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Things You Can Do in OpenOffice
Filed under Computer TipsMay 22If you need an Office Suite But your budget won’t allow for it right now. Then you might want to look into the OpenOffice.org–an application suite, not just a Web site—has tricks even Office can’t manage. Here are a few points that may not be obvious, plus a few ways to make it less annoying out of the box.
OpenOffice.org is a free office suite, and comes close to the Office Suites that are not free. Though it has limitations, a lot of people prefer it to the paid suites. It has some secrets of its own, that Office can’t even do. So take it for a spin and see how well you like it. Like I said, some people prefer it to the real thing.
To Split or Not to Split?
1. With OpenOffice.org you can edit two parts of a document at the same time. Microsoft Office has a split window feature that will split the screen in two screens, once above and one below. It has the same document in it.So you can be on one page in the top screen, while being on a page at the end of the document in the screen below. This is great for editing a table of contents, and eliminates the need to wear out your scroll button.
While OpenOffice doesn’t have this feature, you can open a new window and open the document again. Minimize the windows and place one over the other. Even though it’s not the split window feature in Office. It doesn’t cost you anything either.
You can open as many windows as you want with the same document and edit them all. When you make a change in one window, it will immediately appear in the other windows as well. You can reduce screen clutter by turning off the toolbars in one or more windows. You can do this by clicking on (View | Toolbars). You can tile or cascade the windows by right-clicking on the OpenOffice.org button on the Windows taskbar.
Opening Other Documents
2. You can open legacy documents with OpenOffice.org. Older versions of Office could open documents created by many variations of word processors and spreadsheet programs that were used before Microsoft monopolized the market.
Now recent versions of Microsoft Office can’t open these formats including old Microsoft Word versions. Like Word 6.0. OpenOffice.org can still open these older documents, including WordPerfect, including files created in WordPerfect for McIntosh 3.5 Enhanced.
Playing Game in OpenOffice
3. OpenOffice.org will even play the vintage Space Invader’s game. This was in the days when software contained what they called “Easter Eggs”. These were keystrokes or mouse clicks that brought up silly graphics in some programs and games in others. Did you know that Excel had a game in it?
OpenOffice.org spreadsheet program still includes Space Invaders game. In any cell enter: =GAME (“starwars”).
Make sure to copy the capitalization shown. Calc will open a Starwars game that you can play. When you win or lose the game, you will have to shut down the Calc program and restart it in order to play another game.
Turn Off The Lights
4. You can turn off the blinking light bulb, This is turned on by default. A light-bulb icon appears in a tiny window whenever OpenOffice.org does anything that isn’t exactly what you typed. for example, when it replaces two hyphens with a dash.
To turn it off permanently, go to Tools | Options, and then in the left hand pane, expand the menu tree by clicking the plus sign next to OpenOffice.org. In the General dialog, remove the check mark next to Help Agent.
Saving Files in Other Formats
5. To save files in Office formats by default. When you save documents in OpenOffice.org it will save it to it’s own format. Microsoft Office users can’t open these files. But you can save individual files in Office format by using OpenOffice.org File | Save as menu and selecting a Word format from the Save as Type drop-down.
But you can tell OpenOffice.org to save in Office formats by default by choosing Tools | Options, then find the Load/Save category, and the General subcategory.
In the document type drop down, choose Text Document Type drop-down, choose Spreadsheet, and in the Always Save As drop down, choose Microsoft Excel 97/2000/XP. These choices will create files that can be read by any modern word processor or spreadsheet.
Making Your Actions Automatic
6 You can automate actions easily in OpenOffice.org. Users using Microsoft Office take advantage of macros that run automatically when you open, print, or close a file. But Office’s interface doesn’t provide built-in clues for creating AutoClose macros that will run whenever you close a document.
Well with OpenOffice.org beats Office by providing a menu-driven interface that lists all the actions that can automatically trigger macros. These include a wider range of actions than the ones that can be automated easily in Office.You can create a macro that is triggered every time the number of pages in a document increases and that inserts a header with a page number if the number goes above, let’s say, two.
You could create other macros that include saving a document under a different name and running a mail merge.
You will want to record the macros that you want to use, then go to Tools | Customize | Events and assign your chosen to specific events.
To Change Single Quotes
7. To fix the single quotes, by default. OpenOffice.org writer creates good-looking, curly “typographic” double-quotation marks as you type, but when you type a single quotation mark (or an apostrophe) it uses a vertical line, as if you were still using a typewriter.
To fix this you go to Tools | AutoCorrect, then go to the Custom Quotes tab and under Single Quotes, add a check mark next to Replace.
Jesse Auburg Online Marketing Entreprenteur
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