Getting Started Guide

2

Chapter
Setting up
OpenOffice.org
Choosing options to suit the way you work
This PDF is designed to be read onscreen, two pages at atime. If you want to print a copy, your PDF viewer shouldhave an option for printing two pages on one sheet ofpaper, but you may need to start with page 2 to get it toprint facing pages correctly. (Print this cover page
separately.)CopyrightThis document is Copyright © 2005–2009 by its contributors as listed
in the section titled Authors. You may distribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of either the GNU General Public License, version 3 orlater, or the Creative Commons Attribution License, version 3.0 or
later.
All trademarks within this guide belong to their legitimate owners.

Authors
Agnes Belzunce
Daniel Carrera
Peter Hillier-Brook
Stefan A. Keel
Jean Hollis Weber
Michele Zarri

Feedback
Please direct any comments or suggestions about this document to:authors@user-faq.openoffice.org

Acknowledgments
Much of this chapter is updated from material first published in
Taming OpenOffice.org Writer 1.1, by Jean Hollis Weber, © 2003.

Publication date and software version
Published 20 December 2009. Based on OpenOffice.org 3.2.

You can download
an editable version of this document fromhttp://oooauthors.org/english/userguide3/published/

Contents
Copyright............................................................................................... 2
Choosing options for all of OOo.............................................................4
User Data options...............................................................................4
General options................................................................................... 5
Memory options.................................................................................. 7
View options........................................................................................ 7
Print options.....................................................................................10
Path options...................................................................................... 11
Color options..................................................................................... 12
Font options...................................................................................... 13
Security options................................................................................ 14
Appearance options..........................................................................16
Accessibility options.........................................................................17
Java options....................................................................................... 18
Online Update options......................................................................19
Improvement program......................................................................19
Choosing options for loading and saving documents...........................20
General Load/Save options...............................................................20
VBA Properties Load/Save options....................................................22
Microsoft Office Load/Save options..................................................23
HTML compatibility Load/Save options............................................23
Choosing language settings.................................................................25
Install the required dictionaries........................................................25
Change locale and language settings................................................26
Choose spelling options....................................................................27
Choosing Internet options....................................................................28
Controlling OOo’s AutoCorrect functions.............................................29

Setting up OpenOffice.org

3Choosing options for all of OOo
This section covers some of the settings that apply to all thecomponents of OpenOffice.org. For information on settings notdiscussed here, see the online help.
Click Tools > Options. The list in the left-hand box of the Options –OpenOffice.org dialog varies depending on which component of OOo is
open. The illustrations in this chapter show the list as it appears whena Writer document is open.
Click the + sign by OpenOffice.org on the left-hand side. A list of pages
drops down. Selecting an item in the list causes the right-hand side ofthe dialog to display the relevant page.

Figure 1: OpenOffice.org options

Note

The Back button has the same effect on all pages of the
Options dialog. It resets the options to the values that were inplace when you opened OpenOffice.org.

User Data options
Because OOo uses the name or initials stored in the OpenOffice.org –User Data page for several things, including document properties(created by and last edited by information) and the name of the authorof notes and changes, you will want to ensure that the correct
information appears here.
Fill in the form (shown in Figure 2), or amend or delete any existing
incorrect information.

4

Setting up OpenOffice.org

Figure 2: Filling in user data

General options
The options on the OpenOffice.org – General page are described below.

Figure 3: Setting general options for OpenOffice.org
Help - Tips
When Tips is active, one or two words will appear when you hold themouse pointer over an icon or field, without clicking.
Help - Extended tips
When Extended tips is active, a brief description of the function of aparticular icon or menu command or a field on a dialog appears
when you hold the mouse pointer over that item.

Choosing options for all of OOo

5Help Agent
To turn off the Help Agent (similar to Microsoft’s Office Assistant),deselect this option. To restore the default behavior, click Reset
Help Agent.
Help formattingHigh contrast is an operating system setting that changes thesystem color scheme to improve readability. To display Help in highcontrast (if your computer’s operating system supports this), choose
one of the high-contrast style sheets from the pull-down list.
High-contrast style

Visual effectDefault

Black text on white background

High Contrast #1

Yellow text on black background

High Contrast #2

Green text on black background

High Contrast BlackWhite text on black background

High Contrast WhiteBlack text on white background

Open/Save dialogs
To use the standard Open and Save dialogs for your operating
system, deselect the Use OpenOffice.org dialogs option. When
this option is selected, the Open and Save dialogs supplied with
OpenOffice.org will be used. See Chapter 1 (Introducing
OpenOffice.org) for more about the OOo Open and Save dialogs.
This book uses the OOo Open and Save dialogs in illustrations.
Document status
If this option is selected, then the next time you close the document
after printing, the print date is recorded in the document properties
as a change and you will be prompted to save the document again,even if you did not make any other changes.
Year (two digits)
Specifies how two-digit years are interpreted. For example, if thetwo-digit year is set to 1930, and you enter a date of 1/1/30 or later
into your document, the date is interpreted as 1/1/1930 or later. An“earlier” date is interpreted as being in the following century; thatis, 1/1/20 is interpreted as 1/1/2020.

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Setting up OpenOffice.org

Memory options
In the Options dialog, click OpenOffice.org > Memory. Someconsiderations:• More memory can make OpenOffice.org faster and moreconvenient (for example, more undo steps require more memory);
but the trade-off is less memory available for other applications
and you could run out of memory altogether.
• If your documents contain a lot of objects such as images, or theobjects are large, OOo’s performance may improve if you increase
the memory for OOo or the memory per object. If you find that
objects seem to disappear from a document that contains a lot ofthem, increase the number of objects in the cache. (The objects
are still in the file even if you cannot see them on screen.)• To load the Quickstarter (an icon on the desktop or in the systemtray) when you start your computer, select the option near thebottom of the dialog. This makes OpenOffice.org start faster; thetrade-off is OOo uses some memory even when not being used.
This option (sometimes called Enable systray quickstarter) is
not available on all operating systems.

Figure 4: Choosing Memory options for the OpenOffice.org
applications

View options
The options on the OpenOffice.org – View page affect the way the
document window looks and behaves. Some of these options aredescribed below. Set them to suit your personal preferences.

Choosing options for all of OOo

7

User Interface – Scaling
If the text in the help files or on the menus of the OOo user interface
is too small or too large, you can change it by specifying a scaling
factor. Sometimes a change here can have unexpected results,
depending on the screen fonts available on your system. However, it
does not affect the actual font size of the text in your documents.

Figure 5: Choosing View options for OOo applications
User Interface – Icon size and style
The first box specifies the display size of toolbar icons (Automatic,
Small, or Large). The Automatic icon size option uses the setting foryour operating system. The second box specifies the icon style(theme); here the Automatic option uses an icon set compatible withyour operating system and choice of desktop: for example, KDE or
Gnome on Linux.
User Interface – Use system font for user interface
If you prefer to use the system font (the default font for yourcomputer and operating system) instead of the font provided by OOo
for the user interface, select this option.
User interface – Screen font antialiasing(Not available in Windows; not shown in Figure 5.) Select this option
to smooth the screen appearance of text. Enter the smallest font size
to apply antialiasing.
Menu – icons in menus
Causes icons as well as words to be visible in menus.

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Setting up OpenOffice.org

Font Lists - Show preview of fonts
Causes the font list to look like Figure 6, Left, with the font names
shown as an example of the font; with the option deselected, the fontlist shows only the font names, not their formatting (Figure 6,
Right). The fonts you will see listed are those that are installed onyour system.

Figure 6. Font list (Left) With preview; (Right) Without preview
Font Lists - Show font history
Causes the last five fonts you have assigned to the current document
are displayed at the top of the font list.
Graphics output – Use hardware acceleration
Directly accesses hardware features of the graphical display adapter
to improve the screen display. Not supported on all operating
systems and OOo distributions.
Graphics output – Use anti-aliasing
Enables and disables anti-aliasing, which makes the display of mostgraphical objects look smoother and with fewer artifacts. Not
supported on all operating systems and OOo distributions.
Tip

Press Shift+Control+R to restore or refresh the view of thecurrent document.

Mouse positioning
Specifies if and how the mouse pointer will be positioned in newly
opened dialogs.
Middle mouse button
Defines the function of the middle mouse button.
• Automatic scrolling – dragging while pressing the middle
mouse button shifts the view.
• Paste clipboard – pressing the middle mouse button inserts thecontents of the “Selection clipboard” at the cursor position.
The “Selection clipboard” is independent of the normal clipboardthat you use by Edit > Copy/Cut/Paste or their respective
Choosing options for all of OOo

9keyboard shortcuts. Clipboard and “Selection clipboard” can containdifferent contents at the same time.
Function

Clipboard

Selection clipboard

Copy content

Edit > Copy
Control+C

Select text, table, or object.

Paste content

Edit > Paste
Control+V pastes atthe cursor position.

Clicking the middle mousebutton pastes at the mousepointer position.

Pasting intoanotherdocument

No effect on the
clipboard contents.

The last marked selection isthe content of the selection
clipboard.

Print options
On the OpenOffice.org – Print page, set the print options to suit yourdefault printer and your most common printing method.
In the Printer warnings section near the bottom of the page (Figure 7),
you can choose whether to be warned if the paper size or orientation
specified in your document does not match the paper size ororientation available for your printer. Having these warnings turned on
can be quite helpful, particularly if you work with documents producedby people in other countries where the standard paper size is different
from yours.

Figure 7: Choosing general printing options to apply to
all OOo components

10

Setting up OpenOffice.org

Tip

If your printouts are incorrectly placed on the page or chopped
off at the top, bottom, or sides, or the printer is refusing toprint, the most likely cause is page size incompatibility.

Path options
On the OpenOffice.org – Paths page, you can change the location offiles associated with, or used by, OpenOffice.org to suit your working
situation. In a Windows system, for example, you might want to store
documents by default somewhere other than My Documents.
To make changes, select an item in the list shown in Figure 8 and click
Edit. On the Select Paths dialog (not shown), add or delete folders as
required, and then click OK to return to the Options dialog. Note thatsome items can have at least two paths listed: one to a shared folder(which might be on a network) and one to a user-specific folder(normally on the user’s personal computer).
Tip

You can use the entries in the OpenOffice.org – Paths dialog tocompile a list of files, such as those containing AutoText, thatyou need to back up or copy to another computer.

Figure 8: Viewing the paths of files used by OpenOffice.org

Choosing options for all of OOo

11

Color options
On the OpenOffice.org – Colors page (Figure 9), you can specify colors
to use in OOo documents. You can select a color from a color table, edit
an existing color, and define new colors. These colors are stored inyour color palette and are then available in all components of OOo.

Figure 9: Defining colors to use in color palettes in OOo
To modify a color:
1) Select the color to modify from the list or the color table.
2) Enter the new values that define the color. If necessary, change
the settings from RGB (Red, Green, Blue) to CMYK (Cyan,
Magenta, Yellow, Black) or vice versa. The changed color appears
in the lower of the two color preview boxes at the top.
3) Modify the Name as required.
4) Click the Modify button. The newly defined color is now listed in
the Color table.
Alternatively, click the Edit button to open the Color dialog, shown in
Figure 10. Here you can select a color from one of the color windows
in the upper area, or you can enter values in the lower area using yourchoice of RGB, CMYK, or HSB (Hue, Saturation and Brightness) values.
The upper right color window is linked directly with the color input
fields in the lower area; as you choose a color in the upper window, thenumbers change accordingly. The two color fields at the lower rightshow the value of the selected color on the left and the currently set
value from the color value fields on the right.

12

Setting up OpenOffice.org

Modify the color components as required and click OK to exit the
dialog. The newly defined color now appears in the lower of the color
preview boxes shown in Figure 1. Type a name for this color in theName box, then click the Add button. A small box showing the newcolor is added to the Color table.

Figure 10: Editing colors
Another way to define or alter colors is through the Colors page of the
Area dialog, where you can also save and load palettes, a feature thatis not possible here. In Calc, draw a temporary draw object and use thecontext menu of this object to open the Area dialog. If you load apalette in one component of OOo, it is only active in that component;
the other components keep their own palettes.

Font options
You can define replacements for any fonts that might appear in yourdocuments. If you receive from someone else a document containing
fonts that you do not have on your system, OpenOffice.org will
substitute fonts for those it does not find. You might prefer to specify adifferent font from the one the program chooses.
On the OpenOffice.org – Fonts page (Figure 11):
1) Select the Apply Replacement Table option.

Choosing options for all of OOo

132) Select or type the name of the font to be replaced in the Font box.
(If you do not have this font on your system, it will not appear in
the drop-down list in this box, so you need to type it in.)3) In the Replace with box, select a suitable font from the dropdown list of fonts installed on your computer.
4) The checkmark to the right of the Replace with box turns green.
Click on this checkmark. A row of information now appears in thelarger box below the input boxes. Select the options under
Always and Screen.
5) In the bottom section of the page, you can change the typeface
and size of the font used to display source code such as HTMLand Basic (in macros).

Figure 11: Defining a font to be substituted for another fontSecurity options
Use the OpenOffice.org – Security page (Figure 12) to choose security
options for saving documents and for opening documents that containmacros.
Security options and warnings
If you record changes, save multiple versions, or include hidden
information or notes in your documents, and you do not want someof the recipients to see that information, you can set warnings toremind you to remove it, or you can have OOo remove some of it
automatically. Note that (unless removed) much of this informationis retained in a file whether the file is in OpenOffice.org’s default
14

Setting up OpenOffice.org

OpenDocument format, or has been saved to other formats,including PDF.
Click the Options button to open a separate dialog with specificchoices (Figure 13).

Figure 12: Choosing security options for opening andsaving documents
Macro security
Click the Macro Security button to open the Macro Security dialog(not shown here), where you can adjust the security level for
executing macros and specify trusted sources.
File sharing options for this document
Select the Open this document in read-only mode option to
restrict this document to be opened in read-only mode only. This
option protects the document against accidental changes. It is still
possible to edit a copy of the document and save that copy with thesame name as the original.
Select the Record changes option to enable recording changes.
This is the same as Edit > Changes > Record. To allow other usersof this document to apply changes, but prevent them from disablingchange recording, click the Protect buton and enter a password.

Choosing options for all of OOo

15

Figure 13: Security options and warnings dialog
Remove personal information on saving
Select this option to always remove user data from the fileproperties when saving the file. To manually remove personal
information from specific documents, deselect this option and thenuse the Delete button under File > Properties > General.
Ctrl-click required to follow hyperlinks
In older versions of OOo, clicking on a hyperlink in a document
opened the linked document. Now you can choose whether to keep
this behavior (by unchecking this box). Many people find creationand editing of documents easier when accidental clicks on links do
not activate the links.
The other options on this dialog should be self-explanatory.

Appearance options
Writing, editing, and (especially) page layout are often easier when you
can see the page margins (text boundaries), the boundaries of tables
and sections (in Writer documents), page breaks in Calc, grid lines inDraw or Writer, and other features. In addition, you might prefer to use
colors that are different from OOo’s defaults for such items as note
indicators or field shadings.
On the OpenOffice.org – Appearance page (Figure 14), you can specify
which items are visible and the colors used to display various items.

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Setting up OpenOffice.org

Figure 14: Showing or hiding text, object, and tableboundaries• To show or hide items such as text boundaries, select or deselectthe options next to the names of the items.
• To change the default colors for items, click the down-arrow in
the Color Setting column by the name of the item and select acolor from the pop-up box.
• To save your color changes as a color scheme, click Save, type aname in the Scheme box; then click OK.

Accessibility options
Accessibility options include whether to allow animated graphics ortext, how long help tips remain showing, some options for highcontrast display, and a way to change the font for the user interface of
the OpenOffice.org program (see Figure 15).
Accessibility support relies on Sun Microsystems Java technology forcommunications with assistive technology tools. See “Java options“
below. The Support assistive technology tools option is not shown on
all OOo installations. See Assistive Tools in OpenOffice.org in the Helpfor other requirements and information.
Select or deselect the options as required.

Choosing options for all of OOo

17

Figure 15: Choosing accessibility options

Java options
If you install or update a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) after you
install OpenOffice.org, or if you have more than one JRE installed onyour computer, you can use the OpenOffice.org – Java options page
(Figure 16) to choose the JRE for OOo to use.

Figure 16: Choosing a Java runtime environment
If you are a system administrator, programmer, or other person who
customizes JRE installations, you can use the Parameters and Class
Path pages (reached from the Java page) to specify this information.
If you do not see anything listed in the middle of the page, wait a few
minutes while OOo searches for JREs on the hard disk.

18

Setting up OpenOffice.org

If OOo finds one or more JREs, it will display them there. You can thenselect the Use a Java runtime environment option and (if necessary)choose one of the JREs listed.

Online Update options
On the OpenOffice.org – Online Update page (Figure 17), you canchoose whether and how often to have OOo check the OOo website forprogram updates. If the Check for updates automatically option is
selected, an icon appears at the right-hand end of the menu bar when
an update is available. Click this icon to open a dialog where you canchoose to download the update.

Figure 17: Configuring Online Update
If the Download updates automatically option is selected, thedownload starts when you click the icon. To change the download
destination, click the Change button and select the required folder inthe file browser window.

Improvement program
On the OpenOffice.org – Improvement Program page, you can choose
whether or not to participate in the OpenOffice.org Improvement
Program, which collects anonymous statistics about how you use OOo.

Choosing options for all of OOo

19

Choosing options for loading and saving
documents
You can set the Load/Save options to suit the way you work.
If the Options dialog is not already open, click Tools > Options. Clickthe + sign to the left of Load/Save.

Figure 18: Load/Save options

General Load/Save options
Most of the choices on the Load/Save – General page (Figure 19) are
familiar to users of other office suites. Some items of interest aredescribed below.

Figure 19. Choosing Load and Save options
Load user-specific settings with the document
When you save a document, certain settings are saved with it. Somesettings (printer name, data source linked to the document) arealways loaded with a document, whether or not this option is
selected. If you select this option, these document settings are
20

Setting up OpenOffice.org

overruled by the user-specific settings of the person who opens it. If
you deselect this option, the user’s personal settings do not overrule
the settings in the document. For example, your choice (in theoptions for OOo Writer) of how to update links is affected by the
Load user-specific settings option.
Load printer settings with the document
If this option is not selected, the printer settings that are storedwith the document are ignored when you print it using the Print
File Directly icon. The default printer in your system will be usedinstead.
Edit document properties before saving
If you select this option, the Document Properties dialog pops up to
prompt you to enter relevant information the first time you save a
new document (or whenever you use Save As).
Save AutoRecovery information every
Choose whether to enable AutoRecovery and how often to save theinformation used by the AutoRecovery process.
AutoRecovery in OpenOffice.org overwrites the original file. If you
also choose Always create backup copy, the original file thenoverwrites the backup copy. If you have this set, recovering yourdocument after a system crash will be easier; but recovering an
earlier version of the document may be harder.
Save URLs relative to file system / internet
Relative addressing to a file system is only possible if the source
document and the referenced document are both on the same drive.
A relative address always starts from the directory in which thecurrent document is located. It is recommended to save relatively if
you want to create a directory structure on an Internet server.
Default file format and ODF settings
ODF format version. OpenOffice.org by default saves documents in
OpenDocument Format (ODF) version 1.2. While this allows for
improved functionality, there may be backwards compatibility issues.
When a file saved in ODF 1.2 is opened in an earlier version of
OpenOffice.org (using ODF 1.0/1.1), some of the advanced features
may be lost. Two notable examples are cross-references to headings
and the formatting of numbered lists. If you plan to share documentswith people who are still using older versions of OpenOffice.org,
save the document using ODF version 1.0/1.1.

Choosing options for loading and saving documents

21Size optimization for ODF format. OpenOffice.org documents are
XML files. When you select this option, OOo writes the XML data
without indents and line breaks. If you want to be able to read the
XML files in a text editor in a structured form, deselect this option.
Document type. If you routinely share documents with users ofMicrosoft Office, you might want to change the Always save as
attribute for documents to one of the Microsoft Office formats.
Note

Although OOo can open files in the .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx
formats produced by Microsoft Office 2007, it cannot save inthose formats. This capability is planned for a future release.

VBA Properties Load/Save options
On the Load/Save – VBA Properties page (Figure 20), you can choose
whether to keep any macros in Microsoft Office documents that are
opened in OpenOffice.org.

Figure 20: Choosing
Load/Save VBA Properties• If you choose Save original Basic code, the macros will notwork in OOo but are retained if you save the file into Microsoft
Office format.
• If you choose Load Basic code to edit, the changed code issaved in an OOo document but is not retained if you save into a
Microsoft Office format.
• If you are importing a Microsoft Excel file containing VBA code,
you can select the option Executable code. Whereas normallythe code is preserved but rendered inactive (if you inspect it with
the StarBasic IDE you will notice that it is all commented), withthis option the code is ready to be executed.
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Setting up OpenOffice.org

Microsoft Office Load/Save options
On the Load/Save – Microsoft Office page (Figure 21), you can choose
what to do when importing and exporting Microsoft Office OLE objects(linked or embedded objects or documents such as spreadsheets orequations).
Select the [L] options to convert Microsoft OLE objects into thecorresponding OpenOffice.org OLE objects when a Microsoft document
is loaded into OOo (mnemonic: “L” for “load”).
Select the [S] options to convert OpenOffice.org OLE objects into thecorresponding Microsoft OLE objects when a document is saved in a
Microsoft format (mnemonic: “S” for “save”).

Figure 21: Choosing Load/Save Microsoft Office options

HTML compatibility Load/Save options
Choices made on the Load/Save – HTML Compatibility page
(Figure 22) affect HTML pages imported into OpenOffice.org and thoseexported from OOo. See HTML documents; importing/exporting in theHelp for more information.
Font sizes
Use these fields to define the respective font sizes for the HTML
<font size=1> to <font size=7> tags, if they are used in the HTMLpages. (Many pages no longer use these tags.)

Choosing options for loading and saving documents

23

Figure 22. Choosing HTML compatibility options
Import - Use 'English (USA)' locale for numbers
When importing numbers from an HTML page, the decimal andthousands separator characters differ according to the locale of theHTML page. The clipboard, however, contains no information about
the locale. If this option is not selected, numbers will be interpreted
according to the Language - Locale setting in Tools > Options >Language Settings > Languages (see page 26). If this option is
selected, numbers will be interpreted as for the English (USA)locale.
Import - Import unknown HTML tags as fields
Select this option if you want tags that are not recognized by OOo to
be imported as fields. For an opening tag, an HTML_ON field will becreated with the value of the tag name. For a closing tag, an
HTML_OFF will be created. These fields will be converted to tags inthe HTML export.
Import - Ignore font settings
Select this option to have OOo ignore all font settings whenimporting. The fonts that were defined in the HTML Page Style will
be used.
ExportTo optimize the HTML export, select a browser or HTML standard
from the Export box. If OpenOffice.org Writer is selected, specific
OpenOffice.org Writer instructions are exported.
Export - OpenOffice.org Basic
Select this option to include OOo Basic macros (scripts) whenexporting to HTML format. You must activate this option before you
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Setting up OpenOffice.org

create the OpenOffice.org Basic macro; otherwise the script will not
be inserted. OpenOffice.org Basic macros must be located in theheader of the HTML document. Once you have created the macro in
the OpenOffice.org Basic IDE, it appears in the source text of theHTML document in the header.
If you want the macro to run automatically when the HTML
document is opened, choose Tools > Customize > Events. See
Chapter 13 (Getting Started with Macros) for more information.
Export - Display warning
When the OpenOffice.org Basic option (see above) is not selected,
the Display warning option becomes available. If the Display
warning option is selected, then when exporting to HTML awarning is shown that OpenOffice.org Basic macros will be lost.
Export - Print layout
Select this option to export the print layout of the current document
as well. The HTML filter supports CSS2 (Cascading Style Sheets
Level 2) for printing documents. These capabilities are only effective
if print layout export is activated.
Export - Copy local graphics to Internet
Select this option to automatically upload the embedded pictures tothe Internet server when uploading using FTP.
Export - Character set
Select the appropriate character set for the export.

Choosing language settings
You may need to do several things to set the language settings to what
you want:• Install the required dictionaries• Change some locale and language settings• Choose spelling options

Install the required dictionaries
OOo3 automatically installs several dictionaries with the program. To
add other dictionaries, be sure you are connected to the Internet, andthen use Tools > Language > More Dictionaries Online. OOo will
open your default web browser to a page containing links to additional
dictionaries that you can install. Follow the prompts to select andinstall the ones you want.
Choosing language settings

25

Change locale and language settings
You can change some details of the locale and language settings thatOOo uses for all documents, or for specific documents.
In the Options dialog, click Language Settings > Languages.

Figure 23: Language Setting Options
On the right-hand side of the Language Settings – Languages page
(Figure 24), change the User interface, Locale setting, Default
currency, and Default languages for documents as required. In theexample, English (UK) has been chosen for all the appropriate settings.
If you want the language (dictionary) setting to apply to the current
document only, instead of being the default for all new documents,
select the option labelled For the current document only.

Figure 24: Choosing language options
If necessary, select the options to enable support for Asian languages(Chinese, Japanese, Korean) and support for CTL (complex text layout)
languages such as Hindi, Thai, Hebrew, and Arabic. If you choose
either of these options, the next time you open this dialog, you will seesome extra choices under Language Settings, as shown in Figure 25.
These choices (Searching in Japanese, Asian Layout, and Complex Text
Layout) are not discussed here.
26

Setting up OpenOffice.org

Figure 25: Extra pages available when enhanced language
support options are selected

Choose spelling options
To choose the options for checking spelling, click Language Settings> Writing Aids. In the Options section of the page (Figure 26), choose
the settings that are useful for you. Some considerations:• If you do not want spelling checked while you type, deselectCheck spelling as you type and select Do not mark errors. (Tofind the second item, scroll down in the Options list.)• If you use a custom dictionary that includes words in all upper
case and words with numbers (for example, AS/400), selectCheck uppercase words and Check words with numbers.
• Check special regions includes headers, footers, frames, andtables when checking spelling.

Figure 26: Choosing languages, dictionaries, and options
for checking spelling

Choosing language settings27Here you can also check which user-defined (custom) dictionaries areactive by default, and add or remove dictionaries, by clicking the New
or Delete buttons.

Note

OpenOffice.org does not have a grammar checker, but you can
install a grammar checker extension such as Language Tooland access that tool from Tools > Spelling and Grammar.
See Chapter 14 for more about installing extensions.

Choosing Internet options
Use the Internet Options pages to define search engines and saveproxy settings for use with OpenOffice.org.
If you are using a Netscape or Mozilla browser (such as Firefox), you
can enable the Mozilla Plug-in so you can open OOo files in yourbrowser, print them, save them, and work with them in other ways.
If you are using a Unix- or Linux-based operating system (including
Mac OS X), an additional page of E-mail options is available, where you
can specify the e-mail program to use when you send the current
document as e-mail (Figure 27). Under Windows the operating
system’s default e-mail program is always used.

Figure 27: Internet options, showing E-mail page available
to Linux users.

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Setting up OpenOffice.org

Controlling OOo’s AutoCorrect functions
Some people find some or all of the items in OOo’s AutoCorrectfunction annoying because they change what you type when you do notwant it changed. Many people find some of the AutoCorrect functionsquite helpful; if you do, then select the relevant options. But if you findunexplained changes appearing in your document, this is a good place
to look to find the cause.
To open the AutoCorrect dialog, click Tools > AutoCorrect Options.
(You need to have a document open for this menu item to appear.)In Writer, this dialog has five tabs, as shown in Figure 28. In othercomponents of OOo, the dialog has only four tabs.

Figure 28: The AutoCorrect dialog in Writer, showing thefive tabs and some of the choices

Controlling OOo’s AutoCorrect functions

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