OpenOffice.org

From UCanWiki

OpenOffice.org, often referred to simply as OpenOffice, is a free collection of programs which allow you to write letters and other documents, design spreadsheets and presentations, and organise databases. It is very similar to Microsoft Office, except for one thing - it's completely free, and can be downloaded from the internet by anyone who wants it!

For some exercises that will help you learn how to use OpenOffice, click here

Contents 1 Downloading and installing OpenOffice.org 2 Using OpenOffice.org 2.1 Writer 2.1.1 Saving and opening documents 2.2 Saving a document 2.3 Opening a document 2.3.1 Printing documents 2.3.2 Formatting text 2.3.2.1 Change the font 2.3.2.2 Change the size of the writing 2.3.2.3 Modify your text 2.3.2.4 Change the colour 2.3.3 Adding a picture to your document 2.3.3.1 Moving and resizing a picture inserted into a document 2.3.4 Adding words to the OpenOffice dictionary 2.3.5 Writing a letter in Writer 2.3.6 Sending a Writer document via email 2.3.6.1 Copying and pasting a document into an email 2.3.6.2 Attaching a copy of your document to an email 2.3.7 Printing labels in Writer 2.3.7.1 Using standard labels 2.3.7.2 Using other labels 2.4 Calc 2.5 Impress 2.6 Base 2.7 Draw 2.8 Math

Downloading and installing OpenOffice.org

THIS SECTION IS INCOMPLETE. YOU MAY WISH TO ADD TO IT.

Using OpenOffice.org

Once you have downloaded and installed OpenOffice.org, you will be able to run one of the six different programs that it comes with.

Writer

Writer is a word processor which is very similar to Microsoft Word. It allows you to write and edit documents, and also to print them.

Saving and opening documents

When you are writing a document you will usually want to save a copy of the document to your computer's hard disk, so that you can open it again at a later date.

Saving a document

When you want to save your document:

1. Click on the "File" menu towards the top-left corner of the screen.
2. Select "Save" under the file menu.
3. Enter a name for your document - it is usually best to make this name something which clearly describes what your document is about, such as "Letter to Daily Telegraph, 14 April 2007", so that you can find your document easily in the future.
4. Click "OK" - that's it, your document is saved!

Opening a document

When you want to open a document you have written and saved:

1. Click on the "File" menu towards the top-left of the screen.
2. Select "Open" under the file menu.
3. Click on the document you want to open - if it was not saved in the default documents folder, you will need to go to the folder it was saved in first.
4. Click "Open" - your document should now open

Printing documents

Printing a document in OpenOffice is easy. First of all, make sure your printer is turned on and has paper loaded. Then open the document, as per the instructions above. When the document is open, click on the "File" menu towards the top-left of the screen, and then select "Print"; in the new window that opens, click the "OK" button - your document should now print!

Formatting text

Sometimes you will want to change the appearance of text: for example, the colour, size, or font. All of these things can be changed using the Formatting Toolbar, which appears at the top of the Writer window. It looks like this:

You can use the different controls in the toolbar to change different features of your text. You will need to highlight the text you want to change first, and then do one of the following:

Change the font

With the text highlighted, click on the blue arrow to the right of the "font" box, then pick the font you want to use.

Change the size of the writing

With the text highlighted, click on the blue arrow to the right of the "size box", then pick the size you want to use.

Modify your text

You can make your text bold, italic or underlined, or any combination of these three. To do this, click the Bold, Italic, or Underline buttons.

Change the colour

With the text highlighted click on the arrow to the right of the colour change box, and then pick the colour you want your text to change to.

Adding a picture to your document

Sometimes you will want to add a picture to a document you are creating in OpenOffice Writer. For example, you might be designing a poster advertising an event, which would look a little dull if it was just plain text. Adding a picture to a Writer document is very straightforward:

1. Move the cursor to the point in the document where you want to insert the picture.
2. Click on the "Insert" menu; within the Insert menu, click on "Pciture" and then "From File...".
3. A new window opens. Use this window to locate the picture you want to insert. Pictures are often stored in the "My Pictures" folder; this can be found by clicking on the "My Documents" icon in the left of this window, and then double-clicking on the "My Pictures" folder in the main part of the window.
4. When you have found the picture you want to insert, double-click on it. You will be returned to your document, and the picture will have been inserted.

Moving and resizing a picture inserted into a document

You will often want to move or resize the picture you have inserted. To move the picture, move the mouse over it so that the mouse pointer turns into a compass. Then click and hold the left mouse button, and drag the picture to where you want it.

To resize the picture, click on it so that green squares appear in its four corners and on its four sides (these squares are called "handles"). Click and drag one of these handles to resize the picture. You will sometimes find that doing this causes the picture to get "squashed"; to avoid this problem, just hold down the shift key while you are resizing the picture.

Adding words to the OpenOffice dictionary

When you are typing a document in OpenOffice, OpenOffice compares the words you type to a list of words it knows is spelt correctly. If you type in a word OpenOffice doesn't know, it will underline that word in red, as it thinks you have spelt it incorrectly.

However, there are various words OpenOffice doesn't know, such as place names, or names of companies. It will underline these words in red, so you need to tell OpenOffice that they are in fact spelt correctly. You can do this by adding the words to the list of words OpenOffice knows about.

It's quite simple to do this. Take, for example, the following sentence, in which OpenOffice thinks the word "Musselburgh" is spelt incorrectly:

In fact, Musselburgh is spelt correctly: it is the name of a town just outside Edinburgh. To tell OpenOffice that Musselburgh is spelt correctly, right-click on the word "Musselburgh". A menu appears:

In this menu, click on "Add". A sub-menu appears:

In this sub-menu, click on "standard.dic":

This adds the word Musselburgh to the list of words OpenOffice knows about. The red line will disappear from beneath the word, and whenever you type it in in the future, it will appear without a red line underneath it.

Writing a letter in Writer

Writing a letter in Writer is reasonably straightforward. the only slight complication is getting your address to appear in the top right corner of the page. There are many ways you can do this; the method outlined here is perhaps the quickest and simplest.

1. Write your letter as normal, but don't worry about placing your address in the top right for the moment. Just put it on the left of the letter, like this:

1 The High Street
New Town
County
NT1 1NT


23 March 2007
James Smith
25/4 Hazel Court
Edinburgh
EH7 3QG

Dear Mr Smith,

This is a letter.

Yours sincerely,

Joe Bloggs

2. The bold text in the letter above is what you want to move to the right hand side of the page. To do this, you first need to highlight all of this text;
3. Once the text is highlighted, click on the "Format" menu at the top of the screen, then select "Paragraph..."
4. A new window will open, which allows you to change various settings for the paragraph of text you are editing. The setting we want to change is the "Before text" "Indent"; i.e., the amount of space inserted to the left of each line of the paragraph. Setting this to around 13cm often works well. If you find that this is too much or too little, you can always repeat the steps above to change the indent.

Sending a Writer document via email

Once you have written a document - for example, a letter - you might want to send it to someone via email. Broadly speaking, there are two ways you can do this: you can either copy and paste your document into an email, or you can attach a copy of your document to an email.

Copying and pasting a document into an email

1. Highlight the entire document that you want to paste into your email. A simple way to do this is to click on the "Edit" menu at the top of the screen, and then click on "Select All";
2. Once your document is highlighted, click on the "Edit" menu, and then select "Copy". This will copy the text of your document to an area of the computer called the "clipboard";
3. Next, go in to your email program and create a new email. With the cursor in the body of the email, go to the "Edit" menu of your email, and select "Paste". The text you copied from your document should now appear in your email; you can address the email and send it!

Attaching a copy of your document to an email

These instructions will allow you to send a copy of your document to someone, so that they can print it out exactly as it appears on your screen. They will not, however, be able to make changes to the document you have sent.

1. In Writer, make sure the document you want to attach is open, and then click on the "File" menu. Under the File menu, click on "Export as PDF...";
2. A new window will open, which looks very similar to the window that opens when you save a document. The cursor will be flashing near the bottom of this window, in a field marked "File name:". Type a name for your file into this field, and then click the "Save" button;
3. A new window will open up. Leave everything in this window as it is, and click the "Export" button.
4. Next, open up your email program and create new email. You will need to attach the document you created in steps 1-3 to your email: for instructions on how to do this, see the UCanWiki notes on your email program: for example, see Thunderbird, Outlook Express, Hotmail, GMail, Outlook or BT Yahoo! Webmail.
5. Once you have attached the document to your email, you can address it and send it as normal.

Printing labels in Writer

Using standard labels

The most common brand of labels available is made by a company called Avery. Because Avery labels are so common, their product codes have become an industry standard.

If you have bought Avery labels you can use the product code to set up a new page in Writer into which you can type the information you want to appear on your labels.

1. Click File.
2. Click New, and then Labels.
3. A new window opens. In the bottom left of this window click "Sheet", and then select the type of labels you want in teh bottom right.
4. Click the "New Document" button at the bottom of the window. Open Office will create a new document into which you can type your labels.

Using other labels

These notes assume that your tutor has set up Writer is a particular - please check with your tutor before using them

To print onto sticky labels, follow these instructions:

1. Open the OpenOffice Writer program;
2. Click the "File" menu, and then click "New". Under the sub-menu that opens, click "Templates and Documents", which is at the bottom;
3. A new window will open. In this window, make sure "Templates" is selected in the left-hand column, and then click "Labels" in the middle column before clicking the "Open" button at the bottom of the window;
4. A new document will open, which contains ten pages of blank labels. To enter an address in any one of these labels, click in the middle of it and type in the address you want to enter;
5. When you have typed in all of the addresses you want to enter, make sure the cursor is flashing the bottom-most address you have entered, then click the "File" menu. Under the "File" menu, click "Print";
6. Because your document is ten pages long, you probably don't want to print every page. In the window that has opened, select "Pages" under "Print range". Change the entry in the box to the right of "Print range" so that it says "1-3" if you are only printing 3 pages, "1-4" if you are pritning 4 pages, and so on. Note that the number that is displayed before you change anything is the total number of pages you have entered. If you just want to print one page, leave the box so it says "1";
7. Click "OK" - your labels will now print.

Calc

Impress

Base

Draw

Math

See http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org for a pretty good start at a wikibook. Information can be copied to here!