Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

Hey there,
I don't know if this is the right place to post this but here it goes.
My school has recently changed from MS Office to OpenOffice. This led to total chaos in the school. Both the staff and teachers are used to Ms office and find it dificult to adjust. One of my teachers asked me to help her in a lecture about how to use open office(she knows I'm a free software advocate, so she thought I'd know Open office like the back of my hands). The problem is that I don't. I use linux for some time now, and I've had to use open office for, like, 10 times, and it was all basic stuff. Never had to look up a strange feature or something like that!
Ok, so now you guys come in. First of all, when is the scheduled release date for the 3.0? I noticed some cool features on the newsletter, and if possible, I would like to present that version.
Secondly, can any of you guys tell me what you find usefull and can't live without on Open Office? Just one or two features per user would be awesome, but the more the merrier. Thirdly, can anyone point to a great beginner's tutorial or guide? Finally I would like to ask which extensions do you use? Why do you do it? How do they enhance your work?
Thanks for the great help, my lecture is scheduled for the end of the term(around june) so post as much as you can so that I can find time to look everything up and include it in the presentation.
PS: I'm looking for, mostly, Writer features. Calc and Impress are also welcome. Math is very welcome as well.
Thanks

I'd find it hard to live without the drawing application, Draw. It has support for transparency, layers, object grouping, connectors attaching to glue points that you can place anywhere on an object, and export to many useful formats.

My thoughts...

OOo 3 is due in September. Don't pin your hopes on "Everything will be better in version 3".

Whoever made such a change without planning for a transition time and without some qualified preparation and support should not be making that kind of decision. It's about as wrong as you can get.

Giving a lecture in June will be too late--everyone will hate OOo well before then. You'll be lucky to survive giving that talk

Nah, I don't think so. They hate it but there have been many requests for a lecture/presentation that I think everyone will be receptive, as the main topic won't be Ooo (the main topic will be open-source and free(both free and free speach), but I'll reserve a few days just to present Ooo. I liked some of the features on the 2.4, but I'm reluctant to install it... Firstly it's not on debian's repository and I'm a lazy guy. Secondly it might be buggie. Thirdly, I'm using a non-standard dictionary for portuguese and I'm not sure if 2.4 will keep that dictionary(although I'm like 99.9% sure it will, I think I placed it somewhere in /usr if I'm not mistaken).
Thanks and keep on posting

Here are some hints: OOo Migration: Challenges and Successes. I wish that thread was longer.

Alcap wrote:Firstly it's not on debian's repository and I'm a lazy guy.

See here: [Ubuntu] Installing OOo on Debian and Co.

Alcap wrote:Secondly it might be buggie.

What makes you say that???

Alcap wrote:Thirdly, I'm using a non-standard dictionary for portuguese and I'm not sure if 2.4 will keep that dictionary(although I'm like 99.9% sure it will, I think I placed it somewhere in /usr if I'm not mistaken).

Not in /usr (that's for Unix System Ressource) but in the user home profile, see here: [Tutorial] Spell check and Language configuration, especially section 3.

The single most useful feature to me* is styles. Why are styles ueseful? Well, when you're writing a long(ish) text, an assignment for school say, you want your formatting to look nice and consistent yes? you also don't want to spend hours manually tweaking the text to make sure that there's no things like chapters beginning inthe middle of pages or (depending on your style) paragraphs not beginning with an indent.
With OOo all that is easily automated. They can also help in getting the page numbering right. The learning curve is perhaps slightly steep but i would not want to work without them anymore.

more information: here and here.


*I only really use writer though, can't say much intelligent about the other components of OOo

Start of by explaining the basics. Opening and Saving Documents

A lot of stuff for new users & people moving over from MS Office:
http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/

You might want to review the Getting Started Guide, which you can find in the link to PDF manuals in my signature.

Styles rule OOo, and they are not applied with the toolbar tools, so get to know the Styles and Formatting pane (a.k.a Stylist). Your other best friend is the Navigator. I keep both of these open and docked to one side because I use them constantly.

Page styles are an important new concept for MS Office users, and seem to be one of the biggest hurdles to understanding how to structure a document, create headers and footers, and number pages.

Also know the difference between outline numbering (in the Tools menu) and list styles. Outline numbering is required for items that need to appear in the TOC, whereas list styles can create a numbered outline hierarchy in the body of the document.

Styles rule all components Writer, Calc, Impress and Draw. Calc for instance knows cell styles and page styles. Calc's formatting capabilities are superior to Excel's if you know how to use styles.
You can organise styles and templates of all components in the Menu:File>Templates>Organiser...
Move or copy styles around by means of drag&drop (with Ctrl-key to copy). There is no "normal.dot". You can define one default template for each component Writer, Calc, Impress and Draw. In the organizer pick your customized template and choose "Set default" from the command button.

Looking back on your request, it seems to me that you're not going to be able to glean an overview very easily from people who are well versed in using all the various aspects of OOo... you'll never hear the end of it until all the wonderful features of OpenOffice.org are revealed.

Seriously, why not just begin with the Getting Started Guide as a basis for your overview and move to the Writer Guide for the more in-depth word processing you wanted to cover? These are very good starting places. The Writer Guide steps through the basics of all the common word processing tasks people need, so you can choose the ones most appropriate to your audience, take them through that, and provide links to the Writer Guide and to this forum for further reference and support.

You're not going to be able to teach them everything (or even, anything, at first) that advanced users do. If you tried, you'd overwhelm them, and good documentation is already in place for beginners. It sounds as though you might benefit from working with that documentation, too, as a means to understand what you're going to be teaching others. Getting Started Guide first.

Alcap wrote:Secondly it might be buggie.

What makes you say that??

Well, it's a release candidate, or at least it was...
Anyways, keep on posting, I'm going to look up more information about styles and stuff.

Alcap wrote:

Alcap wrote:Secondly it might be buggie.

What makes you say that??

Well, it's a release candidate, or at least it was...

hasn't been for almost a week

Maybe this thread is quite helpful!

Alcap, I think especially the Major Deployments List could really encourage you!

Good luck,
phil