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OpenOffice 3.1: The Free Alternative to Office

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):

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OpenOffice 3.1: The Free Alternative to Office

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  1. OpenOffice 3.1: The Free Alternative to Office

  2. 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

  3. 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

  4. Viva the Bazaar! 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.china-hongkong-travelguide.com/stanley-market.html http://www.conservapedia.com/Famous_Cathedrals

  5. 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

  6. 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

  7. 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

  8. 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_macphee/04sisepuede.html

  9. 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.

  10. Start Your Engines! • Start OpenOffice Writer. • Tools-Options-under OpenOffice.org-General-checkbox: Tips + Extended Tips + Help Agent, then OK

  11. Get Help http://blogit.realwire.com/?ReleaseID=8148 • Press F1 or select the Life Preserver icon for help.

  12. 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

  13. Templates • File-New-Templates and Documents Get more templates from:http://templates.services.openoffice.org/ Install to: ooo-user-dir/user/template/

  14. Wizards • File-Wizards to guide you through creating common documents

  15. Styles • Assign and organize styles through the Styles window. Click the Styles button to show the Styles window.

  16. Navigator • Writer has a button that opens the Navigator window allowing you navigate major components of the document.

  17. 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

  18. 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. /

  19. Spell Check/Grammar • Tools-Spelling and Grammar or F7 • Tools-Language-Thesaurus or Ctrl-F7

  20. Shift Gears! • Start OpenOffice Calc. • Worksheets are saved in a Workbook. Cells and labels work just like you expect. http://distributors.fhblack.com/services/FinancialReporting.aspx

  21. Cell Addresses • Relative and absolute cell addresses work the same as Excel. • Automatically Word wrap text labels: Format-Cells-Alignment-Properties-Wrap text automatically checkbox

  22. Drag-and-Fill • Enter a number, then point to the bottom right of the cell and drag.

  23. 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.

  24. Formatting • Format-Cells for inside/outside border, colors, backgrounds.

  25. Currency • View-Toolbars-Formatting • Currency button applies a currency format. • The decimal place buttons let you adjust the decimals.

  26. Navigator • Like Writer, Calc has a button that opens the Navigator window allowing you navigate major components of the worksheet.

  27. 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.

  28. Plenty of Charts • The Chart button automatically creates a chart of the selected range and opens the Chart wizard.

  29. Shift Gears! • Open OpenOffice Impress. • The Presentation wizard offers you a chance to start from scratch, use a template, or open an existing presentation. http://www.zeus-cbs.com/service/business-presentation.html

  30. Tasks Window • The tasks window on the right opens with a choice of Layouts. • Other windows are temporarily collapsed that provide templates, animations, etc.

  31. 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.

  32. 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.

  33. Multiple Views • Tabs at the top of the current slide offer different views of your presentation.

  34. 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-networks-popular-toon-stars-now-available-on-tata-indicom-broadband

  35. 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.

  36. 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.

  37. 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

  38. Shift Gears! • 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. http://greencanada.wordpress.com/2009/04/25/green-party-of-canada-voter-id-database/

  39. Very Similar • Base works using familiar • Tables • Queries • Forms • Reports • Just like Access http://dotnet.org.za/willy/archive/2008/10/09/rdbms-101-relational-set-operators.aspx

  40. What You See…

  41. 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

  42. Design View • Field types available in Design View: • Text • Memo • Number • Date/Time • Yes/No • …and 16 other types too

  43. 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] !

  44. 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)

  45. 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?

  46. 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.

  47. Space Savings • ODF documents are up to 50% smaller than Microsoft Office 1997-2003 documents. • Smaller = cost savings (Pat, you might have to throw that one back!)

  48. 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/

  49. For More Information • http://www.openoffice.org/ • http://catb.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/cathedral-bazaar/ • http://www.odfalliance.org/resources/AboutODF.2.pdf • http://www.odfalliance.org/resources/whyODF.pdf

  50. OpenOffice 3.1: The Free Alternative to Office

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