Tips and Tricks for Office - Part 1

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Enabling viewing graphics

If you embed graphics or images in your document, StarOffice Writer might show them as frames with the filename enclosed within. It is likely that the option to view graphics is disabled by default to enable optimal loading of your document. (A document that's stuffed with graphics could take ages to load.) To enable the option, click on Tools > Options > Text Document > View. Enable the 'Graphics and Objects' option in the display section. Click OK to effect the changes? and presto, your pictures magically appear.

<img src="http://www.hashdot.com/staroffice.jpg" width="510" height="383" border="0" alt="" />

Saving as PostScript

The advantage of a PostScript file is that it can be printed from any machine, even one that doesn't have Star Office installed. To save a file as a PostScript file, click on File > Print. Enable the 'Print to File' option in the Print dialog box. Save the output to a file with a .PS extension. Now you can use the output file to print the document from any system with or without StarOffice.

Configuring toolbars

Star Office Writer has a number of toolbars that it loads by default. Your desktop will be a big mess if you let this happen. It's better to have only those toolbars that you use often. You can do this by configuring your toolbars. To choose the toolbars that are to be loaded with StarOffice Writer, go to Tools > Configure. Choose the Toolbars tab and select the tools that you would require the most.

Changing default paths

Most of the default settings can be changed. Ditto with file locations. This could prove useful if documents you work on are distributed over different locations. To change the default path for StarOffice documents, click through Tools > Options > StarOffice > Paths. Click on the Edit button to change the default path and change it to a directory of your choice. Other folders could also be edited from the list that shows up.

<img src="http://www.hashdot.com/changepaths.jpg" width="510" height="383" border="0" alt="" />

Removing page borders

In StarOffice Writer, the auto border is enabled by default, and it can be quite annoying. A document without a border is usually preferable. To change the default settings, go to Tools > Autocorrect/Autoformat. Under the Options tab, scroll down to the Apply Border option. Disable it and click OK to effect the changes. Now you don't have to be circumscribed by borders anymore.

Spell-checking in different languages

Occasionally, you might want to check spellings for other languages compatible with StarOffice Writer. You can spell-check documents written in other languages just as easily as you would check the ones in English. Click on Tools > Options > General > Language Settings. Here you can select languages in the Languages option. In the Writing Aid section you can select what all to check for. You can set the language for the text by selecting it and clicking on Format > Character > Font.

Recording your job

If you do repetitive formatting or use the menu quite often for some purpose, you could record the sequence of operations with the Macro record option in Writer and execute the recorded code whenever you want to perform the same actions. For example, if you want to insert a picture (or a series of pictures), you could record the sequence of operations by clicking the record in the Tools > Macro sub-menu and save the macro with a specific name. Whenever you wish to run the task, you could just run the macro to accomplish it without effort.