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 experience
Loves peach pie, real estate,
dogs, Aikido
FOSS
Free and open source software
(FOSS):
Software liberally licensed giving you the
right to:
Study
Change
Improve the design
through the availability of its source code
Viva the Bazaar!
http://www.china-hongkong-travelguide.com/stanley-market.html
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
20 Years in the Making
OpenOffice 3
Designed to be a single piece of
software
Anyone can report bugs or request new
features
Over 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:
Commerce
Education
Government…whatever
http://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_m
acphee/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.orgGeneral-checkbox: Tips + Extended
Tips + Help Agent, then OK
Get Help
http://blogit.realwire.co
m/?ReleaseID=8148
Press F1 or select the Life Preserver
icon for help.
Similar to Word
Just like you expect:
Enter text
Select text
Move text
Cut, paste, copy text
Show toolbars: View-Toolbars and
move them around
Templates
File-New-Templates and Documents
Get more templates from:
http://templates.services.openoffice.org/
Install to: ooo-user-dir/user/template/
Wizards
File-Wizards to guide you through
creating common documents
Styles
Assign 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 Writing
Insert-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!
http://distributors.fhblack.com/services/Fina
ncialReporting.aspx
Start OpenOffice Calc.
Worksheets are saved in a
Workbook. Cells and labels work
just like you expect.
Cell Addresses
Relative and absolute cell addresses
work the same as Excel.
Automatically Word wrap text labels:
Format-Cells-Alignment-PropertiesWrap 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
key
Choose 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!
http://www.zeus-cbs.com/service/businesspresentation.html
Open OpenOffice Impress.
 The Presentation wizard offers you a
chance to start from scratch, use a
template, or open an existing
presentation.
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.
http://www.techshout.com/internet/2006/04/cartoon-networkspopular-toon-stars-now-available-on-tata-indicom-broadband
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!
http://greencanada.wordpress.com/2009/04/25/g
reen-party-of-canada-voter-id-database/
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.
Very Similar
Base works using familiar
Tables
Queries
Forms
Reports
Just like Access
http://dotnet.org.za/willy/archive/200
8/10/09/rdbms-101-relational-setoperators.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:
Text
Memo
Number
Date/Time
Yes/No
…and 16 other types too
No We Can’t
While Base does work with SQL
It 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 19972003 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/Abo
utODF.2.pdf
 http://www.odfalliance.org/resources/why
ODF.pdf
OpenOffice 3.1: The Free
Alternative to Office