Beginning Ubuntu Linux - From Novice To Professional (2006)

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Table 22-2. OpenOffice.org Configuration Options (Continued)

Option	Description
OpenOffice.org Impress
General	This option refers to miscellaneous settings within the Impress program,
	such as whether the program should always start with a wizard and which
	units of measurement should be used.
View	This option relates to the look and feel of Impress, and, in particular,
	whether certain on-screen elements are displayed.
Grid	This controls whether an invisible grid is applied to the page and whether
	objects should snap to it.
Print	This option controls how printing is handled within Impress and, in
	particular, how items in the document will appear on the printed page.
OpenOffice.org Draw
General	This option relates to miscellaneous settings within Draw (the vector
	graphics component of OpenOffice.org).
View	Here, you can set specific preferences with regard to which objects are
	visible on the screen while you’re editing with Draw.
Grid	This option relates to the invisible grid that can be applied to the page.
Print	This option lets you define which on-screen elements are printed and
	which are not printed.
OpenOffice.org Base
Connections	This option lets you control how any data sources you attach to are
	handled.
Databases	Here, you can configure which databases are registered for use within Base.
Chart
Default Colors	Here, you can set the default color palette that should be used when creating
	charts, usually within the Calc program.
Internet
Proxy	Here, you can configure network proxy settings specifically for
	OpenOffice.org, if necessary.
Search	Certain functions within various OpenOffice.org programs let you search
	the Internet. Here, you can configure how these search functions work.
E-mail	This option lets you specify which program you wish OpenOffice.org to use
	for e-mail.
Mozilla Plug-in	This function allows integration of OpenOffice.org into the Mozilla and/or
	Netscape browsers, to allow the viewing of OpenOffice.org documents
	within the browser window.

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Using OpenOffice.org Core Functions

Although the various programs within OpenOffice.org are designed for very specific tasks, they all share several core functions that work in broadly similar ways. In addition, each program is able to borrow components from other programs in the suite.

Using Wizards

One of the core functions you’ll find most useful when you’re creating new documents is the wizard system, which you can access from the File menu. A wizard guides you through creating a new document by answering questions and following a wizard-based interface. This replaces the template-based approach within Microsoft Office, although it’s worth noting that OpenOffice.org is still able to use templates.

A wizard will usually offer a variety of document styles. Some wizards will even prompt you to fill in salient details, which they will then insert into your document in the relevant areas.

Getting Help

OpenOffice.org employs a comprehensive help system, complete with automatic contextsensitive help, called the Help Agent, which will appear if the program detects you’re performing a particular task. Usually, the Help Agent takes the form of a light bulb graphic, which will appear at the bottom-right corner of the screen. If you ignore the Help Agent, it will disappear within a few seconds. Clicking it causes a help window to open. Alternatively, you can access the main searchable help file by clicking the relevant menu entry.

Inserting Objects with Object Linking and Embedding

All the OpenOffice.org programs are able to make use of Object Linking and Embedding (OLE). This effectively means that one OpenOffice.org document can be inserted into another. For example, you might choose to insert a Calc spreadsheet into a Writer document.

The main benefit of using OLE over simply copying and pasting the data is that the OLE item (referred to as an object) will be updated whenever the original document is revised. In this way, you can prepare a report featuring a spreadsheet full of figures, for example, and not need to worry about updating the report when the figures change. Figure 22-4 shows an example of a spreadsheet from Calc inserted into a Writer document.

Whenever you click inside the OLE object, the user interface will change so that you can access functions specific to that object. For example, if you had inserted an Impress object into a Calc document, clicking within the object would cause the Calc interface to temporarily turn into that of Impress. Clicking outside the OLE object would restore the interface back to Calc.

You can explore OLE objects by selecting Insert Object OLE Object. This option lets you create and insert a new OLE object, as well as add one based on an existing file.

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Figure 22-4. Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) lets you incorporate one OpenOffice.org document into another.

Creating Macros

OpenOffice.org employs a powerful BASIC-like programming language, which you can use to create your own functions. Although this language is called BASIC, it is several generations beyond the BASIC you might have used in the past. OpenOffice.org’s BASIC is a high-level, object-oriented environment designed to appeal to programmers who wish to quickly add their own functions to the suite.

However, it’s possible for any user to record a series of actions as a macro, which is then automatically turned into a simple BASIC program. This can be very useful if you wish to automate a simple, repetitive task, such as the insertion of a paragraph of text, or even something more complicated, such as searching and replacing text within a document.

To record a macro, select Tools Macro Record Macro. After you’ve selected this option, any subsequent actions will be recorded. All keyboard strokes and clicks of the mouse will be captured and turned automatically into BASIC commands. To stop the recording, simply click the button on the floating toolbar. After this, you’ll be invited to give the macro a name (look to the top left of the dialog box). Once you’ve done so, click Save. You can then run your macro in the future by choosing Tools Macro Run Macro. Simply expand the My Macros and Standard entries at the top left of the dialog box, select your macro in the list, and then click Run.

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Saving Files

As mentioned in Chapter 21, OpenOffice.org uses the OpenDocument range of file formats. The files end with an .ods, .odt, .odp, or .odb file extension, depending on whether they’ve been saved by Calc, Writer, Impress, or Base, respectively. The OpenDocument format is the best choice when you’re saving documents that you are likely to further edit within OpenOffice.org. However, if you wish to share files with colleagues who aren’t running Ubuntu or OpenOffice.org, the solution is to save the files as Microsoft Office files. To save in this format, just choose it from the Save As drop-down list in the Save As dialog box. If your colleague is running an older version of OpenOffice.org or StarOffice, you can also save in those file formats.

Alternatively, you might wish to save the file in one of the other file formats offered in the Save As drop-down list. However, saving files in an alternative format might result in the loss of some document components or formatting. For example, saving a Writer document as a simple text file (.txt) will lead to the loss of all of the formatting, as well as any of the original file’s embedded objects, such as pictures.

To avoid losing document components or formatting, you might choose to output your OpenOffice.org files as Portable Document Format (PDF) files, which can be read by the Adobe Acrobat viewer. The benefit of this approach is that a complete facsimile of your document will be made available, with all the necessary fonts and on-screen elements included within the PDF file. The drawback is that PDF files cannot be loaded into OpenOffice.org for further editing, so you should always save an additional copy of the file in the native OpenOffice.org format. To save any file as a PDF throughout the suite, select File Export As PDF. Then choose PDF in the File Format drop-down box, as shown in Figure 22-5.

Figure 22-5. All the programs in the suite can export files in Adobe PDF format.

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Summary

In this chapter, we looked at the configuration options provided with OpenOffice.org. You were introduced to the user interface, which is shared across all the programs within the suite, and learned how it can be customized. We also examined some common tools provided across the suite of programs, such as macro generation.

Over the following chapters, we will look at each major component of the suite, starting with Writer.

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In Depth: Writer

The word processor is arguably the most popular element within any office suite. That said, you’ll be happy to know that OpenOffice.org’s Writer component doesn’t skimp on features. It offers full text-editing and formatting functionality, along with powerful higher-level features such as mail merge.

In this chapter, we’ll take a look at some of Writer’s most useful features. As with all of the components in the OpenOffice.org suite, describing the features within Writer could easily fill an entire book. You should do some exploring on your own by clicking around to discover new features, as well as make judicious use of the help system.

Formatting Text

You can format text within Writer using several methods. Here, we’ll look at using the Formatting toolbar, the context menu, and the Style and Formatting palette.

The Formatting Toolbar

Formatting text is easy to do via the Formatting toolbar, which is just above the ruler and main document area. Using the toolbar buttons, you can select the type of font you wish to use, its point size, and its style (normal, bold, italics, and so on). The range of fonts is previewed in the Font drop-down list, making it easy to select the right typeface.

In addition, the Formatting toolbar lets you justify text so that it’s aligned to the left or right margin, centered, or fully justified. You can also indent text using the relevant icons. As with elsewhere in Ubuntu, a tooltip will appear over each icon when you hover the mouse cursor over it, as shown in Figure 23-1. To the right of the indentation buttons are tools to change the text background and foreground colors, and also a tool to create highlighter pen-style effects.

Figure 23-1. When you hover your mouse over an icon, a tooltip appears to explain what it does.

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Context Menu

Rather than use the Formatting toolbar, you can format text using the context menu. Rightclick the text you want to format, and a context menu will present options for the font, size, style, alignment, and line spacing. The context menu also allows you to change the case of the highlighted characters—from uppercase to lowercase, and vice versa.

By selecting the Character option from the context menu, you get ultimate control over the font formatting. This will present a dialog box that includes every possible option, such as rotating the text and altering the individual character spacing.

■Tip The Character dialog box lets you create interesting typographical effects. The Paragraph dialog box has many options for formatting paragraphs. These tools open up the possibility of using Writer for simple desktop publishing work.

Selecting Paragraph from the context menu displays the Paragraph dialog box, as shown in Figure 23-2. This gives you control over paragraph elements, such as line spacing, indentation, and automatic numbering. Here, you will also find an option to automatically create drop caps, so you can start a piece of writing in style!

Figure 23-2. Writer includes many elements found in desktop publishing packages, such as the ability to create drop caps.

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The Style and Formatting Palette

The Style and Formatting palette offers a variety of predefined formatting styles that you can apply to selected text or enable before you begin adding text. To make it appear, click Formatting Styles and Formatting, or press F11. You can simply click the palette’s close button to get rid of it.

You can easily add your own text styles to the Style and Formatting palette. Simply select some text that has the formatting applied, click the top-right button (denoted by a paragraph symbol next to a block of text), and then select New Style from Selection in the list. You’ll be invited to give the style a name, and when you click OK, it will appear in the list.

Spell-Checking

Writer is able to automatically spell-check as you type. Any words it considers misspelled will be underlined in red. You can choose from a list of possible corrections by right-clicking the word and selecting from the context menu. If you’re sure the word is spelled correctly but it doesn’t appear to be in the dictionary, you can select Add Standard.dic from the context menu, as shown in Figure 23-3. This will add the word to your own personal dictionary extension (other users won’t have access to your dictionary and will need to create their own list of approved words).

Figure 23-3. Any words you’re going to use frequently, but which Writer doesn’t recognize, can be added to your personal dictionary.

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■Tip You might find that the spell-checker is set for US English. If you live outside the United States, or need to create documents for readers in other countries, you can choose a dictionary tailored to your locality or needs. To change the language, select Tools Options. In the list on the left, select Language Settings, and then Languages. In the Default Languages for Documents list, select your local variation. This will then become the default for all new documents.

If you find live spell-checking invasive or distracting, you can deactivate it by selecting Tools Spellcheck, clicking the Options button, and removing the check next to Check Spelling As You Type.

You can manually spell-check the document at any time by clicking Tools Spellcheck. This will scan through the document and prompt you for corrections for words the program considers misspelled.

Inserting Pictures

Writer includes quite substantial desktop publishing-like functions, such as the ability to insert pictures into text documents and to have text flow around pictures.

Inserting any kind of graphic—a graph, digital camera photo, drawing, or any other type of image—is easy. Simply choose Insert Picture From File.

■Tip If you have a scanner, you can also scan pictures directly into Writer documents. Simply click Insert Picture Scan Select Source.

After you’ve inserted a picture, you can place it anywhere on the page. When you select the picture, a new toolbar appears. This toolbar contains various simple image-tweaking tools, such as those for altering the brightness, contrast, and color balance of the image. Additionally, by clicking and dragging the blue handles surrounding the image, you can resize it.

Graphics that are imported into Writer must be anchored in some way. In other words, they must be linked to a page element so that they don’t move unexpectedly. By default, they’re anchored to the nearest paragraph, which means that if that paragraph moves, the graphic will move, too. Alternatively, by right-clicking the graphic, you can choose to anchor it to the page, paragraph, or character it is on or next to, as shown in Figure 23-4. Selecting to anchor it to the page will fix it firmly in place, regardless of what happens to the contents of the surrounding text. The As Character option is slightly different from the To Character option. When you choose As Character, the image will be anchored to the character it is next to, and it is actually inserted in the same line as that character, as if it were a character itself. If the image is bigger than the line it is anchored in, the line height will automatically change to accommodate it.

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Figure 23-4. A picture can be “anchored” to the page, paragraph, or a character. This affects how it responds to the paragraphs surrounding it.

As you can see in Figure 23-4, the context menu also includes a Wrap option, which lets you set the type of text wrap you want to use. By default, Optimal Page Wrap is selected. This causes the text to wrap down just one side of the picture—the side on which the picture is farthest from the edge of the page. Alternatives include No Wrap, which will mean that the graphic will occupy the entire space on the page; no text is allowed on either side of it. However, Page Wrap is the best option if you’re looking for a desktop publishing-style effect, because the text will wrap around both sides of the picture. Alternatively, if you wish the image to appear in the background of the page with text flowing across it, you can select the relevant option from the context menu.

As always within OpenOffice.org, ultimate control is achieved by opening the relevant dialog box. You can set up how graphics are treated on the page by right-clicking the image and selecting Picture. In the dialog box that appears, you can select the wrap effect, specify the invisible border around the wrap (which governs how close the text is to the image), and give the image a border frame.

Working with Tables

Often, it’s useful to present columns of numbers or text within a word processor document. To make it easy to align the columns, OpenOffice.org offers the Table tool. This lets you quickly and easily create a grid in which to enter numbers or other information. You can even turn tables into simple spreadsheets, and tally rows or columns via simple formulas.

To insert a table, click and hold the Table icon on the Standard toolbar (which runs across the top of the screen beneath the menu). Then simply drag the mouse in the table diagram that appears until you have the desired number of rows and columns, and release the mouse button to create the table, as shown in Figure 23-5.