13.2. OpenOffice.org
You find OOo in ->->
 | OOo can also be started from the command line with the command oowriter. |
13.2.1. Starting OOo the First and Second Time
The first time you start OOo it will ask you what kind of external address book you have. Here you can safely choose "Cancel"
The second time you start up OOo, it will ask you if you want to register as a user of OOo. For the sake of simplicity, you can choose "Never register"
13.2.2. Personal Configuration of OOo
It pays to first configure OOo according to your own preference. OOo has an enormous number of various configurations, everything from the colour of the buttons to what the different buttons do when you click on them.
You find all of these configurations under ->.
The first thing I usually do is change the size of the buttons. I prefer large buttons. You find this choice under
While you are there in Options, have a look at the other options that you have. You can set up Kmail as your email program, your preferred web browser. This is done under ->
There are several useful things you can do here, for example under ->-> you have the opportunity to set up OOo so that it always saves a document in either OOo-format, or in another format such as Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP
OOo has 3 toolbars. The one on the left is called the "Main Toolbar". The one at the top (the one that has the printer icon) is called the "Function Bar". The one that is under that (the one that has underlining and italics) is called the "Object Bar"
13.2.4. Exporting Directly to PDF-format
It's often great to be able to produce a text for others, without giving them the possibility to change the contents. It's also nice to be able to send a document without worrying about whether the person receiving it has OpenOffice.org or MS Word. The format that makes this possible is pdf. In the next version of OpenOffice.org, version 1.1, it's possible to convert to pdf-format just by clicking on a button, like this:
While you wait for version 1.1 in Skolelinux/Debian-edu you'll just have to use the old method for converting to PDF, that is, by setting up a "PDF printer".
Start OpenOffice.org Printer Administration, choose New Printer. Now select Connect a PDF converter. Click on Next. Now choose the default driver and again click on Next. Mark the long line that contains /usr/bin/gs, and then choose a target directory such as pdf. Remember that this directory must exist, because this is where your exported pdf files end up. Then you give a name to this printer- the suggested name is fine.
13.2.4.1. PDF-Conversion for All
If you find out that all of your users need access to a PDF converter, without having to go through a long and complicated process of configuration, you can do it for them. Start by logging yourself in as a test user, referred to here as test. If yours is called something else, then you must replace the name test with the username that you use. Configure and set up a pdf-converter, with the target directory as pdf. The result of this will be a new OpenOffice configuration file, placed in /skole/tjener/home0/test/.openoffice/1.0.2/user/psprint/psprint.conf. The contents of this file is
[PDF-konvertering] Printer=SGENPRT/PDF-konvertering DefaultPrinter=0 Location= Comment= Command=/usr/bin/gs -q -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile="(OUTFILE)" - Features=pdf=/skole/tjener/home0/test/pdf Copies=1 Scale=0 Orientation=Portrait PSLevel=0 ColorDevice=0 ColorDepth=24 MarginAdjust=0,0,0,0 PPD_PageSize=A4 PerformFontSubstitution=true SubstFont_Arial=Helvetica SubstFont_Times New Roman=Times SubstFont_Cumberland=Courier SubstFont_Timmons=Times SubstFont_Helmet=Helvetica SubstFont_Thorndale=Times SubstFont_Albany=Helvetica SubstFont_Courier New=CourierIf all of your users had had this file, then they would automatically see this printer in the list of installed printers, but temember that the target directory must reflect the user in question.
You can either "share" this file for all of your users with the help of a couple of simple scripts, or you can have a look at the files that are in the directory /usr/lib/openoffice/share. It's possible to change these according to your needs, but it pays to do this prior to the first time your users start up OpenOffice.org.
Instead, I will show you the commands I just used to automatically set up pdf-conversion for all of my users.
After having first set up the pdf-converter for my user test, I copy the resulting file over to all of my users:
for dir in /skole/tjener/home0/*;do cp /skole/tjener/home0/test/.openoffice/1.0.2/user/psprint/psprint.conf $dir/.openoffice/1.0.2/user/psprint/psprint.conf;chown --reference=$dir $dir/.openoffice/1.0.2/user/psprint/psprint.conf;done
When this has been done, all of my users will get a new printer in the list of accessbile printers when they try to print out from OpenOffice. Please note that they have to first start up OpenOffice or else they won't have the necesary directories in their home directory. After that you must replace the reference to the test user that is found in the file.cd /skole/tjener/home0
for dir in *;do perl -pi.bak -e "s/test/$dir/"
$dir/.openoffice/1.0.2/user/psprint/psprint.conf;chown --reference=$dir
$dir/.openoffice/1.0.2/user/psprint/psprint.conf;done
for dir in /skole/tjener/home0/*;do mkdir $dir/pdf;chown --reference=$dir $dir/pdf;done
Please note that there are many possibilities for fun things such as ensuring that all users get the directory pdf set up when the user is created in Webmin, as well as other exciting things such as everyone getting this pdf-converter automatically set up when they start OpenOffice the first time. See Section 11.1, but more about this another time.