase words and words with numbers, and you can manage custom dictionaries, that is, add or delete dictionaries and add or delete words in a dictionary.

• On the Font tab of the Paragraph Styles dialog, you can set paragraphs to be

checked in a specific language (different from the rest of the document). See Chapter 7 (Working with Styles) in the Writer Guide for more information.

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Figure 73: Selecting a default tab stop interval

Figure 74: Changing the measurement unit for a ruler

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Writer does not include a grammar checker, but you can install an extension such as Language Tool and access it from Tools > Spelling and Grammar. (See Chapter 14 for more about installing extensions.)

Language Tool adds a new menu item and submenu to the Tools menu, from which you can configure the tool and check or recheck the document.

Using built-in language tools

Writer provides some tools that make your work easier if you mix multiple languages within the same document or if you write documents in various languages.

The main advantage of changing the language is that you can then use the correct dictionaries to check spelling and apply the localized versions of Autocorrect replacement tables, thesaurus, and hyphenation rules.

You can also set the language for a paragraph or a group of characters as None. This option is especially useful when you insert text such as web addresses or programming language snippets that you do not want to check for spelling.

Specifying the language in character and paragraph styles is the preferred method, because styles allow a greater level of control and make changing the language much faster. On the Font tab of the Paragraph Styles dialog, you can specify that certain paragraphs be checked in a language that is different from the language of the rest of the document. See Chapter 7 (Working with Styles) in the Writer Guide for information on how to manage the language settings of a style.

You can set the language for the whole document, for individual paragraphs, or even for individual words and characters, all from Tools > Language on the menu bar.

Another way to change the language of a whole document is to use Tools > Options > Language Settings > Languages. In the Default languages for documents section of the Options dialog, you can choose a different language for all the text.

The spelling checker works only for those languages in the list that have the symbol

next to them. If you do not see the symbol next to your preferred language, you can install the additional dictionary using Tools > Languages > More dictionaries online.

The language used for checking spelling is also shown in the status bar, next to the page style in use.

Using AutoCorrect

Writer’s AutoCorrect function has a long list of common misspellings and typing errors, which it corrects automatically. For example, “hte” will be changed to “the”.

Choose Tools > AutoCorrect Options to open the AutoCorrect dialog. There you can define which strings of text are corrected and how. In most cases, the defaults are fine.

AutoCorrect is turned on when Writer is installed. To turn it off, uncheck Format > AutoCorrect > While Typing.

To stop Writer replacing a specific spelling, go to the Replace tab, highlight the word pair, and click Delete.

To add a new spelling to the list, type it into the Replace and With boxes on the Replace tab, and click New.

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See the different tabs of the dialog for the wide variety of other options available to fine-tune AutoCorrect.

Tip

AutoCorrect can be used as a quick way to insert special characters. For example, (c) will be autocorrected to ©. You can add your own special characters.

Using word completion

If Word Completion is enabled, Writer tries to guess which word you are typing and offers to complete the word for you. To accept the suggestion, press Enter. Otherwise continue typing.

To turn off Word Completion, select Tools > AutoCorrect Options > Word Completion and deselect Enable word completion.

You can customize word completion from the Word Completion page of the AutoCorrect dialog:

• Add (append) a space automatically after an accepted word

• Show the suggested word as a tip (hovering over the word) rather than

completing the text as you type

• Change the maximum number of words remembered for word completion and

the length of the smallest words to be remembered

• Delete specific entries from the word completion list

• Change the key that accepts a suggested entry—the options are Right arrow,

End key, Return (Enter), and Space bar

Note

Automatic word completion only occurs after you type a word for the second time in a document.

Using AutoText

Use AutoText to store text, tables, graphics and other items for reuse and assign them to a key combination for easy retrieval. For example, rather than typing “Senior Management” every time you use that phrase, you can set up an AutoText entry to insert those words when you type “sm” and press F3.

Creating AutoText

To store some text as AutoText:

1) Type the text into your document.

2) Select the text.

3) Choose Edit > AutoText (or press Control+F3).

4) In the AutoText dialog box, type a name for the AutoText in the Name box. Writer will suggest a one-letter shortcut, which you can change.

5) In the large box to the left, choose the category for the AutoText entry, for example My AutoText.

6) Click the AutoText button on the right and select New (text only) from the menu.

7) Click Close to return to your document.

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Tip

If the only option under the AutoText button is Import, either you have not entered a name for your AutoText or there is no text selected in the document.

AutoText is especially powerful when assigned to fields. See Chapter 14 (Working with Fields) in the Writer Guide for more information.

Inserting AutoText

To insert AutoText, type the shortcut and press F3.

Formatting text

Using styles is recommended

Styles are central to using Writer. Styles enable you to easily format your document consistently, and to change the format with minimal effort. A style is a named set of formatting options. Writer defines several types of styles, for different types of elements: characters, paragraphs, pages, frames, and lists. See Chapter 3 (Using Styles and Templates) in this book and Chapters 6 and 7 in the Writer Guide.

Formatting paragraphs

You can apply many formats to paragraphs using the buttons on the Formatting toolbar. Figure 75 shows the Formatting toolbar as a floating toolbar, customized to show only the icons for paragraph formatting. The appearance of the icons may vary with your operating system and the selection of icon size and style in Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > View.

Formatting characters

You can apply many formats to characters using the buttons on the Formatting toolbar. Figure 76 shows the Formatting toolbar, customized to include only the icon for character formatting.

The appearance of the icons may vary with your operating system and the selection of icon size and style in Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > View.

90 Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3.3

1 Open Styles and

Formatting Window

2 Apply Style 7 Line Spacing: 1 12 Decrease Indent 3 Align Left 8 Line Spacing: 1.5 13 Increase Indent 4 Centered 9 Line Spacing: 2 14 Paragraph format dialog

Figure 75: Formatting toolbar, showing icons for paragraph formatting

5 Align Right 10 Numbering On/Off 6 Justified 11 Bullets On/Off

Page 91

1 Open Styles and

Tip

To remove manual formatting, select the text and choose Format > Default Formatting, or right-click and choose Default Formatting.

Autoformatting

You can set Writer to automatically format parts of a document according to the choices made on the Options page of the AutoCorrect dialog (Tools > AutoCorrect Options).

Tip

If you notice unexpected formatting changes occurring in your document, this is the first place to look for the cause.

Some common unwanted or unexpected formatting changes include:

• Horizontal lines. If you type three or more hyphens (---), underscores (___) or

equal signs (===) on a line and then press Enter, the paragraph is replaced by a horizontal line as wide as the page. The line is actually the lower border of the preceding paragraph.

• Bulleted and numbered lists. A bulleted list is created when you type a hyphen

(-), star (*), or plus sign (+), followed by a space or tab at the beginning of a paragraph. A numbered list is created when you type a number followed by a period (.), followed by a space or tab at the beginning of a paragraph. Automatic numbering is only applied to paragraphs formatted with the Default, Text body or Text body indent paragraph styles.

To turn autoformatting on or off, choose Format > AutoCorrect and select or deselect the items on the list.

Creating numbered or bulleted lists

There are several ways to create numbered or bulleted lists:

• Use autoformatting, as described above.

• Use list (numbering) styles, as described in Chapters 6 (Introduction to Styles)

and 7 (Working with Styles) in the Writer Guide.

• Use the Numbering and Bullets icons on the paragraph formatting toolbar (see

Figure 75): select the paragraphs in the list, and then click the appropriate icon on the toolbar.

Chapter 4 Getting Started with Writer 91

Formatting Window

2 Apply Style 8 Superscript 14 Background Color 3 Font Name 9 Subscript 15 Open Character 4 Font Size 10 Increase Font 5 Bold 11 Reduce Font

Figure 76: Formatting toolbar, showing icons for character formatting

6 Italic 12 Font Color 7 Underline 13 Highlighting

Format Dialog

Page 92

Note

It is a matter of personal preference whether you type your information first, then apply Numbering/Bullets, or apply them as you type.

Using the Bullets and Numbering toolbar

You can create nested lists (where one or more list items has a sub-list under it, as in an outline) by using the buttons on the Bullets and Numbering toolbar (Figure 77). You can move items up or down the list, or create sub-points, and even change the style of bullets. Use View > Toolbars > Bullets and Numbering to see the toolbar.

The appearance of the icons may vary with your operating system and the selection of icon size and style in Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > View.

Hyphenating words

You have several choices regarding hyphenation: let Writer do it automatically (using its hyphenation dictionaries), insert conditional hyphens manually where necessary, or don’t hyphenate at all.

Automatic hyphenation

To turn automatic hyphenation of words on or off:

1) Press F11 (z+T on Mac) to open the Styles and Formatting window.

2) On the Paragraph Styles page of the Styles and Formatting window (Figure

78), right-click on Default and select Modify.

3) On the Paragraph Style dialog (Figure

79), go to the Text Flow page.

4) Under Hyphenation, select or deselect the Automatically option. Click OK to save.

92 Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3.3

1 Bullets On/Off 6 Promote One Level with 2 Numbering On/Off 11 Move Up with Subpoints 3 Numbering Off 7 Demote One Level with

4 Promote One Level 8 Insert Unnumbered Entry 13 Restart Numbering 5 Demote One Level 9 Move Up 14 Bullets and Numbering

Figure 77: Bullets and Numbering toolbar

Subpoints

10 Move Down

12 Move Down with Subpoints

Figure 78: Modifying a style

Page 93

Figure 79: Turning on automatic hyphenation

Note

Turning on hyphenation for the Default paragraph style affects all other paragraph styles that are based on Default. You can individually change other styles so that hyphenation is not active; for example, you might not want headings to be hyphenated. Any styles that are not based on Default are not affected. See Chapter 3 (Styles and Templates) for more about styles based on other styles)

You can also set hyphenation choices through Tools > Options > Language Settings > Writing Aids. In Options, near the bottom of the dialog, scroll down to find the hyphenation settings.

To change the minimum number of characters for hyphenation, the minimum number of characters before a line break, or the minimum number of characters after a line break, select the item, and then click the Edit button in the Options section.

Hyphenation options set on the Writing Aids dialog are effective only if hyphenation is turned on through paragraph styles.

Manual hyphenation

To manually hyphenate words, do not use a normal hyphen, which will remain visible even if the word is no longer at the end of a line when you add or delete text or change margins or font size. Instead, use a conditional hyphen, which is visible only when required.

To insert a conditional hyphen inside a word, click where you want the hyphen to appear and press Control+hyphen. The word will be hyphenated at this position when it is at the end of the line, even if automatic hyphenation for this paragraph is switched off.

Chapter 4 Getting Started with Writer 93

Figure 80: Setting hyphenation options

Page 94

Formatting pages

Writer provides several ways for you to control page layouts: page styles, columns, frames, tables, and sections. For more information, see Chapter 4 (Formatting Pages) in the Writer Guide.

Tip

Page layout is usually easier if you show text, object, table, and section boundaries in Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Appearance, and paragraph ends, tabs, breaks, and other items in Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer > Formatting Aids.

Which layout method to choose?

The best layout method varies depending on what the final document should look like and what sort of information will be in the document. Here are some examples.

For a book similar to this user guide, with one column of text, some figures without text beside them, and some other figures with descriptive text, use page styles for basic layout, and tables to place figures beside descriptive text when necessary.

For an index or other document with two columns of text, where the text continues from the left-hand column to the right-hand column and then to the next page, all in sequence (also known as “snaking columns” of text), use page styles (with two columns). If the title of the document (on the first page) is full-page width, put it in a single-column section.

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For a newsletter with complex layout, two or three columns on the page, and some articles that continue from one page to some place several pages later, use page styles for basic layout. Place articles in linked frames and anchor graphics to fixed positions on the page if necessary.

For a document with terms and translations to appear side-by-side in what appear to be columns, use a table to keep items lined up, and so you can type in both “columns”.

Creating headers and footers

A header is an area that appears at the top of a page. A footer appears at the bottom of the page. Information such as page numbers inserted into a header or footer displays on every page of the document with that page style.

To insert a header, choose Insert > Header > Default (or the page style, if not Default).

Other information such as document titles and chapter titles is often put into the header or footer. These items are best added as fields. That way, if something changes, the headers and footers are updated automatically. Here is one common example.

To insert the document title into the header:

1) Choose File > Properties > Description and type a title for your document.

2) Add a header (Insert > Header > Default).

3) Place the cursor in the header part of the page.

4) Choose Insert > Fields > Title. The title should appear on a gray background (which does not show when printed and can be turned off).

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5) To change the title for the whole document, go back to File > Properties > Description.

Fields are covered in detail in Chapter 14 (Working with Fields) in the Writer Guide.

For more about headers and footers, see Chapter 4 (Formatting Pages) and Chapter 6 (Introduction to Styles) in the Writer Guide.

Numbering pages

To automatically number pages:

1) Insert a header or footer, as described in “Creating headers and footers” on page 95.

2) Place the cursor in the header or footer where you want the page number to appear and choose Insert > Fields > Page Number.

Including the total number of pages

To include the total number of pages (as in “page 1 of 12”):

1) Type the word “page” and a space, then insert the page number as above.

2) Press the spacebar once, type the word “of” and a space, then choose Insert > Fields > Page Count.

Note

The Page Count field inserts the total number of pages in the document, as shown on the Statistics tab of the document’s Properties window (File > Properties). If you restart page numbering anywhere in the document, then the total page count may not be what you want. See Chapter 4 (Formatting Pages) in the Writer Guide for more information.

Restarting page numbering

Often you will want to restart the page numbering at 1, for example on the page following a title page or a table of contents. In addition, many documents have the “front matter” (such as the table of contents) numbered with Roman numerals and the main body of the document numbered in Arabic numerals, starting with 1.

You can restart page numbering in two ways.

Method 1:

1) Place the cursor in the first paragraph of the new page.

2) Choose Format > Paragraph.

3) On the Text Flow tab of the Paragraph dialog (Figure 81), select Breaks.

4) Select Insert and then With Page Style and specify the page style to use.

5) Specify the page number to start from, and then click OK.

Tip

Method 1 is also useful for numbering the first page of a document with a page number greater than 1. For example, you may be writing a book, with each chapter in a separate file. Chapter 1 may start with page 1, but Chapter 2 could begin with page 25 and Chapter 3 with page 51.

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Figure 81: Specifying a page break before a paragraph

Method 2:

1) Insert > Manual break.

2) By default, Page break is selected on the Insert Break dialog (Figure 82).

3) Choose the required page Style.

4) Select Change page number.

5) Specify the page number to start from, and then click OK.

Changing page margins

You can change page margins in two ways:

• Using the page rulers—quick and easy, but does not have fine control

• Using the Page Style dialog—can specify margins to two decimal places

Note

If you change the margins using the rulers, the new margins affect the page style and will be shown in the Page Style dialog the next time you open it.

Because the page style is affected, the changed margins apply to all pages using that style.

Chapter 4 Getting Started with Writer 97

Figure 82: Restarting page numbering after a manual page break

Page 98

To change margins using the rulers:

1) The gray sections of the rulers are the margins. Put the mouse cursor over the line between the gray and white sections. The pointer turns into a doubleheaded arrow.

2) Hold down the left mouse button and drag the mouse to move the margin.

Tip

The small arrows on the ruler are used for indenting paragraphs. They are often in the same place as the page margins, so you need to be careful to move the margin marker, not the arrows. Place the mouse pointer between the arrows and, when the pointer turns into a doubleheaded arrow, you can move the margin (the indent arrows will move with it).

To change margins using the Page Style dialog:

1) Right-click anywhere on the page and select Page from the pop-up menu.

2) On the Page tab of the dialog, type the required distances in the Margins boxes.

Adding comments to a document

Authors and reviewers often use comments (formerly called “notes”) to exchange ideas, ask for suggestions, or mark items needing attention.

To insert a comment in the text, place the cursor in the place the comment refers to and choose Insert > Comment or press Ctrl+Alt+N. The anchor point of the comment is connected by a dotted line to a box on the right-hand side of the page where you can type the text of the comment. Writer automatically adds at the bottom of the comment the author’s name and a time stamp indicating when the comment was created. Figure 84 shows an example of text with comments from two different authors.

Choose Tools > Options > User Data to configure the name you want to appear in the Author field of the comment, or to change it.

If more than one person edits the document, each author is automatically allocated a different background color.

Right-clicking on a comment pops up a menu where you can delete the current comment, all the comments from the same author, or all the comments in the document. From this menu, you can also apply some basic formatting to the text of the comment. You can also change the font type, size, and alignment from the main menu.

98 Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3.3

Figure 83: Moving the margins

Page 99

Figure 84: Example of comments

To navigate from one comment to another, open the Navigator (F5), expand the Comments section, and click on the comment text to move the cursor to the anchor point of the comment in the document. Right-click on the comment to quickly edit or delete it.

You can also navigate through the comments using the keyboard. Use Ctrl+Alt+Page Down to move to the next comment and Ctrl+Alt+Page Up to move to the previous comment.

Creating a table of contents

Writer’s table of contents feature lets you build an automated table of contents from the headings in your document. Before you start, make sure that the headings are styled consistently. For example, you can use the Heading 1 style for chapter titles and the Heading 2 and Heading 3 styles for chapter subheadings.

Although tables of contents can be customized extensively in Writer, often the default settings are all you need. Creating a quick table of contents is simple:

1) When you create your document, use the following paragraph styles for different heading levels (such as chapter and section headings): Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, and so on. These are what will appear in your table of contents.

2) Place the cursor where you want the table of contents to be inserted.

3) Choose Insert > Indexes and Tables > Indexes and Tables.

4) Change nothing in the Insert Index/Table dialog. Click OK.

If you add or delete text (so that headings move to different pages) or you add, delete, or change headings, you need to update the table of contents.

To do this:

1) Place the cursor within the table of contents.

2) Right-click and choose Update Index/Table from the pop-up menu.

Note

If you cannot place your cursor in the table of contents, choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer > Formatting Aids, and then select Enable in the Cursor in protected areas section.

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You can customize an existing table of contents at any time. Right-click anywhere in it and choose Edit Index/Table from the pop-up menu. Chapter 12 (Creating Tables of Contents, Indexes and Bibliographies) of the Writer Guide describes in detail all the customizations you can choose.

Creating indexes and bibliographies

Indexes and bibliographies work in a similar way to tables of contents. Chapter 12 (Creating Tables of Contents, Indexes and Bibliographies) in the Writer Guide describes the process in detail.

In addition to alphabetical indexes, other types of indexes supplied with Writer include those for illustrations, tables, and objects, and you can even create a userdefined index. For example, you might want an index containing only the scientific names of species mentioned in the text, and a separate index containing only the common names of species. Before creating some types of indexes, you first need to create index entries embedded in your Writer document.

Working with graphics

Graphics in Writer are of three basic types:

• Image files, including photos, drawings, scanned images, and others

• Diagrams created using OOo’s drawing tools

• Charts created using OOo’s Chart facility

See Chapter 11 (Graphics, the Gallery, and Fontwork) in this book and Chapter 8 (Working with Graphics) in the Writer Guide.

Printing

See Chapter 10 (Printing, Exporting, and E-mailing) in this book and Chapter 5 (Printing, Exporting, Faxing, and E-mailing) in the Writer Guide for details on previewing pages before printing, selecting print options, printing in black and white on a color printer, printing brochures, and other printing features.

Using mail merge

Writer provides very useful features to create and print:

• Multiple copies of a document to send to a list of different recipients (form

letters)

• Mailing labels

• Envelopes

All these facilities use a registered data source (a spreadsheet or database containing the name and address records and other information).

Chapter 11 (Using Mail Merge) in the Writer Guide describes the process.

100 Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3.3

OpenOffice 3.3 User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual

What is OpenOffice.org?

Writer (word processor)

Calc (spreadsheet)

Impress (presentations)

Draw (vector graphics)

Base (database)

Math (formula editor)

The advantages of OpenOffice.org

Minimum requirements

How to get the software

How to install the software

Extensions and add-ons

How to get help

Help system

Free online support

Paid support and training

Starting OpenOffice.org

Starting from an existing document

Using the Quickstarter under Windows

Using the Quickstarter icon

Disabling the Quickstarter

Reactivating the Quickstarter

Using the Quickstarter in Linux

Preloading OOo under Linux/KDE

Starting from the command line

Parts of the main window

Menu bar

Toolbars

Displaying or hiding toolbars

Submenus and tear-off toolbars

Moving toolbars

Floating toolbars

Docking/floating windows and toolbars

Customizing toolbars

Right-click (context) menus

Status bar

What are all these things called?

Starting a new document

Opening an existing document

Saving a document

Password protection

Saving a document automatically

Renaming and deleting files

Using the Open and Save As dialogs

Using the Navigator

Undoing and redoing changes

Closing a document

Closing OpenOffice.org

Using OpenOffice.org on a Mac

Choosing options for all of OOo

User Data options

General options

Memory options

View options

Print options

Path options

Color options

Font options

Security options

Security options and warnings

Appearance options

Accessibility options

Java options

Online Update options

Improvement program

Choosing options for loading and saving documents

General Load/Save options

VBA Properties Load/Save options

Microsoft Office Load/Save options

HTML compatibility Load/Save options

Choosing language settings

Install the required dictionaries

Change locale and language settings

Choose spelling options

Choosing Internet options

Controlling OOo’s AutoCorrect functions