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316 Pages·2013·7.01 MB·English

by  Jean Hollis Weber

Taming
Apache OpenOffice
Version 3.4
Getting Started
Copyright
This document is Copyright © 2013 by Jean Hollis Weber. You may distribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, version 3.0 or later
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
Apache, Apache OpenOffice, and OpenOffice.org are trademarks of the Apache Software
Foundation. Used with permission. No endorsement by The Apache Software Foundation is
implied by the use of these marks. All other trademarks mentioned in this guide belong to their
respective owners.
Acknowledgements
This book is based on an earlier draft written by volunteers from the ODFAuthors and Apache
OpenOffice communities, and on Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3.3, with additional material
adapted from Getting Started with LibreOffice 3.4. The contributors to those books are listed on
page 14.
Publication date and software version
Published 10 May 2013. Based on Apache OpenOffice 3.4.1.
Publisher
Friends of OpenDocument, Inc.
544/60 Beck Drive North
Condon, QLD 4815, Australia
http://friendsofopendocument.com/
ISBN 978-1-921320-32-3
Contents
Preface............................................................................................................................................ 9
Who is this book for?................................................................................................................... 9
What's in this book?.....................................................................................................................9
Where to get more help............................................................................................................... 9
What’s new in Apache OpenOffice 3.4?.....................................................................................10
What are the advantages of Apache OpenOffice?..................................................................... 11
What you see may be different...................................................................................................11
Using Apache OpenOffice on a Mac..........................................................................................12
Frequently asked questions.......................................................................................................12
What are all these things called?...............................................................................................13
Acknowledgements....................................................................................................................14
Chapter 1
Introducing Apache OpenOffice..................................................................................................15
What is Apache OpenOffice?.....................................................................................................15
Minimum requirements.............................................................................................................. 16
How to get and install the software............................................................................................ 16
Extensions and add-ons............................................................................................................ 16
Starting Apache OpenOffice.......................................................................................................17
Parts of the main window...........................................................................................................18
Starting a new document........................................................................................................... 23
Opening an existing document...................................................................................................23
Saving a document....................................................................................................................24
Closing a document...................................................................................................................25
Closing Apache OpenOffice.......................................................................................................26
Using the Open and Save As dialogs.........................................................................................26
Using the Navigator................................................................................................................... 27
Undoing and redoing changes...................................................................................................28
Chapter 2
Using Styles and Templates........................................................................................................ 31
What is a template?...................................................................................................................31
What are styles?........................................................................................................................31
Applying styles...........................................................................................................................32
Modifying styles......................................................................................................................... 34
Creating new (custom) styles.....................................................................................................36
Copying and moving styles........................................................................................................37
Deleting styles........................................................................................................................... 39
Using a template to create a document..................................................................................... 39
Creating a template................................................................................................................... 40
Editing a template......................................................................................................................42
Adding templates using the Extension Manager........................................................................43
Setting a default template.......................................................................................................... 44
Associating a document with a different template......................................................................44
Organizing templates.................................................................................................................45
Taming Apache OpenOffice 3.4: Getting Started 3
Examples of style use................................................................................................................47
Chapter 3
Getting Started with Writer..........................................................................................................49
What is Writer?.......................................................................................................................... 49
The Writer interface................................................................................................................... 49
Changing document views.........................................................................................................52
Moving quickly through a document...........................................................................................52
Working with documents............................................................................................................53
Working with text....................................................................................................................... 54
Formatting text...........................................................................................................................62
Formatting pages.......................................................................................................................66
Adding comments to a document...............................................................................................70
Creating a table of contents.......................................................................................................71
Creating indexes and bibliographies..........................................................................................71
Adding images and other graphics.............................................................................................72
Adding tables, spreadsheets, and charts...................................................................................72
Adding a movie or sound........................................................................................................... 73
Printing...................................................................................................................................... 74
Using mail merge.......................................................................................................................74
Tracking changes to a document...............................................................................................74
Using fields................................................................................................................................ 75
Linking to another part of a document........................................................................................75
Using master documents........................................................................................................... 78
Creating fill-in forms...................................................................................................................78
Chapter 4
Getting Started with Calc.............................................................................................................79
What is Calc?.............................................................................................................................79
Spreadsheets, sheets and cells.................................................................................................79
Parts of the main Calc window...................................................................................................79
Opening and saving CSV files................................................................................................... 82
Navigating within spreadsheets................................................................................................. 84
Selecting items in a sheet or spreadsheet................................................................................. 88
Working with columns and rows.................................................................................................90
Working with sheets...................................................................................................................91
Viewing Calc..............................................................................................................................93
Entering data using the keyboard.............................................................................................. 96
Speeding up data entry..............................................................................................................98
Validating cell contents............................................................................................................ 101
Editing data..............................................................................................................................101
Formatting data........................................................................................................................102
Autoformatting cells and sheets...............................................................................................106
Formatting spreadsheets using themes...................................................................................107
Using conditional formatting.....................................................................................................108
Hiding and showing data..........................................................................................................108
Sorting records........................................................................................................................ 109
4 Taming Apache OpenOffice 3.4: Getting Started
Using formulas and functions...................................................................................................110
Analyzing data......................................................................................................................... 110
Printing.....................................................................................................................................111
Chapter 5
Getting Started with Impress...................................................................................................119
What is Impress?..................................................................................................................... 119
Starting Impress.......................................................................................................................119
The main Impress window....................................................................................................... 120
Workspace views.....................................................................................................................124
Creating a new presentation....................................................................................................128
Formatting a presentation........................................................................................................130
Adding and formatting text.......................................................................................................134
Adding pictures, tables, charts, media files, and other objects.................................................138
Working with master pages and styles.....................................................................................141
Adding comments to a presentation.........................................................................................146
Setting up the slide show.........................................................................................................147
Running a slide show...............................................................................................................148
Chapter 6
Getting Started with Draw..........................................................................................................149
What is Draw?......................................................................................................................... 149
Parts of the main Draw window................................................................................................149
Choosing and defining colors...................................................................................................152
Positioning objects with snap functions....................................................................................153
Positioning objects with guiding lines.......................................................................................155
The basic drawing shapes....................................................................................................... 155
Drawing geometric shapes...................................................................................................... 160
Selecting objects......................................................................................................................161
Moving and dynamically adjusting an object’s size.................................................................. 163
Editing objects......................................................................................................................... 164
Using styles............................................................................................................................. 166
Special effects......................................................................................................................... 166
Combining multiple objects......................................................................................................169
Aids for positioning objects...................................................................................................... 170
Inserting and editing pictures...................................................................................................170
Working with 3D objects.......................................................................................................... 170
Exporting graphics...................................................................................................................171
Adding comments to a drawing................................................................................................171
Chapter 7
Getting Started with Base.........................................................................................................173
Introduction..............................................................................................................................173
Planning a database................................................................................................................ 174
Creating a new database.........................................................................................................175
Creating database tables.........................................................................................................176
Defining relationships...............................................................................................................183
Creating a database form........................................................................................................ 185
Taming Apache OpenOffice 3.4: Getting Started 5
Accessing other data sources..................................................................................................199
Using data sources in Apache OpenOffice...............................................................................199
Entering data in a form.............................................................................................................203
Creating queries...................................................................................................................... 205
Creating reports.......................................................................................................................213
Chapter 8
Getting Started with Math........................................................................................................221
What is Math?..........................................................................................................................221
Getting started......................................................................................................................... 221
Entering a formula................................................................................................................... 221
Customizations........................................................................................................................ 227
Formula layout.........................................................................................................................229
Numbering equations...............................................................................................................231
Chapter 9
Printing, Exporting, and E-mailing............................................................................................233
Introduction..............................................................................................................................233
Quick printing...........................................................................................................................233
Controlling printing...................................................................................................................233
Exporting to PDF..................................................................................................................... 242
Exporting to other formats........................................................................................................248
E-mailing documents............................................................................................................... 248
Digital signing of documents....................................................................................................252
Removing personal data..........................................................................................................252
Chapter 10
Graphics, the Gallery, and Fontwork........................................................................................ 253
Introduction..............................................................................................................................253
Adding images to a document..................................................................................................253
Modifying and positioning graphics..........................................................................................257
Managing the Gallery...............................................................................................................257
Creating an image map............................................................................................................260
Using Apache OpenOffice’s drawing tools............................................................................... 261
Using Fontwork........................................................................................................................263
Chapter 11
Setting Up and Customizing Apache OpenOffice....................................................................269
Choosing options for all of Apache OpenOffice........................................................................269
Choosing options for loading and saving documents...............................................................282
Choosing language settings.....................................................................................................287
Choosing Internet options........................................................................................................289
Controlling AOO’s AutoCorrect functions................................................................................. 289
Customizing Apache OpenOffice............................................................................................. 290
Adding functionality with extensions........................................................................................ 299
Chapter 12
Open Source, Open Standards, OpenDocument.....................................................................303
Introduction..............................................................................................................................303
A short history of Apache OpenOffice...................................................................................... 303
6 Taming Apache OpenOffice 3.4: Getting Started
The Apache OpenOffice community.........................................................................................303
What is “open source”?............................................................................................................304
What are “open standards”?.................................................................................................... 304
What is OpenDocument?.........................................................................................................304
File formats Apache OpenOffice can open...............................................................................305
File formats Apache OpenOffice can save to...........................................................................306
Exporting to other formats........................................................................................................308
Index............................................................................................................................................309
Taming Apache OpenOffice 3.4: Getting Started 7
8 Taming Apache OpenOffice 3.4: Getting Started
Preface
Who is this book for?
Anyone who wants to get up to speed quickly with Apache OpenOffice will find this book valuable.
You may be new to office software, or you may be familiar with another office suite.
What's in this book?
This book introduces the main components of Apache OpenOffice:
• Writer (word processing)
• Calc (spreadsheets)
• Impress (presentations)
• Draw (vector graphics)
• Base (database)
• Math (equation editor)
It also covers some of the features common to all components, including setup and customization,
styles and templates, and printing. For more detail, see the user guides for the individual
components.
Where to get more help
This book, the other Apache OpenOffice 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
Apache OpenOffice comes with an extensive Help system. This is your first line of support for
using the program.
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 Apache OpenOffice community not only develops software, but provides free, volunteer-based
support. See this web page: http://support.openoffice.org/index.html
Users can get comprehensive online support from the community through mailing lists. Other
websites run by users also offer free tips and tutorials. This forum provides community support for
Apache OpenOffice and other programs: http://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/
Paid support and training
Alternatively, you can pay for support services. Service contracts can be purchased from a vendor
or consulting firm specializing in Apache OpenOffice.
Preface 9
What’s new in Apache OpenOffice 3.4?
This section summarizes some of the changes since OpenOffice.org 3.3. For details, see the
Release Notes for Apache OpenOffice 3.4 and 3.4.1:
http://www.openoffice.org/development/releases/3.4.0.html
http://www.openoffice.org/development/releases/3.4.1.html
• Faster startup
• Support for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)
• Enhanced RTF export
• Reduced PDF file size
• Improved ODF 1.2 encryption support
• Improved navigation in Styles and Formatting, Navigator, and options dialogs
• New regular expressions (regexp) engine
• New Color Picker dialog
• Enhanced or additional graphics support (in addition to SVG):
– Support for Line Cap property for thick lines and 3D objects
– Support for shear transformations for graphic objects in Draw/Impress and Calc
– Support for attributes and transformations for OLE objects in Draw/Impress and Calc
– Enhanced crop support and mirroring for graphical objects
• Calc:
– DataPilot renamed Pivot Table and no longer limited in the number of fields supported
– Improved CSV export; new CSV export option, Quote all text cells
– Support for new conditional functions from ODF 1.2
– New, faster Linear Programming solver
• Chart:
– Legend within a chart is now resizable
– Data axid now available for category charts
– Time axis now supported
– Enhanced chart visualization
• Math:
– Option to save only used symbols for each formula
– Option to use automatic baseline for Math objects in Writer documents
– Symbol catalog now supports UTF-32 characters
• Draw/Impress:
– Better defaults for snap, grid settings, bullet spacing, and indentation
– Changed default for "copy when moving"
– Animate outline shapes “By 1st level paragraphs” as default
– New default colors of drawing objects
– Setting default shadow distance for shapes
– Enhancement to the "mouse as pen" feature in impress slideshow
– Default full width for text in shapes
– Change outline default bullet symbol order
– Shortcut for inserting comments changed
– Set pixel resolution when exporting graphics
• Writer: Asian Language Word Count now correct
10 Taming Apache OpenOffice 3.4: Getting Started