Frank S. wrote:
As I recover from having to replace my harddrive I am using OpenOffice instead of the MS Office I was familiar with.
Sorry, I know that crash hurt! But at least you didn't have to buy MS Office (again).
So far it works adequately with my existing WORD documents, but I'm at my wit's end trying to create _new_ documents which should be a simple process. For example, what used to be a simple task of copying text somewhere and then pasting into a new document does not yield something that has the original appearance. It creates a weird "table" with unexpected formating, margins, and borders with no apparent tools to correct any of it. I've done trial and error with various commands and just increased my frustration.
OOo has quite a few different forms of paste, and what you probably needif you're getting into this type of situation is some variety of "Paste Special" to keep the material from being treated as a graphic. This depends on the source; generally copying into the same OOo application works normally, but crossing applications or bringing in a clipboard from other sources often needs the paste special.
Referring to the various "support" or "help" sites or forums just added to the nightmare as they seem unable to deal with the simplest item without bringing in all sorts of complicated options. Maybe I'm missing some basic key to understanding the Writer or text portion of OO? It works great with my existing Excel spreadsheets, but I dread when I need to create _new_ ones...will it be as mysterious as the simple creation of a document seems to be?
The File > New operation lets you start a new document of any of the supported types, as does the "splash page" when you start OOo. If you are creating a new document that is substantially similar to an existing one, the best way is generally to open the existing document and do a Save As under a new name. That keeps all the formatting and content, and you can edit it as needed. You can also create a "template" that you can use whenever you want to create a new document, where the template stores all kinds of settings and styles so you need not recreate them, without having content other than "boilerplate" material. The File > New operation is how you get at these, too.
The most basic difference that people tend to notice is that OOo is very much based on styles (including page styles, a quite different concept from the way MS Office formats pages). You may find the following references helpful:
documentation.openoffice.org/manuals/oooauthors2/0600MG-MigrationGuide.pdf (this seems to be for OOo version 2, but it should be pretty close)
wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/OOo3_User_Guides
Can anyone help make simple tasks simple? Frank S.
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