OpenOffice 3.1: The Free

Alternative to Office

Introduction

S. Jeff Cold, Assoc. Professor of Information Technology (IT) at Utah Valley University

24 years of IT experienceLoves peach pie, real estate,

dogs, Aikido

FOSSFree and open source software

(FOSS):Software liberally licensed giving you the

right to:StudyChangeImprove the design

through the availability of its source code

Viva the Bazaar!In his famous collection of essays

called The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Eric S. Raymond described the creation of FOSS like a bazaar: many people looking at and helping to create an open program.

He said conventional commercial software is created methodically like building a cathedral that is proprietary.

http://www.conservapedia.com/Famous_Cathedrals

http://www.china-hongkong-travelguide.com/stanley-market.html

20 Years in the Making

OpenOffice 3Designed to be a single piece of

softwareAnyone can report bugs or request new

featuresOver 750 contributors and 400,000

people internationally

http://why.openoffice.org/why_foss.html

Can You Believe It?Works on:

Windows (JRE 32 bit)Linux (32/64 bit)Mac OS (Intel or PPC)

*Due to the limited resources of the OpenOffice.org and Sun Microsystem, Inc., not every language is available for every computing platform.

http://download.openoffice.org/other.html#tested-full

What about the License?

Licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) v3 by the Free Software Foundation

You are free to use OpenOffice for:CommerceEducationGovernment…whateverhttp://www.openoffice.org/license.html

Si se puede! Yes we can!

Yes, Writer will open and save to .doc or .docx formats. It will export to .pdf format…and it saves to the OpenDoc format. (More on that later.)

http://www.justseeds.org/josh_macphee/04sisepuede.html

What I am & am not

I am a FOSS advocate.I am not a Microsoft Office or

OpenOffice expert. OpenOffice is not competing with

Microsoft Office. OpenOffice is free and that makes a big difference in many parts of our world.

Start Your Engines!

Start OpenOffice Writer.Tools-Options-under OpenOffice.org-

General-checkbox: Tips + Extended Tips + Help Agent, then OK

Get Helphttp://blogit.realwire.com/?ReleaseID=8148

Press F1 or select the Life Preserver icon for help.

Similar to WordJust like you expect:

Enter textSelect textMove textCut, paste, copy textShow toolbars: View-Toolbars and

move them around

Templates

File-New-Templates and DocumentsGet more templates from:http://templates.services.openoffice.org/

Install to: ooo-user-dir/user/template/

WizardsFile-Wizards to guide you through

creating common documents

StylesAssign and organize styles through

the Styles window. Click the Styles button to show the Styles window.

Navigator

Writer has a button that opens the Navigator window allowing you navigate major components of the document.

Simple Formatting

Bold, italics and underline work as you expect

Bullets and numbering are the same

I like the increase/decrease indent buttons

Line spacing: Format-Paragraph

Academic WritingInsert-Header, Footer,

Footnote/Endnote, Page breaks

Notice the free Zotero plug-in? Zotero is a Firefox add-in that automatically formats references.

http://www.zotero.org

Hammertime: small demonstration.

/

Spell Check/Grammar

Tools-Spelling and Grammar or F7 Tools-Language-Thesaurus or Ctrl-F7

Shift Gears!

Start OpenOffice Calc.Worksheets are saved in a

Workbook. Cells and labels work just like you expect.

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Cell Addresses

Relative and absolute cell addresses work the same as Excel.

Automatically Word wrap text labels: Format-Cells-Alignment-Properties-Wrap text automatically checkbox

Drag-and-Fill

Enter a number, then point to the bottom right of the cell and drag.

Formulas

Same as Excel: use = to start a formula

Predefined formulas are available via the keyChoose the formula then Next. You may

need to enter a cell range as the arguments for the formula.

Formatting

Format-Cells for inside/outside border, colors, backgrounds.

Currency

View-Toolbars-Formatting Currency button applies a currency

format. The decimal place buttons let you

adjust the decimals.

Navigator

Like Writer, Calc has a button that opens the Navigator window allowing you navigate major components of the worksheet.

Weird Auto-Format To auto-format a cell range, it must be at

least 3x3 and not have values in the cells, else the Format-AutoFormat selection will be grayed-out.

Plenty of Charts

The Chart button automatically creates a chart of the selected range and opens the Chart wizard.

Shift Gears!

Open OpenOffice Impress. The Presentation wizard offers you a

chance to start from scratch, use a template, or open an existing presentation.

http://www.zeus-cbs.com/service/business-presentation.html

Tasks Window

The tasks window on the right opens with a choice of Layouts.

Other windows are temporarily collapsed that provide templates, animations, etc.

Easy to Use Lists

List items are paragraphs. Use the List format button to choose from list styles.

Notice the list item position buttons that easily move items up, down, left, and right.

Add a Chart

The same Chart button inserts a chart on the slide.

Right-click the chart to change the data table values, chart type, axis, etc.

Multiple Views

Tabs at the top of the current slide offer different views of your presentation.

Adding Animation

From the Tasks window, open the Animation window.Select a slide element and then under

Modify Effect, select the Add button.Choose the animation. Notice all the

effects you choose are on the list.Select Play to preview.

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Transitions

To add transitions between slides, open the Slide Transition window in the Tasks Window.Select the slides you want.Select the transition you like.Choose Play to preview the transitions

before you commit.

Drawing

Do you see the Drawing toolbar? If not: View-Toolbars-Drawing.

You can put in arrows, callouts, connectors, 3-D objects, you name it.

Yes We Can!

We can save as:Open Document Format (ODF)

presentation (.odp)PowerPoint 97/2000/XP presentation

(.ppt)PowerPoint 2007 XML presentation

(.pptx) and even…Export to a PDF file

Shift Gears!

Start OpenOffice Base. The Database wizard offers you a chance

to create a new database, open an existing database, or connect to a database using different connector technologies.

http://greencanada.wordpress.com/2009/04/25/green-party-of-canada-voter-id-database/

Very Similar

Base works using familiarTablesQueriesFormsReports

Just like Access http://dotnet.org.za/willy/archive/2008/10/09/rdbms-101-relational-set-operators.aspx

What You See…

When in Doubt, Start With a Wizard

You can create a table from scratch using the Design view or

Use the Wizard to walk you through

Design View

Field types available in Design View:TextMemoNumberDate/TimeYes/No…and 16 other types too

No We Can’t

While Base does work with SQLIt can only save in OpenDoc

database format (.odb), not in Access format

It can export the data using just about any delimiter you like though: , [tab] !

OpenDoc Format

Created in 2006 by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS)

Approved as a standard by the International Standard Organization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)

Why?

The format in which critical information is stored, used, and shared is an important part of any organization’s information asset.

Do you rely on a single vendor’s technology to use your own information?

How?

ODF uses an Extensible Markup Language (XML) that stores data in an open format.

It doesn’t matter which application you use ten years from now.

Data stored in XML format will be available tomorrow and the day after that.

Space Savings

ODF documents are up to 50% smaller than Microsoft Office 1997-2003 documents.

Smaller = cost savings

(Pat, you might have to throw that one back!)

ODF and Office

Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 offers limited ODF comptability.

Instead, use the free Sun ODF plug-in for Office 2007.Available from:http://www.sun.com/software/star/odf_plugin/

For More Information

http://www.openoffice.org/ http://catb.org/~esr/writings/

homesteading/cathedral-bazaar/ http://www.odfalliance.org/resources/

AboutODF.2.pdf http://www.odfalliance.org/resources/

whyODF.pdf

OpenOffice 3.1: The Free Alternative to Office