Starting OpenOffice.org

Contents

Overview	ii

Copyright and trademark information	ii

Feedback	ii

Acknowledgments	ii

Modifications and updates	ii

Starting OOo from the system menu	1

Windows	1

Linux/GNOME	2

Linux/KDE	3

Mac	4

What does it look like?	5

Starting from an existing document	5

Using the Quickstarter under Windows	6

Using the Quickstarter icon	6

Disabling the Quickstarter	6

Reactivating the Quickstarter	6

Starting from the command line	7

Overview

This chapter describes four ways to start OpenOffice.org (OOo):

From the system menu.

From an existing document.

Using the Quickstarter under Windows.

From the command line.

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 Starting OpenOffice.org. The Initial Writer(s) of the Original Documentation is Jean Hollis Weber © 2004. All Rights Reserved. (Initial Writer contacts: jeanweber@openoffice.org. Use the Initial Writer contacts 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.)

Contributors: Laurent Duperval Portions created by Laurent Duperval are Copyright © 2004. All Rights Reserved. (Contributor contact: lduperval@yahoo.com.)

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 chapter is taken from “Writer Basics” by Laurent Duperval (part of the Writer Guide).

Modifications and updates

Version	Date	Description of Change
1.0	27 Dec 2004	First published edition

Starting OOo from the system menu

Using the system menu is the most common way to launch Writer. The system menu is the standard menu from which most applications are started. On Windows, it is called the Start menu. On GNOME, it is called the Applications menu. On KDE it is identified by the KDE logo. On Mac OS X, it is the Applications menu.

When you installed OpenOffice.org, a menu entry was added to your system menu. The exact name and location of this menu entry will depend on your graphical environment. We will look at Windows, GNOME, KDE and Mac OS X. The concepts should easily be applicable to another operating system.

Windows

On Windows, the OpenOffice.org menu is located in Programs > OpenOffice.org 1.1.X, where “1.1.X” corresponds to the version number of OpenOffice.org. Select Text Document to start Writer with a blank document. See Figure 1.

Figure 1. Starting OpenOffice.org Writer from the Windows Start menu.

Linux/GNOME

GNOME installations will differ from one distribution to the next. Most modern distributions come with OpenOffice.org already installed. You will find OpenOffice.org under Applications > Office. See Figure 2.

Figure 2: Writer in Office menu

Red Hat 9 comes with OpenOffice.org 1.0.2 installed. On the GNOME desktop, you will find this version under Red Hat's Main Menu > Office. If you have installed a newer version of OpenOffice.org, you will find it under Main Menu > Office > More Office Applications.

If you installed by downloading from the http://www.openoffice.org site, you will find it under Applications > Other. See Figure 3.

Figure 3: Writer from the Application > Other menu.

Linux/KDE

On KDE, OpenOffice.org is installed in its own menu, called “OpenOffice.org 1.1.1” (see Figure 4). If you are using a different version, then “1.1.1” will be replaced with the correct version number.

Figure 4: KDE menu for OpenOffice.org

Certain Linux distributions install OpenOffice.org in the Office sub-menu. Mandrake is such a distribution. In this case, to launch Writer, you will need to choose Office > Word processors > OpenOffice.org Writer. Figure 5 illustrates this.

Figure 5: OpenOffice.org from Mandrake's KDE menu.

Mac

OpenOffice.org 1.1.1 on OS X 10.3 or later installs the OpenOffice.org1.1.x folder in Applications (see Figure 6). From within this folder, either double-click the Begin_OOorg icon, or drag the icon to the Dock and single-click it. Apple's X11 will launch, followed by OpenOffice.org.

Figure 6: Start Writer from the Applications menu

What does it look like?

Figure 7: Empty desktop after starting Writer.

After you have successfully launched OpenOffice.org, you will either have an empty desktop like the one in Figure 7, or you will have a blank document into which you can type immediately.

Starting from an existing document

You can start OpenOffice.org automatically simply by double-clicking the filename of an OOo document in your favorite file manager. The appropriate component of OOo will start and the document will be loaded.

On Mac, double-clicking an OpenOffice.org icon will launch X11 and OpenOffice.org. The document will be loaded.

Using the Quickstarter under Windows

The Quickstarter is an icon that is placed in the Windows system tray during system startup. It indicates that OpenOffice.org has been loaded and is ready to use.

If you do not want OpenOffice.org to load automatically, you can disable it, as described in “Disabling the Quickstarter”.

Using the Quickstarter icon

Right-click the Quickstarter icon in the system tray to open a popup menu from which you can open a new document, open the Templates and Documents dialog, or choose an existing document to open. (See Figure 8.) You can also double-click the Quickstarter icon to display the Templates and Documents dialog.

Figure 8. Quickstarter popup menu

Disabling the Quickstarter

To close the Quickstarter, click Exit Quickstarter on the popup menu. The next time you restart your computer, the Quickstarter will be loaded again.

To prevent OpenOffice.org from loading during system startup, deselect the Load OpenOffice.org During System Start-Up item on the popup menu. You might want to do this if your computer has insufficient memory, for example.

Reactivating the Quickstarter

If the Quickstarter has been disabled, you can reactivate it in these ways:

Select the Load OpenOffice.org during system start-up checkbox in Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Memory.

Activate the Quickstarter without restarting the system, by running the program quickstart.exe in the directory {installpath}\program.

Starting from the command line

You may want to start OOo from the command line, because you have more control over what happens when OOo is started. For example, using the command line, you can tell Writer to load a document and print it immediately, or to start without showing the splash screen.

Note: Most users will never need to do this.

There is more than one way to start OOo from the command line, depending on whether you have installed a customized version or whether you installed the standard download from the OpenOffice.org website.

If you installed using the downloads on the OpenOffice.org website, you can start Writer by typing at the command line:

soffice -writer

or swriter

Writer will start and create a new document for you. You will be able to type immediately. Likewise, you can start other OOo components from the command line:

Type of document	Component	Command-line option
Text	Writer	-writer
Spreadsheet	Calc	-calc
Drawing	Draw	-draw
Presentation	Impress	-impress
Formula	Math	-math
Web page	Writer	-web

Below is a list of some of the more popular options.

Option	Description
-help	Get a complete list of options.
-nologo	Don't show the startup screen.
-show <sxi-file>	Start presentation immediately.
-view <documents ...>	Open documents in viewer (read-only) mode.
-minimized	Start OOo minimized.
-norestore	Suppress restart/restore after fatal errors.
-invisible	No startup screen, no default document and no UI. This is useful for third-party applications that use functionality provided by OOo.

Starting OOo from the system menu

Starting OpenOffice.org	7

Title:	Starting OpenOffice.org
Version:	1.0
First edition:	December 2004
First English edition:	December 2004

Overview

Starting OpenOffice.org	vii

Starting OpenOffice.org

Jean Hollis Weber

2004-12-26T08:47:24

Jean Hollis Weber