Then I went about installing the desktop-integration deb and the following is the result. If anyone can throw any light on my problem I would apprecciate it very much. I still don't have Open Office on my menus and therefore can't start it. Thank you.

william77@william77:~$ sudo dpkg -i ~/openoffice/ast/DEBS/desktop-integration/openoffice4.0-debian-menus_4.0-9714_all.deb
[sudo] password for william77:
(Reading database ... 154782 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking openoffice-debian-menus (from .../openoffice4.0-debian-menus_4.0-9714_all.deb) ...
dpkg: error processing /home/william77/openoffice/ast/DEBS/desktop-integration/openoffice4.0-debian-menus_4.0-9714_all.deb (--install):
trying to overwrite '/usr/bin/soffice', which is also in package libreoffice-common 1:4.0.2-0ubuntu1
/usr/bin/gtk-update-icon-cache
gtk-update-icon-cache: Cache file created successfully.
/usr/bin/gtk-update-icon-cache
gtk-update-icon-cache: Cache file created successfully.
Processing triggers for shared-mime-info ...
Unknown media type in type 'all/all'
Unknown media type in type 'all/allfiles'
Unknown media type in type 'uri/mms'
Unknown media type in type 'uri/mmst'
Unknown media type in type 'uri/mmsu'
Unknown media type in type 'uri/pnm'
Unknown media type in type 'uri/rtspt'
Unknown media type in type 'uri/rtspu'
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme ...
Processing triggers for gnome-icon-theme ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
/home/william77/openoffice/ast/DEBS/desktop-integration/openoffice4.0-debian-menus_4.0-9714_all.deb
william77@william77:~$