9 February 2010, 13:08
This has nothing to do with OpenOffice.org directly, but it’s one of the most exciting open source projects I’ve heard about.
The OpenLuna Foundation seeks to return mankind to the lunar surface, first through robotic missions, followed by manned exploration, culminating in an eight person permanent outpost, and to do all of this in a way that it is accessible to everyone. Our research and technology will be open-source, we are privately funded, and one of our specific goals is to reach out to the community and educational systems to spread interest, enthusiasm, and involvement.
Yes, I joined, you bet. Makes me nostalgic for my NASA days, though of course that was government funding and got cut back. I’m an enthusiast for non-government projects and have been for many years.
3 February 2010, 19:43
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.
2 February 2010, 07:45
A former MSWord user asked about using footers in Writer. The method is easy, but it’s not obvious to someone coming from Word. I’ve now put my response on this page, where I gathered together some explanatory information on the subject.
Aside: Page styles are one of the best features of Writer, IMO. Once I got used to the way they are done, I found them much easier to use than Word’s sections. (BTW, “sections” in Writer are a slightly different concept, which confuses many people at first.) In fact, I find many things much easier to do in Writer than in Word, including almost anything to do with page layout and formatting.
Neither Writer nor Word are desktop publishing (DTP) programs, but both can work well for that purpose if the document isn’t too layout-intensive. I used Word for DTP for years, but when I switched to Writer I found everything much easier to do. The methods used in Writer suit my preferences and ways of working much better.
