Assigning Shortcut Keys

Apache OpenOffice 4.1 Writer Guide

Chapter 16: Customizing Writer

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• Introduction
  • Customizing Menu Content
  • Creating a New Menu
  • Modifying Existing Menus
  • Adding a Command to a Menu
  • Modifying Menu Entries
• Customizing Toolbars
  • Modifying Existing Toolbars
  • Adding a Command to a Toolbar
  • Choosing Icons for Toolbar Commands
    • Example: Adding an Insert > Cross-reference Icon to a Toolbar
  • Creating a New Toolbar
• Assigning Shortcut Keys
  • Example: Assigning Styles to Shortcut Keys
  • Example: Assigning Macros to Shortcut Keys
  • Saving Changes to a File
  • Loading a Saved Keyboard Configuration
  • Resetting the Shortcut Keys
• Assigning Macros to Events
• Adding Functionality with Extensions
  • Installing Extensions
  • Using Extensions
    • Template Changer
    • Compose Special Characters
    • Professional Template Pack II
    • PDF Import for Apache OpenOffice

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Assigning Shortcut Keys

In addition to using the built-in keyboard shortcuts (listed in Appendix A), you can define your own. You can assign shortcuts to standard functions or your own macros and save them for use with the entire OpenOffice suite.

Be very careful when reassigning your operating system’s or OpenOffice’s predefined shortcut keys. Many key assignments are universally understood shortcuts, such as  F1  for Help, and are always expected to provide certain results. Although you can easily reset the shortcut key assignments to the defaults, changing some common shortcut keys can cause confusion, frustration, and possible data loss or corruption, especially if other users share your computer.

To adapt shortcut keys to your needs, use the Customize dialog box, as described below.

1. Choose Tools → Customize → Keyboard. The Customize dialog box opens.
2. To have the shortcut key assignment available in all components of OpenOffice, select the OpenOffice radiobutton.
3. Next select the required function from the Category and Function lists.
4. Now select the desired shortcut keys in the Shortcut keys list at the top of the tab and click the  Modify  button on the right. The selection now appears in the Keys list on the lower right.
5. Click  OK  to accept the change. Now, the chosen shortcut keys will execute the function chosen in step 3 above whenever they are pressed.

All existing shortcut keys for the currently selected Function are listed in the Keys selection box. If the Keys list is empty, it indicates that the chosen key combination is free for use. If it were not, and you wanted to reassign a shortcut key combination that is already in use, you must first delete the existing key. If you do so, do it with caution. Shortcut keys that are grayed-out in the listing on the Customize dialog box, such as  F1  and  F10 , are not available for reassignment.

Figure 7: Defining keyboard shortcuts for applying styles