Hi there

Thank you guys for your hard work! Several months ago I was in need of a
java library to help me go through some ppt files and I have to admit your
work is amazing. I noticed that most of the developers are focused on excel
and spreadsheet files. I would like to contribute as well.

I'm a second year computer science major. I admit I'm very inexperienced
when it comes to open sourcing and I would like to to change that.

I wasn't able to find a good tutorial or documentation to help me get
started on your project though. I use eclipse IDE on a mac OS. I've followed
the instructions on the how to build page and set up Ant and Forrest. I also
have downloaded the source code through the svn repository. Now my mind went
blank. I don't know where to go from here. I know I want to work on the HSLF
and XSLF components the most and planning on learning about the different
file formats microsoft uses. But, I'm still don't know how to interact with
the source code from a developers view. How do I build? how do I test code
that already exists? I have many questions which most of them would be a
little stupid compared to what goes on this mailing list. :)

I am a beginner in open source programming, building libraries, and
interacting with office documents. But, I'm very excited to learn from
this experience and contribute as much as I can to the project. Would anyone
hold my hands till I can stand on my feet ? :)

Thank you
Ali Al Saif

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