OpenOffice.org consists of several application modules (subprograms), which are designed to interact with each other. They are listed in Table 1.1. A full description of each module is available in the online help, described in Section 1.11, “For More Information”.

SUSE® Linux Enterprise Desktop provides the Novell edition of OpenOffice.org. The Novell edition has several enhancements that are not included in the standard edition:

Additionally, the following features are known from older versions:

You can also use the standard edition of OpenOffice.org rather than the Novell edition. If you install the latest version of OpenOffice.org, all of your Novell edition files remain compatible. However, the standard edition does not contain the enhancements made in the Novell edition.

For a full list of new core features available with OpenOffice.org 3.2.0, refer to http://development.openoffice.org/releases/3.2.0.html.

To start the OpenOffice.org suite, press Alt+F2 and enter ooffice. The OpenOffice.org window opens.

Figure 1.1. The Welcome Screen of OpenOffice.org

In the selection dialog, choose the module you want to open or which file type you want to create. If any OpenOffice.org application is open, you can start any of the other applications by clicking File+New+Name of Application.

You can also start individual OpenOffice.org modules from your main menu or by pressing Alt+F2 and entering the command for the respective module. For example, enter oowriter to start OpenOffice.org Writer, or oocalc to start Calculator, or ooimpress to start Impress.

Before you start working with OpenOffice.org, you may be interested in changing some options from the preferences dialog. Click Tools+Options... to open it. One of the most importants are:

	How to Switch to Edit Mode for Read-Only Documents
If you open your document in read-only mode, a lot of functionality is disabled per default. To edit your document, save it first or click the Edit File button in the standard toolbar. After you have accepted the warning message, you can edit your text in a copy of your document.

OpenOffice.org can work with documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and databases in many other formats, including Microsoft Office. They can be easily opened like other files and saved back to the original format. If you have problems with your documents, consider opening them in the original application and resaving them in an open format such as RTF for text documents. In case of migration problems with spreadsheets however, it is advisable to re-save them as Excel files and use this as intermediate format (with CSV format you would lose all cell formatting and formulas; a CSV sometimes leads to incorrect cell type detection for spreadsheets).

	OpenOffice.org Migration Guide
For useful information about migrating from other office suites to OpenOffice.org, refer to the OpenOffice.org Migration Guide at http://documentation.openoffice.org/manuals/oooauthors2/0600MG-MigrationGuide.pdf.

You can save files, no matter in which OpenOffice.org format, with a password. Note that this offers limited protection only. For stronger protection, use encryption methods as described in Chapter Encrypting Partitions and Files (↑Security Guide). To save a file with a password, select File+Save or File+Save As. In the dialog that opens, activate the Save with password check box and click OK. After you have typed and confirmed your password, your file will be saved. The next time a user opens the file, he will be prompted for the password.

To change the password, either overwrite the same file by selecting File+Save As or select File+Properties and click Change Password to access the password dialog.

You can digitally sign documents to protect them. For this you need a personal key (certificate). When applying a digital signature to a document, a kind of checksum is created from the document's content and your personal key. The checksum is stored together with the document. When another person opens the document, the recent checksum will be compared to the original checksum and if both are equal, the application will signal that the document has not been changed in the meantime. To sign a document, select File+Digital Signature and click Add to add the certificate you want to use for signing.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop allows you to access certificates from the certificate store. For more information, refer to Chapter Certificate Store (↑Security Guide).

You can customize OpenOffice.org to best suit your needs and working style. Toolbars, menus, and keyboard shortcuts can all be reconfigured to help you more quickly access the features you use the most. You can also assign macros to application events if you want specific actions to occur when those events take place. For example, if you always work with a specific spreadsheet, you can create a macro that opens the spreadsheet and assign the macro to the Start Application event.

This section contains simple, generic instructions for customizing your environment. The changes you make are effective immediately, so you can see if the changes are what you wanted and go back and modify them if they are not. See the OpenOffice.org help files for detailed instructions.

To access the customization dialog in any open OpenOffice.org module, select Tools+Customize.

Figure 1.2. Customization Dialog in Writer¶

If you want to switch back to the original settings again, open the customization dialog, click the Toolbardrop-down list and select Restore Default Settings. Click Yes and Reset to proceed.

Global settings can be changed in any OpenOffice.org application by clicking Tools+Options on the menu bar. This opens the window shown in the figure below. A tree structure is used to display categories of settings.

Figure 1.3. The Options Window¶

The settings categories that appear depend on the module you are working in. For example, if you are in Writer, the OpenOffice.org Writer category appears in the list, but the OpenOffice.org Calc category does not. The OpenOffice.org Base category appears in both Calc and Writer. The Application column in the table shows where each setting category is available.

The following table lists the settings categories along with a brief description of each category:

	Settings Applied Globally
All settings listed in the table are applied globally for the specified applications. They are used as defaults for every new document you create.

A template is a document containing only the styles—and content— that you want to appear in every document of that type. When a document is created or opened with the template, the styles are automatically applied to that document. Templates greatly enhance the use of OpenOffice.org by simplifying formatting tasks for a variety of different types of documents. For example, in a word processor, you might write letters, memos, and reports, all of which look different and require different styles. Or, for example, for spreadsheets, you might want to use different cell styles or headings for certain types of spreadsheets. If you use templates for each of your document types, the styles you need for each document are always readily available.

OpenOffice.org comes with a set of predefined templates, and you can find additional templates on the Internet. For details, see Section 1.11, “For More Information”. If you want to create your own templates, this requires some up-front planning. You need to determine how you want the document to look so you can create the styles you need in that template.

A detailed explanation of templates is beyond the scope of this section. Procedure 1.6, “Creating OpenOffice.org Templates” only shows how to generate a template from an existing document.

	Converting Former Microsoft Word Templates
You can convert Microsoft Word templates like you would create any other Word document. See Section 1.4.1, “Converting Documents to the OpenOffice.org Format” for information.

When exchanging documents with other people, it is sometimes useful to store metadata like the owner of the file, received from, an URL, or other useful data. OpenOffice.org lets you save these metadata which can be attached to your file. This helps you track metadata which should or can not be saved in your file. It is also useful for sorting, searching and retrieving your documents based on the metadata that you have inserted before.

As an example, we assume you want to set these properties to your file:

To attach these metadata to your document, proceed as follows:

OpenOffice.org contains extensive online help. In addition, a large community of users and developers support it. The following lists shows some of the places where you can go for additional information.