Katharine Karr wrote:
Hi-
I have just downloaded OpenOffice and am completely overwhelmed by the
amount of data presented to me. Just starting -- there appears to be
several "Start here" or "Read this first" -- "Take this class" titles.
The sensation is of wandering into yet another open source project for
programmers. I tried to read the review or information - I can not tell
if it is written by your group or another. I did not understand 3/4 of
the authors comments.
I have used Office for Mac 2004 for several years and having a new
Macbook with Leopard, know that I need a new system, especially "Word."
As a writer and a regular non-programming woman, I am terrified of
trying OpenOffice. I really can't handle the lack of straightforward
directions; not even a yellow brick road. I do not want to have to look
all over to find the options I need, especially because everything is
obviously unfamiliar.
Well, a good straightforward road is the tutorials and manuals at
http://support.openoffice.org/ . Since you are a long-time Word user I’d
suggest starting with the basic guides at
http://documentation.openoffice.org/manuals . The Migration guide is
especially useful for people moving from MS Office, pointing out both
points of difference and similarities between MS Office and Open Office.
Indeed there may be little point in bothering with anything else beyond
the Migration Guide until you get comfortable. Some of the material is
indeed for tech-type people. If you don’t think you need that stuff,
just don't worry about it. Did you worry about writing macro programs
for MS Word? But you may also need something beyond the normal and then
you will be glad of a more complex manual, even if you only get the one
thing want now out of it.
There is a learning curve, because very word processor and every
spreadsheet and so forth does some things differently, and we tend to
forget how overwhelming any new software can be, especially when
compared to software that we are used to.
Be reassured. A lot of OpenOffice is exactly like MS Office, or can be
used that way, depending on how you used MS Office.
The main difference is the emphasis on styles which makes OpenOffice
much easier to use when you get into styles. Honestly! You can use
styles in Word too, but not so many do so, because it is supposedly
harder in Word, but then the occasionally commenter comes up who claims
he or has had no trouble with Word styles but cannot get their head
around the way OpenOffice does it. More people seem to feel the
opposite. Different strokes for different folk I guess.
You can ignore styles altogether if you want, though I don’t advise it,
either for MS Word or for OpenOffice Writer. But to judge from the
correspondence I get in Word at work, most supposed Word processing
professionals also ignore styles most of the time. Unfortunately then I
have to fix up their material to get it printed.
Also, many people who have learned to word process haven’t, to be blunt,
learned to do it properly. They’ve learned on the job and haven’t
bothered with the books. So it comes as shock to discover to that that
there is a word-processing jargon and that it can be very technical when
you are working with pictorial backgrounds, different styles of
pagination in the same documents, indexes, endnotes, footnotes, bullet
points, indents and so forth.
The best manual is often Google. If you are having trouble with
something, probably someone else has had similar problems. So stick the
word “OpenOffice” and a few words pertaining to your problem and see
what comes up.
Jim Allan
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