Taming OpenOffice.org

The first edition of the OpenOffice.org Draw Guide was published on 29 June.

PDFs of the full book and the individual chapters can be downloaded from this page.

All the files (in two formats: ODT and PDF) are also available here.

Printed edition is available from Lulu.com. Direct link to book.

The first edition of the Calc Guide was published on 24 June.

PDFs of the full book and the individual chapters can be downloaded from this page.

All the files (in two formats: ODT and PDF) are also available here.

The printed edition is here.

The second edition of Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3 (updated for OOo3.2) has been published. PDFs of individual chapters are here. Editable files (ODT) are coming soon to that page, along with ZIP files containing all the chapter files in either PDF or ODT form. A printed book is also coming soon, along with downloadable PDF and ODT files of the full compiled book.

Please don’t buy from Amazon.com the three OOo3.0 books by the OOoAuthors team (Getting Started, Writer Guide, and Impress Guide) being sold there, because they have been republished by someone not associated with OOoAuthors nor (as far as I can tell) associated with OpenOffice.org in any way.

This is legal under the Creative Commons license we are using, but it does put money into someone’s pocket when they haven’t contributed. The small amount of profits from sale of the Getting Started and the Writer guides through Lulu.com (see sidebar on right) will be distributed in ways to benefit the OpenOffice.org community, though the group has not yet decided just what those ways will be.

Why aren’t we selling those books ourselves through Amazon.com? It’s a long story, involving extra costs and hassles related to Friends of OpenDocument Inc (the actual publishers of the printed books) not being a US-based organisation, and the technical requirements for book files for on-demand printing and distribution beyond Lulu.com. None of this is insurmountable, but it takes time and effort away from writing new material and keeping older material up to date.

The first draft of the OpenOffice.org 3.x Calc Guide chapters is now complete, and some chapters have been reviewed once. I have updated them to include the new features for OOo3.1. The draft is on the Documentation wiki (though not all the latest updates are on the wiki yet) and on the OOoAuthors website (PDFs of the individual chapters). PDFs should go on the Documentation Project’s website within a few days.

Today I finally found time to finish the first draft of Chapter 4 (Charts and Graphs) of the Calc Guide. I have also finished a first draft of Chapter 3 (Formulas and Functions) and revisions to Chapter 10 (Using Styles and Templates in Calc). Reviewers are sought for these and other draft chapters of the book, which are on the OOo Documentation wiki; I hope to get Chapter 4 there soon. You can also get .odt files for review purposes by joining OOoAuthors.

I haven’t been making progress on this book as quickly as I’d like over the past few weeks, because I’ve been distracted by buying a new house, battening down the apartment for a cyclone (which passed us by unscathed, fortunately), and packing to move.

The first edition of the OOo3 Impress Guide is now available. Individual chapters and a compiled book are on the OOoAuthors website (ODT and PDF), the Documentation Project website (PDF), and the Documentation wiki.

Note: This first edition really could use some more reviewing, editing, and indexing. The choice was between publishing a (hopefully not seriously) flawed and incomplete book now, for people to use and comment on, or wait indefinitely for enough assistance to do a better job. I chose to make the info available.

If you can help with reviewing, please hop over to either OOoAuthors or the Documentation wiki. No contribution is too small!

I don’t plan to work on a printed copy any time soon, because (a) I have higher-priority things to do, (b) the OOo2 Impress Guide hasn’t sold many copies (in contrast to the Getting Started and Writer Guides for both OOo2 and OOo3), and (c) it still needs work.

It’s now official: I’ve been elected as Co-Lead of the Documentation Project at OpenOffice.org.

Many of you will recall that in late November 2007, I announced that after 5 years with the OpenOffice.org project, it was time for me to move on to something else, so I ws winding down my activities by the send of that year. Then in March 2008, I admitted that I was still involved, though not in the (unofficial) role of lead editor at OOoAuthors, the group producing the user guides for OpenOffice.org.

In my new role, I expect to be mainly continuing what I’ve been doing all along: overseeing the production of the user guides. I hope I’ll be a bit more disciplined in tracking and scheduling and other project-management activities—things I know perfectly well how to do, but usually don’t get around to. I also plan to start blogging regularly on OOo-related topics on this website… as well as finishing the book I started writing and publishing here.