A lot of people think that most word-processing applications like Writer and its competition, are just like typewriters, with basic formatting like bold and underlining. This is OK for starting the document, but if it’s something that may require a format change in the future, then it could be a long and painful process.

Fortunately, [...]

I have had to do some reports lately, so I have adapted this in to a template for OpenOffice.

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT TEMPLATE

I hope you find it useful. Some screenshots are included below.

Front / Cover Page

Abstract Page

Tables, text and headings

I recently saw a question regarding line breaks in the table of contents – OpenOffice does not allow you to edit a table of contents except through styles. Sometimes the way that long headings are formatted might not be what you desire.

One thing to note about the TOC is that the line breaks that you [...]

There is a good tutorial for Adding and Updating a Table of Contents in OpenOffice’s Writer over at OpenOfficeX.

Just a note before you jump to the link – it says that you can BUY OpenOffice – but they offer unlimited support for users. Note that OpenOffice is a free software – if you [...]

When you use the Tools –>  Mail Merge Wizard in OpenOffice, it is quite limiting in that you are restricted to ending up with an address block. The way to insert other fields is not as obvious.

I have put together the tutorial below to guide you through my way of tackling a requirement of inserting [...]

I read recently in a forum that someone was having an issue with overflow text, and while I’m not sure that this answers their question 100%, I think the use of frames in OpenOffice might get them pointed in the right direction.

Insert -> Frame is the command to insert a frame, and depending on [...]

I get really tired of fiddling with Avery Label templates in OpenOffice, and now there is a great resource that has it all done for you.

Check out the OpenOffice.org Label Templates (Asia & Europe) at World Labels.

There are other label templates for other regions as well, so enter above and click [...]

I like this post because it has the method for using styles to set up a table of contents.

It’’s similar to the way you do it in MS Office.

There is no point re-inventing the wheel, so I will link to it here:

Quick Guide to Creating Automatic Tables of Contents

If you [...]

This is some reading that I found recently that makes it easier for OpenOffice and Word to exchange files a little more seamlessly. This has become more important as I am consulting in an environment that is a strict MS user – and being able to have documents that open seamlessly in the MS Word [...]

One of the reasons that users stick to MS Office is because of the Macro capability.

I have just read over on Life Hacker that there is a FREE plugin available that, once installed, will allow you to record and run Macros in OpenOffice.

Check out the article on Groovy at LifeHacker.

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