Setting Up OpenOffice.org:

Choosing options to suit the way you work

Contents

Overview	ii

Copyright and trademark information	ii

Feedback	ii

Acknowledgments	ii

Modifications and updates	ii

Choosing options that affect all of OOo	1

User data	1

General options	2

Memory options	3

View options	4

Print options	6

External programs	7

Paths	8

Colors	9

Font options	10

Appearance options	11

Accessibility options	12

Choosing options for loading and saving documents	13

General load/save options	13

VBA Properties Load/Save options	14

Microsoft Office Load/Save options	15

Choosing language settings	16

Install the required dictionaries	16

Choose the dictionaries and spelling options	17

Change the default language for documents	18

Controlling OOo’s AutoCorrect functions	20

Overview

The Options dialog controls many settings in OpenOffice.org (OOo). Some settings apply to all the components of OOo; other settings apply to only one component.

This chapter covers some of the setup options, particularly those that are a bit obscure or hard to find when you first start using the program. It does not cover all the options in detail. See the online help for full details. This chapter also covers AutoCorrect/AutoFormat options.

Copyright and trademark information

The contents of this Documentation are subject to the Public Documentation License, Version 1.0 (the “License”); you may only use this Documentation if you comply with the terms of this License. A copy of the License is available at:
http://www.openoffice.org/licenses/PDL.rtf.

The Original Documentation is Setting Up OpenOffice.org: Choosing options to suit the way you work. The Initial Writers of the Original Documentation is Jean Hollis Weber © 2004. All Rights Reserved. (Initial Writer contacts: jeanweber@openoffice.org. Contact the Initial Writer only to report errors in the documentation. For questions regarding how to use the software, subscribe to the Users Mail List and post your question there: http://support.openoffice.org/index.html.)

All trademarks within this guide belong to legitimate owners.

Feedback

Please direct any comments or suggestions about this document to:
authors@user-faq.openoffice.org.

Acknowledgments

Much of this material was first published in Taming OpenOffice.org Writer 1.1, by Jean Hollis Weber, © 2003.

Modifications and updates

Version	Date	Description of Change
1.0	26 Dec 2004	First published version

Choosing options that affect all of OOo

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

Click Tools > Options.

Click the + sign to the left of OpenOffice.org in the left-hand section. A list of subsections drops down.

User data

Because OOo’s revision features mark your changes and comments with the name or initials stored in User Data, you’ll want to ensure that your name and initials appear there. To do this:

In the Options dialog, click OpenOffice.org > User Data.

If anything on the User Data page is incorrect, delete it and type the correct information.

Figure 1. Filling in user data

General options

In the Options dialog, click OpenOffice.org > General.

On the Options – OpenOffice.org – General dialog (Figure 2), the options are as described below.

Figure 2. Setting general options for OpenOffice.org

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.

Help Agent

To turn off the Help Agent (OpenOffice.org’s equivalent to Microsoft’s Office Assistant), deselect Activate. If the Help Agent is active, you can specify how long it remains open before it is automatically closed. To restore the default Help Agent behavior, click Reset.

OpenOffice.org Help formatting

To display Help in high contrast for accessibility, choose one of the high-contrast style sheets from the list.

Open/Save dialogs

To use the standard Open and Save dialogs for your operating system, deselect the Use OpenOffice.org dialogs checkbox. When this checkbox is selected, the Open and Save dialogs supplied with OpenOffice.org will be used. (See the “File Management” chapter for more about the OOo Open and Save dialogs.)

Document status

Choose whether printing a document counts as changing the document. 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’ll be prompted to save the document again, even if you didn’t make any other changes.

Back button (same behavior on all options dialogs)

Resets options to the values that were in place when you opened OpenOffice.org.

Memory options

In the Options dialog, click OpenOffice.org > Memory.

On the Options – OpenOffice.org – Memory dialog (Figure 3):

Consider the trade-offs of convenience against speed or insufficient memory. For example, more undo steps require more memory.

To load the Quickstarter (an icon on the desktop or in the system tray – Windows only) when you start your computer, select the checkbox near the bottom of the dialog.

Figure 3. Choosing Memory options for the OpenOffice.org applications

View options

The choices of View options affect the way the document window looks and behaves.

In the Options dialog, click OpenOffice.org > View.

On the Options – OpenOffice.org – View dialog (Figure 4), set the options to suit your personal preferences. Some options are described below.

Figure 4. Choosing View options for the OpenOffice.org applications

Scale

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

Menu follows mouse pointer

When you select this option, the menus follow standard Windows behavior: after you have clicked on any menu bar item, the highlighting moves when you move the cursor, and you don’t need to click to activate submenus (just point to the menu item and the submenu pops out).

Preview in fonts lists

When you select this option, the font list looks like Figure 5, left, with the font names shown as an example of the font; with the checkbox deselected, the font list shows only the font names, not their formatting (Figure 5, right). The fonts you will see listed are those that are installed on your system.

Figure 5. (Left) Font list showing preview; (Right) Font list without preview

Inactive menu items

Select this option if you want inactive menu items to be visible but grayed out. Deselect it to prevent inactive menu items from appearing on the menu.

Font history

When you select this option, the last five fonts you have assigned to the current document are displayed at the top of the font list.

Restore – Editing view

Select this option if you want to open documents at the place the cursor was located when you previously closed the document. Deselect this option to always open documents at the first page.

Restore – Open windows

Select this option if you want all documents and windows that are open when you close OpenOffice.org to be restored when you restart it.

3D view

These options are for use with Draw and Impress. For more information, see the online help or other documentation on these applications.

Mouse

Use these options to choose how the mouse is positioned in newly opened dialogs and to select the function of the middle mouse button.

Print options

Set the print options to suit your default printer and your most common printing method. You can change these settings at any time, either through this dialog or during the printing process (by clicking the Options button on the Print dialog).

In the Options dialog, click OpenOffice.org > Print.

On the Options – OpenOffice.org – Print dialog (Figure 6), look at the Printer warnings section near the bottom.

Here 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.

Figure 6. Choosing general printing options to apply to all OOo components

Tip	If your printouts are coming out 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.

External programs

You can choose which program to use to send a document by e-mail using File > Send > Document as E-mail or Document as PDF Attachment. In most cases, you will probably want to use your default e-mail program. In that case, you don not need to make any changes on this page.

On the Options – OpenOffice.org – External Programs dialog (Figure 7):

To use your default e-mail program, leave the Program box showing Default e-mail program.

To specify a different program, choose its type in the Program list, and then in the Path box, specify the location of the program on your computer.

Figure 7. Specifying an e-mail program to use with OpenOffice.org

Paths

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.

In the Options dialog, click OpenOffice.org > Paths.

To make changes, select an item in the list shown in Figure 8 and click Edit. On the Select Paths dialog (not shown), add or delete folders as required, and then click OK to return to the Options dialog. Note that many items 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).

Figure 8. Viewing the paths of files used by OpenOffice.org

Tip	You can use the entries in the Options – 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.

Colors

In the Options – OpenOffice.org – Colors dialog (Figure 9), you can specify colors to use in OOo documents. You can select a color from a color table, edit an existing color, or define new colors. These colors will then be available in color selection palettes in OOo.

Figure 9. Defining colors to use in color palettes in OOo

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 don’t have on your system. OpenOffice.org will substitute fonts for those it doesn’t find, but you might prefer to specify a different font from the one the program chooses.

In the Options dialog, click OpenOffice.org > Fonts.

On the Options – OpenOffice.org – Fonts dialog (Figure 10):

Select the Apply Replacement Table checkbox.

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

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

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 checkboxes under Always and Screen.

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

Figure 10. Defining a font to be substituted for another font

Appearance options

Writing, editing, and page layout are often easier to do when you can see as much as possible of what’s going on in your document. You may wish to make visible such items as text, table, and section boundaries (in Writer documents), page breaks in Calc, and grid lines in Draw or Writer. In addition, you might prefer different colors for such items as note indicators or field shadings.

On the Options – OpenOffice.org – Appearance dialog (Figure 11), you can specify which items are visible and the colors used to display various items.

In the Options dialog, click OpenOffice.org > Appearance.

To show or hide items such as text boundaries, select or deselect the checkboxes 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, type a name in the Scheme box and click Save.

Figure 11. Showing or hiding text, object, and table boundaries

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 (see Figure 12).

In the Options dialog, click OpenOffice.org > Accessibility.

Select or deselect the options as required.

Figure 12. Choosing accessibility options

Choosing options for loading and saving documents

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

General load/save options

If the Options dialog is not already open, click Tools > Options. Click the + sign to the left of Load/Save.

Choose Load/Save > General.

Most of the choices on the Options – Load/Save – General dialog (Figure 13) are familiar to users of other office suites. Some items of interest are described below.

Figure 13. Choosing Load and Save options

Load user-specific settings with the document

When you save a document, certain settings are saved with the document. For example, your choice on the Options – Text Document – General dialog of how to update links (Always, on Request, Never) is a user-specific setting that is affected by this option. Some settings (printer name, data source linked to the document) are always loaded with a document, whether or not this checkbox is selected.

If you select this option, these document settings are overruled by the user-specific settings of the person who opens it. If you deselect this option, users’ personal settings do not overrule the settings in the document.

Edit document properties before saving

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

AutoSave

Note that AutoSave in OpenOffice.org overwrites the original file. If you have also chosen Always save backup copy, the original file then overwrites the backup copy.

Size optimization for XML format (no pretty printing)

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.

Standard file format

If you routinely share documents with users of Microsoft Word, you might want to change the Always save as attribute for text documents in the Standard file format section to one of the Word document types.

VBA Properties Load/Save options

Choose Load/Save > VBA Properties.

On the Options – Load/Save – VBA Properties dialog (Figure 14), you can choose whether to keep any macros in MSOffice documents 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 an MSOffice format.

Figure 14. Choosing Load/Save VBA Properties

Microsoft Office Load/Save options

Choose Load/Save > Microsoft Office.

On the Options – Load/Save – Microsoft Office dialog (Figure 15), 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] checkboxes 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] checkboxes to convert OpenOffice.org OLE objects into the correspnding Microsoft OLE objects when a document is saved in a Microsoft format (mnemonic: “S” for “save”).

Figure 15. Choosing Load/Save Microsoft Office options

Choosing language settings

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

Install the required dictionaries

Choose the dictionaries and spelling options

Change the default language for documents

Set the version of English to be checked

Install the required dictionaries

OpenOffice.org 1.1.x automatically installs several dictionaries with the program. To add other dictionaries, you can use the AutoPilot (not available in versions of OOo before 1.1.1) or install them manually.

Using the AutoPilot

Be sure you have write permission on the folder <OOo>/share/dict/ooo and on the file <OOo>/share/dict/ooo/dictionary.lst.

Be sure you are connected to the Internet, unless you have already downloaded a language pack or have one on a CD.

Click File > AutoPilot > Install new dictionaries. OOo opens a file (DicOOo.sxw) containing instructions in several languages and macro buttons to start the download and installation process. (The available dictionaries are for many more languages than those used in the instructions.)

Click the macro button and follow the instructions in the wizard to download a list of available dictionaries, select the ones you want, and download and install them. This process proceeds automatically.

Installing a dictionary manually

Close all open OOo windows and the Quickstarter.

If necessary, download the dictionary zip file from http://lingucomponent.openoffice.org/download_dictionary.html or another source. The zip file will contain two files. The names of the files should be similar to en_GB.aff and en_GB.dic. The filename corresponds to the language for the dictionary (en is for English; GB is for Great Britain, for the U.K. English dictionary).

Extract the two files into the folder specified in the Dictionaries path in the Options – OpenOffice.org – Paths dialog (Figure 8 on page 8). This would typically be the <OOo>/share/dict/ooo folder.

Look in this folder for a file named dictionary.lst. If it does not exist, create it.

Open this file in a text editor such as Notepad. Add this line to the file:

DICT en GB en_GB (Change the filename to match the dictionary filename.)

Save the file as plain text.

Choose the dictionaries and spelling options

After installing the dictionaries, you need to register them with OOo:

Start OOo (if it’s not already running) and click Tools > Options.

Expand Language Settings and choose Writing Aids (Figure 16).

Make sure OpenOffice MySpell SpellChecker under Available language modules is selected, then click the Edit button at the top right of the dialog.

Figure 16. Choosing languages, dictionaries, and options for checking spelling

In the Edit Modules dialog (Figure 17), select the language from the list at the top, then select OpenOffice MySpell SpellChecker under Spelling. Click Close.

Figure 17. Registering a new dictionary

Back on the Writing Aids dialog (Figure 16), choose the settings that are useful for you. Some considerations:

If you don’t want spelling checked while you type, select Do not mark errors and deselect AutoCheck. (To find these items, scroll down in the Options list.)

If you use a custom dictionary that includes words in all uppercase 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.

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.

Change the default language for documents

Choose Languages under Language Settings on the left-hand side of the Options dialog.

On the right-hand side (as shown in Figure 18), change the Locale setting, Default currency, and Default languages for documents. In the example, English (Australia) has been chosen as the locale, and the Australian dollar (AUD) for the currency. Although an English (Australia) dictionary exists, the English (UK) dictionary has been selected as the default language.

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 checkbox labelled For the current document only.

If necessary, select the checkboxes to enable support for Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) and support for CTL (complex text layout) languages such as Hindi, Thai, Hebrew, and Arabic. If you choose either of these checkboxes, the next time you open this dialog, you will see some extra dialogs under Language Settings.

Click OK to save your changes and close the dialog.

Figure 18. Choosing language options

Controlling OOo’s AutoCorrect functions

You may find that some or all of the items in OOo’s AutoCorrect function are very annoying because what you type will often change when you don’t want it to. Many people find some of the AutoCorrect functions quite helpful; if you do, then select the relevant checkboxes. 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/AutoFormat.

In Writer, this dialog has five tabs, as shown in Figure 19. In other components of OOo, this dialog has only four tabs, and the contents of the Options tab is as shown in Figure 20.

Figure 19. The AutoCorrect dialog in Writer, showing the five tabs and some of the choices on the Options tab

Figure 20. The AutoCorrect dialog in Calc, showing four tabs and the choices on the Options tab

Controlling OOo’s AutoCorrect functions

Setting Up OpenOffice.org	1

Title:	Setting Up OpenOffice.org: Choosing options to suit the way you work
Version:	1.0
First edition:	December 2004
First English edition:	December 2004

Overview

Setting Up OpenOffice.org	i

Setting Up OpenOffice.org

Jean Hollis Weber

2004-12-23T20:07:35