atw: Re: Demo of OpenOffice.org

Hi Jean,

Some aspects of OpenOffice which I've found troublesome to work out:

   * Parent and child styles (eg. basing all paragraph styles on
     'default', so that when management says, "Actually, that Helvetica
     font IS a bit too skinny", I don't spend 3 hours fixing all my
     styles) and how to fix them up when they get out of sync. For the
     record, I've found that modifying styles.xml is by far the easiest
     option!
   * Templates, and how re-associate a document with its template.
   * How best to create a list - to do this properly requires a
     character style, a list style AND a paragraph style.
   * Using OOo Draw, esp. how to get a Draw object into a Writer
     document without pain (I've discovered that creating a .png file
     is easiest - but there's even a gotcha right there - press Ctrl-A
     then Export, otherwise you end up with too much whitespace)
   * Setting up outline heading numbering

Some features I LOVE:

   * Page styles
   * Master documents
   * Hidden text and paragraphs (note: using a User Field rather than a
     variable seems to be a good idea in OOo 2.0 if using master documents)
   * Variables (so I can set ProductName on the first page of a master
     document, and reference that whenever a child document needs to
     mention the product name. Makes life a heck of a lot easier when
     wanting to share child documents between guides for products with
     largely the same functionality)
   * The list styles aren't bad, either... add a good amount of
     flexibility and WORK without being sworn at.
   * Document sizes

I think it'd be interesting to show people how to change the file extension of a document, unzip it, and modify .xml files. This is something I've needed to do occasionally, and it can be a huge time-saver. I've done it recently to:

   * Fix up paragraph style dependencies to allow easy font changes
     (see first 'troublesome' point)
   * Modify page style elements such as margins, header and footer
     contents etc.

I hope this helps!

- Naomi

PS. If you have any questions that you can't answer, there's a faint chance I might know. I've had to delve into the absolute depths of OOo to do some of things I want to. My knowledge is limited to a few specific areas, but quite detailed within those areas.

Jean Hollis Weber wrote: 
I am giving a demonstration of OpenOffice.org features for
techwriters at the ASTC(NSW) conference on the 28th.

Whether you are attending or not, it would help me to know what
you would most like to see demonstrated. There's far too much to
show in the time available, so I want to concentrate on what
interests you most, or (if you've had a chance to try OOo
yourself) what you've had problems with. I may not know how to do
what you want, but with some lead time I might be able to find
out or create some samples.

Cheers, Jean 
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