Introducing Writer

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What is Writer?

Writer is the word processor component of OpenOffice.org (OOo). In addition to the usual features of a word processor (spell checking, thesaurus, hyphenation, autocorrect, find and replace, automatic generation of tables of contents and indexes, mail merge, and others), Writer provides these important features:

• Templates and styles
• Powerful page-layout methods (including frames, columns, and tables)
• Embedding or linking of graphics, spreadsheets, and other objects
• Built-in drawing tools
• Master documents—to group a collection of documents into a single document
• Change tracking during revisions
• Database integration, including a bibliography database
• Export to PDF, including bookmarks
• And many more

Styles are central to using Writer. Styles enable you to easily format your document consistently and to change the format with minimal effort. Often, when you format your document in Writer, you are using styles whether you realize it or not. A style is a named set of formatting options. Writer defines several types of styles, for different types of elements: characters, paragraphs, pages, frames, and lists. The use of styles is described in more detail in other chapters in this guide, including Chapter 6 (Introduction to Styles) and Chapter 7 (Working with Styles).

The other features of Writer listed above are also covered in detail in other chapters of this guide.

Starting Writer

If you are reading this document in OpenOffice.org, you already know how to start Writer. However, if this is a printed version or a PDF version, you may not know how to start Writer. So let's look at three ways to do that:

• From the system menu
• From an existing document
• From the command line

Starting from the system menu

Using the system menu is the most common way to start Writer. The system menu is the standard menu from which most applications are started. On Windows, it is called the Start menu. On GNOME, it is called the Applications menu. On KDE, it is identified by the KDE logo. On Mac OS X, it is the Applications menu.

When OpenOffice.org was installed, a menu entry was added to your system menu. The exact name and location of this menu entry depends on your graphical environment. This chapter looks at Windows, GNOME and KDE on Linux, and Mac OS X. The concepts should easily be applicable to another operating system.

Windows

On Windows, the OpenOffice.org menu is located in Programs > OpenOffice.org 2.x',' where “2.x" corresponds to the version number of OpenOffice.org. Figure 1 shows a typical setup on Windows XP. Select OpenOffice.org 'Writer' to start Writer with a blank document.

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Linux/GNOME

GNOME installations differ from one distribution to the next. Most modern distributions come with OpenOffice.org already installed. You will find OpenOffice.org under Applications > Office, as shown in Figure 2.

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Fedora/Red Hat Enterprise Linux comes with OpenOffice.org installed. On the GNOME desktop, OOo can be found under Main Menu > Office. If you have installed a newer version of OOo, you will find it under Main Menu > Office > More Office Applications.

If you installed by downloading OOo from the http://www.openoffice.org website, it is under Applications > Other.

Linux/KDE

On KDE, OpenOffice.org is installed in its own menu, called Office (see Figure 3).

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Some Linux distributions install OpenOffice.org in the Office submenu. Mandrake is such a distribution. In this case, to launch Writer, choose Office > Word processors > OpenOffice.org Writer. Figure 4 illustrates the OOo menu with Math selected.

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Mac OS X

Go to the folder where you installed OpenOffice.org. You should see its icon in the Applications folder (Figure 5). To start OpenOffice.org, double-click its icon.

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Starting from an existing document

If you installed OpenOffice.org correctly, all Writer documents are associated with the Writer application. This means that you can start OpenOffice.org automatically, simply by double-clicking a Writer document in your favorite file manager (for example, Windows Explorer).

You can spot an OpenOffice.org Writer document by its icon: inline:Graphic11.png .

For Windows users

File associations are used to open certain types of files automatically with OpenOffice.org. When installing OOo, you could choose to associate Microsoft Office file types with OOo. If you chose to do this, then when you double-click on a *.doc file, it opens in OpenOffice.org.

If you did not associate the file types, then when you double-click on a Microsoft Word document, it opens in Microsoft Word (if Word is installed on your computer).

You can use another method to open *.doc files in OOo and save in the *.doc format from OOo. See “Opening an existing document" on page 15 for more information.

Using the Quickstarter under Windows

The Quickstarter is an icon that is placed in the Windows system tray during system startup. It indicates that OpenOffice.org has been loaded and is ready to use. (The Quickstarter loads library *.DLL files required by OOo, thus shortening the startup time for OOo components by about half.) If the Quickstarter is disabled, see “Reactivating the Quickstarter" on page 6 if you want to enable it.

Using the Quickstarter icon

Right-click the Quickstarter icon in the system tray to open a pop-up menu from which you can open a new document, open the Templates and Documents dialog box, or choose an existing document to open. (See Figure 6.) You can also double-click the Quickstarter icon to display the Templates and Documents dialog box.

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Disabling the Quickstarter

To close the Quickstarter, right-click on the icon in the system tray and then click Exit Quickstarter on the pop-up menu. The next time the computer is restarted, the Quickstarter will be loaded again.

To prevent OpenOffice.org from loading during system startup, deselect the Load OpenOffice.org During System Start-Up item on the pop-up menu. You might want to do this if your computer has insufficient memory, for example.

Reactivating the Quickstarter

If the Quickstarter has been disabled, you can reactivate it by selecting the Load OpenOffice.org during system start-up checkbox in Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Memory.

Using the Quickstarter under Linux

Some installations of OpenOffice.org under Linux have a Quickstarter that looks and acts like the one described above for Windows (the checkbox on the Memory page is labeled Enable systray quickstarter). The Linux Quickstarter is disabled in other installations, but it will be operational in future releases.

Preloading OOo under Linux/KDE

In Linux/KDE, you can use KDocker to have OOo loaded and ready for use at startup. KDocker is not part of OOo; it is a generic “systray app docker" that is helpful if you open OOo often.

Starting from the command line

You may want to start Writer from the command line (using the keyboard instead of the mouse). Why? Well, by using the command line, you have more control over what happens when Writer is started. For example, using the command line, you can tell Writer to load a document and print it immediately, or to start without showing the splash screen.

Note

Most users will never need to do this.

There is more than one way to start Writer from the command line, depending on whether you have installed a customized version or the standard download from the OOo web site.

If you installed using the download on the OOo web site, you can start Writer by typing at the command line:

soffice -writer

or

swriter

Writer will start and create a new document.

To see a list of options you can use when starting Writer at the command line, type:

soffice -?

If you have a customized version of OOo (such as the one provided by Linux Mandrake or Gentoo), you can start Writer by typing at the command line:

oowriter

Note

Although the command syntax differs, the effect is identical: it starts OOo with an empty Writer document.

The Writer interface

The main Writer workspace is shown in Figure 7.

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Menus

Menus are located across the top of the Writer window. The main menu selections are File, Edit, View, Insert, Format, Table, Tools, Window, and Help. When you click one of the main menu names, a list of related options is displayed.

• File contains commands that apply to the entire document such as Open, Save, and Export as PDF.
• Edit contains commands for editing the document such as Undo and Find & Replace.
• View contains commands for controlling the display of the document such as Zoom and Web Layout.
• Insert contains commands for inserting elements into your document such as headers, footers, and pictures.
• Format contains commands for formatting the layout of your document, such as Styles and Formatting, Paragraph, and Bullets and Numbering.
• Table shows all commands to insert and edit a table in a text document.
• Tools contains functions such as Spellcheck, Customize, and Options.
• Window contains commands for the display window.
• Help contains links to the Help file, What's This?, and information about the program. See “Getting help" on page 19.

Toolbars

Writer has several types of toolbars: docked, floating, and tear-off. Docked toolbars can be moved to different locations or made to float, and floating toolbars can be docked.

The top docked toolbar (default position) is called the Standard toolbar. The Standard toolbar is consistent across the OpenOffice.org applications.

The second toolbar across the top (default location) is called the Formatting toolbar.

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Floating toolbars

Writer includes several context-sensitive toolbars, whose defaults appear as floating toolbars in response to the cursor's current position or selection. For example, when the cursor is in a table, a floating Table toolbar appears, and when the cursor is in a numbered or bullet list, the Bullets and Numbering toolbar appears. You can dock these toolbars to the top, bottom, or side of the window, if you wish (see “Moving toolbars" below).

Long-click buttons and tear-off toolbars

Buttons with a small triangle to the right will display submenus, tear-off toolbars, and other ways of selecting things with a long click, depending on the button. Figure 9 shows an example.

The tear-off toolbars are always floating and cannot be docked on any edge. To move a tear-off toolbar, drag it by its title bar.

Displaying or hiding toolbars

To display or hide toolbars, choose View > Toolbars. An active toolbar shows a check mark beside its name.

Moving toolbars

To move a toolbar, place the mouse pointer over the toolbar handle, hold down the left mouse button, and drag the toolbar to the new location.

To dock the toolbar in another area, place the mouse pointer over the toolbar handle, hold down the left mouse button, drag the toolbar to the new location, and then release the mouse button. The toolbar will dock in the new location.

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Rulers

To show or hide rulers, choose View > Ruler. To show the vertical ruler, choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer > View and select Vertical ruler.

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Changing document views

OpenOffice.org has several ways to view a document: Print Layout, Web Layout, Full Screen, and Zoom. You can select these choices on the View menu. The only document view option with a submenu is Zoom. When you choose View > Zoom, the following dialog box appears.

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• Entire Pag'e': Displays the entire page on the screen (text may be too small to read).
• Page Widt'h': Displays the complete width of the document page. The top and bottom edges of the page may not be visible.
• Optimal: Resizes the display to fit the width of the text in the document.

1. 200%: Displays the document at two times its actual size.
2. 150%: Displays the document at one and a half times its actual size.
3. 100%: Displays the document at its actual size.
4. 75%: Displays the document at 75% of its actual size.
5. 50%: Displays the document at half of its actual size.

• Variable':' Enter the zoom factor (percentage) at which you want to display the document.

Using dockable/floating windows

Some windows in OpenOffice.org, such as the Navigator and the Styles and Formatting window, are dockable. You can move, resize, or dock them to an edge.