Getting started with LibreOffice 5

There are quite a number of options for word processors, spreadsheets and slide presentation these days and many of it with the option for being online. LibreOffice 5 is available to users on popular platforms like Mac, Linux and MS Windows. This makes it easier for implementation across any type of systems for any organisation.

LibreOffice can help save lots within an organisation while having access to a top class application that is continuously being kept updated. The document formats will ensure it can be preserved for a long time. The installer file can be downloaded from libreoffice.org site and the offline help can also be downloaded separately.

LibreOffice 5 Installer

The minimum installation system pre-requisites recommended is a Pentium III,  512MB RAM which should be fine for almost all computers. However, is does require a considerable 1.5GB disk space and display of 1024x768 resolution with 256 colours.

Java Runtime Environment (JRE) is needed if using some features in Base.

LibreOffice 5 provides the following;

• Writer document
• Calc spreadsheet
• Impress presentation
• Draw drawing
• Math formula
• Base database

LibreOffice 5 Main Screen

The 3 notable features (see release notes for more);

AutoCorrect

Default unicode 6 support which is included in its AutoCorrect. E.g. if you type :camera: it displays the camera. Here are a few more;

Compatibility with MS Office
Improved import and export of MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents. This means, users can work with these docs without much hassle. More controls for compatibility is found in the Tools ->Option ->Load/Save

Improvements in import of annotated text ranges from Word documents. Better support for RTF document formats.

Entire row/column references
Ever wanted to specify an entire row/column? Now this can be done with "A:A" and "1:1".

Installing msttcorefonts on Centos 6.3

Documents received may require MS Fonts to display format correctly, and these MS Ffonts are not available by default in Centos 6.2.

Install tools to create fonts and directories (fake ones for compatibility).
yum install ttmkfdir rpmdevtools

note: ensure all RPM building tools have been installed (see my previous post).

Install ATRPMS repository and MS Fonts.

wget  http://dl.atrpms.net/el6-x86_64/atrpms/stable/atrpms-repo-6-5.el6.x86_64.rpm

wget http://pkgs.org/centos-6-rhel-6/atrpms-x86_64/atrpms-repo-6-6.el6.x86_64.rpm/download/

(for i686 machines, replace x86_64 with i386 as in line below)

wget  http://dl.atrpms.net/el6.3-i386/atrpms/stable/atrpms-repo-6-5.el6.i686.rpm

(I am using, x86_64 for remainder of notes)

rpm -ivh atrpms-repo-6-5.el6.x86_64.rpm

yum install chkfontpath

wget http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/msttcorefonts-2.0-1.spec

rpmbuild -bb msttcorefonts-2.0-1.spec

(download MS Fonts and compile into packages)
rpm -ivh rpmbuild/RPMS/noarch/msttcorefonts-2.0-1.noarch.rpm
(open Libreoffice or Character Map, see if the Arial, Georgia and Times New Roman are available)

If fonts are not appearing, run following then relog-in (Do not run these if above steps work)

mkfontscale

mkfontdir

References: http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/

Fresh install of OpenOffice.org

Downloaded and installed OpenOffice.org (OO0) 300m8 on the following platform.

Wine 0.9.46
Sun Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.6.0_04
Ubuntu Linux 7.10

Filed bugs:
#94603 because the File ->Open dialog didnt appear till I reboot.
#94604 because the drag and copy did not show a plus sign.
#94605 because the solver tool in Calc doesnt allow slection of multiple cells for "By Changing cells" option.
#94607 because the Impress is not able to play slides with graphics smoothly. See Image below.

#94609 because the Drawing tool didnt allow wrapping of images around 3D objects.

Noticeable changes in OOo3

1. Start Centre Dialog (appears when OOo is open without any documents).
2. Native Tables can be added to Impress slides. This includes Table design styles in the Task Menu.
   
3. Calc sheet names can now contain non alphanumeric characters like % $ ' .
   
4. Calc includes a solver tool that works.
5. Writer notes feature that is displayed at side of the document with different colours for each user.
   

OpenOffice.org Document Recovery screen

After using OOo 2.4 for sometime some of the following can happen:

1. No electric - you loose a document
2. Laptops run out of juice - you loose a document
3. The OOo document is moved/renamed - OOo didnt detect the changes since it was done within OOo (Save as).
   

When you open OOo again, the following screens can appear.




And they keep appearing even after you reboot the PC/laptop.

The solution:
Delete the file XML file named Recovery.xcu found in the locations shown below. Take note that Recovery.xcu contains the settings for Recovery in the Tools ->Options ->Load/Save ->General dialog.

In MS Windows
"Documents and settings"/<user>/"Application data"/Openoffice.org2/user/registry/data/org/openoffice/Office/Recovery.xcu

For OOo3 in MS Windows
"Documents and settings"/<user>/"Application data"/Openoffice.org/3/user/registry/data/org/openoffice/Office/Recovery.xcu


In Linux (I am using Ubuntu 8.10)
~/.openoffice.org2/user/registry/data/org/openoffice/Office/Recovery.xcu

-

First glimpse of OOo 2.4

What does OOo 2.4 have to offer?

For those who have been migrating from MS Office to OpenOffice.org (OOo), here is an upgrade that will reduce formatting problems in older MS Office documents.

OpenOffice.org 2.4 adds support for Access 2007 (.accdb) and improves the "find and replace" feature in OOo Writer. The 2.4 may be the last of the 2.x series and next is the 3.x version by end of 2008. I wont go into the debate of weather one should wait for 3.x or not.

Introducing new keyboard shortcuts and the ability to print hidden and place-holder text is going to allow more areas for power users to explore. Keyboard shortcut improvement includes the Ctrl+0 for Text body, Ctrl+1 to Ctrl+5 for the Heading 1 to 5. Ctrl+Shift+0 changes to default.

PDF handling benefits from new export options. This includes ability to use slide names as bookmarks.

OOo promises Impress to allow 3D transition effects in its extensions. Ok, I cant find any extensions for this but I am looking forward to it. Initially this 3D feature will be only available on Linux.

Printing of hidden text in Writer is useful to find all those things that we have been controlling the layout. To do this in OOo 2.4 choose Tools ->Options ->Writer ->Print. Then select Hidden Text.

OOo 2.4 seems promising.

Displaying OOo version
To display the installed version of the OpenOffice.org along with its build and patches, look at the file versionrc.
OpenOffice.org from the main stream is installed in /opt directory. The file can be found in /opt/openoffice.org2.4/program/versionrc

Here is the content of versionrc

[Version]
AllLanguages=en-US
buildid=680m17(Build:9310)
ExtensionUpdateURL=http://updateext.services.openoffice.org/ProductUpdateService/check.Update
ODFNotifyURL=http://odfnotify.services.openoffice.org/OOo2.4.1/notification.jsp?version=ODF
OOOBaseVersion=2.4
ProductBuildid=9310
ProductMajor=680
ProductMinor=17
ProductPatch=
ProductSource=OOH680
UpdateID=OpenOffice.org_2_en-US
UpdateURL=http://update24.services.openoffice.org/ProductUpdateService/check.Update?pkgfmt=deb
UpdateUserAgent=OpenOffice.org 2.4 (680m17(Build:9310); $_OS; $_ARCH; BundledLanguages=en-US)

OpenOffice.org and MS Office 2003 - Indentation

I am having the chance to use MS Office 2003 today. Thought I'd write on some of the differences I can see. If I get the chance, there will definately be more of these comparisons.

Indent tabs

In MS Office 2003 you see

The rectangle below the lower indent control is used to keep the left paragraph indentation. The lower triangle is the first line indentation.

In OpenOffice.org 2.3.1 you see

First line indent - The upper triangle can move freely (Click+drag) and controls the left distance of the first line from the left.

Left indent - The lower triangle moves together with the upper triangle (Click+drag). The lower indent tab moves together with the upper indent control. It is used to keep the left indentation.

Hanging indent - The lower triangle move freely (Ctrl+Click+drag). This moves the 2nd paragraphs onwards away from the left indentation.

Templates

MS Office 2003 saves the templates to a specific folder that the users must know.

OpenOffice.org saves templates without users needing to worry about its location.

Found a site on more comparisons

http://www.linux.com/articles/45689

Writer Quick Guide

I have just finished the Writer Quick Guide v1.0. This is for users who are new to Writer and can be printed double sides. It is placed at http://openoffice.oscc.org.my for downloading.

Improvements will be made but to be maintained to 2 pages only.

The guide is to assist users who is planning to migrate from MS Office. This starts off with advantages of OOo, comparison of the file extensions, online help and exchanging documents with MS Office users.

Other topics covered:

• Formatting page
• Formatting text
• Saving files as MS Word
• Printing a document
• Layout of Writer
• Rulers and indents
• Templates
• Tables
• Keyboard shortcuts

Looks like as of Feb 2008, MAMPU and Bahagian Matrikulasi of MOE will be among the first users. I have laminated it and handed to students as prize for the pop quiz questions.

Setting default fonts for Writer

There are time when users need to always create documents with default fonts that are different from that of the OpenOffice.org Writer. This example sets the fonts to Arial size 12 for all new Writer documents.

1. Open a new text document (Writer). Click on the Styles and Formatting button in the Formatting Toolbar or press F11.
2. Click Paragraph Styles and right click Default. Select Modify.
3. Choose the Font tab and change the font to Arial and size 12.
4. Press F11 to close Styles and Formatting.
5. Choose File ->Templates ->Save.
1. Categories choose "My Templates"
2. New Template given a name. Example is "MyArial12"
3. Click OK
   
6. Choose File ->Templates ->Organize.
1. Under the Templates column double click "My Templates" and choose "MyArial12".
2. Click Commands button and choose Set As Default Template.
3. Click Close button.

All done! Now Open a new text document and notice that the default size is as we have set.

[OOo] Outlook cant open Office attachments

After a migration to OpenOffice.org it is likely that MS Office is removed. This leaves a problem of existing programs like Outlook that receives Word documents as attachments. When a user tries to open, it gives an error that MS Word is required.
"Cannot load word for windows 6.0 files "

Users can save the attachment then open it with the Windows File Explorer (double click). The same goes for trying to open Excel and PowerPoint files.

A permanent solution is to open the Windows File Explorer (Example: Open My Folder) and at the menu bar click Tools -> Folder Options. Select the File Type tab and search for DOC extension and click the "Change" button. Select swriter and check the box for "Always use the selected program to open this file".

Do the same for XLS, PPT and ony other extensions that require MS Office.

[OOo] Removing border in default Writer

The OOo Writer page by default shows a page with the margin guides. This is really useful for those who need to judge where paragraphs wrap around. However for those who do not like this, it can be removed.

In OOo Writer menu bar click, Tools -> Options
Select OpenOffice.org -> Appearance and uncheck the User Interface Element called "Text Boundaries".