E-Book Overview
Downloaded over 90 million times, Open Office is a free open-source alternative to Microsoft Office and iLife that runs natively on Windows, Mac OS X and most Linux distributions. The software includes a word processor, spreadsheet application, database, presentation software, and graphics. While there are similarities to other closed-source office applications, there are always questions that arise from using new software, and this book will contain the solutions for new and current users of Open Office 3. Microsoft’s forthcoming Office suite release, currently titled MS Office 2008, has been delayed yet again, so there’s a real opportunity to introduce Open Office to an audience that is ready to ditch their alliance to Microsoft.
E-Book Content
Beginning OpenOffice 3 From Novice to Professional
Andy Channelle
Beginning OpenOffice 3: From Novice to Professional Copyright © 2009 by Andy Channelle All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher. ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-4302-1590-5 ISBN-13 (electronic): 978-1-4302-1591-2 Printed and bound in the United States of America 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Trademarked names may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Java™ and all Java-based marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc., in the US and other countries. Apress, Inc., is not affiliated with Sun Microsystems, Inc., and this book was written without endorsement from Sun Microsystems, Inc. Lead Editors: Michelle Lowman, Frank Pohlmann Technical Reviewer: Bruce Byfield Editorial Board: Clay Andres, Steve Anglin, Mark Beckner, Ewan Buckingham, Tony Campbell, Gary Cornell, Jonathan Gennick, Michelle Lowman, Matthew Moodie, Jeffrey Pepper, Frank Pohlmann, Ben Renow-Clarke, Dominic Shakeshaft, Matt Wade, Tom Welsh Project Manager: Richard Dal Porto Copy Editors: Julie McNamee, Elliot Simon Associate Production Director: Kari Brooks-Copony Production Editor: Candace English Compositor: Patrick Cunningham Proofreader: April Eddy Indexer: Brenda Miller Artist: April Milne Cover Designer: Kurt Krames Manufacturing Director: Tom Debolski Distributed to the book trade worldwide by Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 233 Spring Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10013. Phone 1-800-SPRINGER, fax 201-348-4505, e-mail kn`ano)juÊ¢ between each element. You should follow from left to right; for example, File ¢ Save As launches the Save Document dialog box. Many menu entries contain an ellipsis, and for the purposes of visual clarity in the text, these have been removed from the written commands.
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iÃiÊ>ÀiÊ joined together with a + sign. For example, Ctrl+S saves a document, whereas Ctrl+Shift+S launches the Save Document dialog box.
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Ê"«i"vvVi°À}ÊÃÊ>Ê«iÀviVÌÞÊÃiÀÛVi>LiÊ>iÊvÀÊ>Ê>««cation, we’ll often shorten it to OO.o, and individual applications within the suite will be referred to by their shortened names—Writer, Calc, and Impress.
Anything else will be explained in the text because, well, we need to crack on… there’s so much to do!
P A R T
1
The Applications Let’s crack on then. Part 1 runs through the five core applications of the suite with a bit of a bias in the first three chapters toward Writer, the word processor. These three chapters each start with a very basic document and then use the tools an