Living in a metric society, it is much more convenient to have OpenOffice talking to me in metric measurements, rather than in empirical measurements.

So I had fiddled with locals and other such measurements, however this did not seem to change the values presented when I clicked on Format –> Page.

To do this, I followed the steps below:

  1. Open OpenOffice Writer
  2. Click on Tools –> Options
  3. Click on the + sign next to OpenOffice.org Writer (expanding the menu)
  4. Click on General
  5. Change the measurement unit from inches to cm
  6. Click on OK
  7. Restart OpenOffice

I found that changing the measurement setting in OpenOffice Writer also updated the measurement setting in Calc as well. If you find out that this is not the case, please advise in the comments.

Update based on the comment below.

It seems that Impress is not updated, so you need to do this separately.

Again – follow the steps below.

  1. Open OpenOffice
  2. Click on Tools –> Options
  3. Click on the + sign next to OpenOffice.org Impress (expanding the menu)
  4. Click on General
  5. Change the measurement unit from inches to cm
  6. Click on OK
  7. Restart OpenOffice

See the image below for clarification – and thanks for the query! Happy to assist!

Change unit of measurement for Impress