In Linux/KDE, you can use KDocker to have OOo loaded and ready for use at startup. KDocker is not part of OOo; it is a generic systray app docker that is helpful if you open OOo often.
Starting from the command line
You may want to start OOo from the command line (using the keyboard instead of the mouse). By using the command line, you have more control over what happens when OOo is started. For example, using the command line, you can tell Writer to load a document and print it immediately, or to start without showing the splash screen. Note
Most users will never need to do this.
There is more than one way to start OOo from the command line, depending on whether you have installed a customized version or the standard download from the OOo website. If you installed using the download on the OOo website, you can start Writer by typing at the command line: soffice -writer or swriter Writer will start and create a new document. Likewise, you can start other OOo components from the command line:
Type of document Text Spreadsheet Drawing Presentation Formula Database Web page
Component Writer Calc Draw Impress Math Base Writer

Command-line option

-writer -calc -draw -impress -math -base -web
To see a list of options you can use when starting Writer at the command line, type: soffice -? Below is a list of some of the more popular options.
Option Description Get a complete list of options. Do not show the startup screen. Start presentation immediately. Open documents in viewer (read-only) mode. Start OOo minimized. Suppress restart/restore after fatal errors. No startup screen, no default document, and no UI. This is useful for third-party applications that use functionality provided by OOo.
-help -nologo -show <odp-file> -view <documents.> -minimized -norestore -invisible
If you have a customized version of OOo (such as the one provided by Linux Mandrake or Gentoo), you can start Writer by typing at the command line: oowriter Although the command syntax differs, the effect is identical: it starts OOo with an empty Writer document.

High-contrast style Default High Contrast #1 High Contrast #2 High Contrast Black High Contrast White Visual effect Black text on white background Yellow text on black background Green text on black background White text on black background Black text on white background
Open/Save dialogs To use the standard Open and Save dialogs for your operating system, deselect the Use OpenOffice.org dialogs option. When this option is selected, the Open and Save dialogs supplied with OpenOffice.org will be used. See Chapter 1 (Introducing OpenOffice.org) for more about the OOo Open and Save dialogs. This book uses the OOo Open and Save dialogs in illustrations. Document status If this option is selected, then the next time you close the document after printing, the print date is recorded in the document properties as a change and you will be prompted to save the document again, even if you did not make any other changes. Year (two digits) Specifies how two-digit years are interpreted. For example, if the two-digit year is set to 1930, and you enter a date of 1/1/30 or later into your document, the date is interpreted as 1/1/1930 or later. An earlier date is interpreted as being in the following century; that is, 1/1/20 is interpreted as 1/1/2020.

Memory options

In the Options dialog, click OpenOffice.org > Memory. Some considerations:
More memory can make OpenOffice.org faster and more
convenient (for example, more undo steps require more memory); but the trade-off is less memory available for other applications and you could run out of memory altogether. If your documents contain a lot of objects such as images, or the objects are large, OOos performance may improve if you increase the memory for OOo or the memory per object. If you find that objects seem to disappear from a document that contains a lot of them, increase the number of objects in the cache. (The objects are still in the file even if you cannot see them on screen.) To load the Quickstarter (an icon on the desktop or in the system tray) when you start your computer, select the option near the bottom of the dialog. This makes OpenOffice.org start faster; the trade-off is OOo uses some memory even when not being used. This option (sometimes called Enable systray quickstarter) is not available on all operating systems.
Figure 20: Choosing Memory options for the OpenOffice.org applications

View options

The options on the OpenOffice.org View page affect the way the document window looks and behaves. Some of these options are described below. Set them to suit your personal preferences.

Any changes you make to a style are effective only in the current document. To change styles in more than one document, you need to change the template or copy the styles into the other documents as described on page 70.
Changing a style using the Style dialog
To change an existing style using the Style dialog, right-click on the required style in the Styles and Formatting window and select Modify from the pop-up menu. The Style dialog displayed depends on the type of style selected. Each style dialog has several tabs. See the chapters on styles in the user guides for details.
Updating a style from a selection
To update a style from a selection: 1) Open the Styles and Formatting window. 2) In the document, select an item that has the format you want to adopt as a style. Caution
Make sure that there are unique properties in this paragraph. For example, if there are two different font sizes or font styles, that particular property will remain the same as before.
3) In the Styles and Formatting window, select the style you want to update (single-click, not double-click), then long-click on the arrow next to the New Style from Selection icon and click on Update Style.
Figure 47: Updating a style from a selection.

Using AutoUpdate

AutoUpdate applies to paragraph and frame styles only. If the AutoUpdate option is selected on the Organizer page of the Paragraph Style or Frame Style dialog, applying direct formatting to a paragraph or frame using this style in your document automatically updates the style itself.
If you are in the habit of manually overriding styles in your document, be sure that AutoUpdate is not enabled.
Updating styles from a document or template
You can update styles by copying or loading them from a template or another document. See Copying and moving styles on page 70.
Creating new (custom) styles
You may want to add some new styles. You can do this in two ways: Creating a new style using the Style dialog Creating a new style from a selection
Creating a new style using the Style dialog
To create a new style using the Style dialog, right-click in the Styles and Formatting window and select New from the pop-up menu. If you want your new style to be linked with an existing style, first select that style and then right-click and select New. If you link styles, then when you change the base style (for example, by changing the font from Times to Helvetica), all the linked styles will change as well. Sometimes this is exactly what you want; other times you do not want the changes to apply to all the linked styles. It pays to plan ahead. The dialogs and choices are the same for defining new styles and for modifying existing styles. See the chapters on styles in the user guides for details.
Creating a new style from a selection
You can create a new style by copying an existing manual format. This new style applies only to this document; it will not be saved in the template. 1) Open the Styles and Formatting window and choose the type of style you want to create. 2) In the document, select the item you want to save as a style. 3) In the Styles and Formatting window, click on the New Style from Selection icon.

These features are covered in detail in the Writer Guide.

The Writer interface

The main Writer workspace is shown in Figure 59. The menus and toolbars are described in Chapter 1 (Introducing OpenOffice.org). Some other features of the Writer interface are covered in this chapter.
Figure 59: The main Writer workspace in Print Layout view
The Writer status bar provides information about the document and convenient ways to quickly change some document features.
Figure 60: Left end of status bar Page number Shows the current page number, the sequence number of the current page (if different), and the total number of pages in the document. For example, if you restarted page numbering at 1 on the third page, its page number is 1 and its sequence number is 3. If any bookmarks have been defined in the document, a right-click on this field pops up a list of bookmarks; click on the required one. To jump to a specific page in the document, double-click on this field. The Navigator opens. Click in the Page Number field and type the sequence number of the required page. After a brief delay, the display jumps to the selected page. Page style Shows the style of the current page. To change the page style, rightclick on this field. A list of page styles pops up; choose a different style by clicking on it. To edit the current page style, double-click on this field. The Page Style dialog opens. Language Shows the language for the selected text. Click to open a menu where you can choose another language for the selected text or for the paragraph where the cursor is located. You can also choose None (Do not check spelling) to exclude the text from a spelling check or choose More. to open the Character dialog. Insert mode Click to toggle between Insert and Overwrite modes when typing. Selection mode Click to toggle between STD (Standard), EXT (Extend), ADD (Add) and BLK (Block) selection. EXT is an alternative to Shift+click when
Chapter 4 Getting Started with Writer
selecting text. See Working with text on page 94 for more information about ADD and BLK. Unsaved changes An asterisk (*) appears here if changes to the document have not been saved.
Figure 61: Right end of status bar Digital signature If the document has been digitally signed, an icon shows here. You can double-click the icon to view the certificate. Section or object information When the cursor is on a section, heading, or list item, or when an object (such as a picture or table) is selected, information about that item appears in this field. Double-clicking in this area opens a relevant dialog box. For details, consult the Help or the Writer Guide. View layout Click an icon to change between single page, side-by-side, and book layout views (Figure 62). You can edit the document in any view.
Figure 62: View layouts: single, side-by-side, book.
Zoom To change the view magnification, drag the Zoom slider, or click on the + and signs, or right-click on the zoom level percent to pop up a list of magnification values from which to choose. Zoom interacts with the selected view layout to determine how many pages are visible in the document window.

Edit > Paste Special, or Click the triangle to the right of the Paste icon, or Click the Paste icon without releasing the left mouse button.
Then select Unformatted text from the resulting menu. The range of choices on the Paste Special menu varies depending on the origin and formatting of the text (or other object) to be pasted. See (Figure 69) for an example with text on the clipboard.
Figure 69: Paste Special menu
Finding and replacing text and formatting
Writer has a Find and Replace feature that automates the process of searching for text inside a document. In addition to finding and replacing words and phrases, you can: Use wildcards and regular expressions to fine-tune a search (see the Help for details). Find and replace specific formatting (see the Writer Guide ). Find and replace paragraph styles (see the Writer Guide). To display the Find & Replace dialog (Figure 70), use the keyboard shortcut Control+F or choose Edit > Find & Replace from the menu bar. 1) Type the text you want to find in the Search for box. 2) To replace the text with different text, type the new text in the Replace with box. 3) You can select various options such as matching the case, matching whole words only, or doing a search for similar words. 4) When you have set up your search, click Find. To replace text, click Replace instead.
Figure 70: Expanded Find & Replace dialog
If you click Find All, OOo selects all instances of the search text in the document. Similarly, if you click Replace All, OOo will replace all matches. Use Replace All with caution; otherwise, you may end up with some hilarious (and highly embarrassing) mistakes. A mistake with Replace All might require a manual, word-by-word, search to fix.
Inserting special characters
A special character is one not found on a standard English keyboard. For example, are all special characters. To insert a special character: 1) Place the cursor where you want the character to appear. 2) Choose Insert > Special Character to open the Special Characters dialog (Figure 71). 3) Select the characters (from any font or mixture of fonts) you wish to insert, in order, then click OK. The selected characters are shown in the lower left of the dialog. As you select a character, it is shown on the lower right, along with its numerical code. Note

The cell border properties apply to a cell, and can only be changed if you are editing that cell. For example, if cell C3 has a top border (which would be equivalent visually to a bottom border on C2), that border can only be removed by selecting C3. It cannot be removed in C2.
Formatting the cell background
To quickly choose a background color for a cell, click the small arrow next to the Background Color icon on the Formatting toolbar. A palette of color choices, similar to the Font Color palette, is displayed. (To define custom colors, use Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Colors. See Chapter 2 for more information.) You can also use the Background tab of the Format Cells dialog. See Chapter 4 of the Calc Guide for details.
Autoformatting cells and sheets
You can use the AutoFormat feature to quickly apply a set of cell formats to a sheet or a selected cell range. 1) Select the cells, including the column and row headers, that you want to format. 2) Choose Format > AutoFormat. Note
If the selected cell range does not have column and row headers, AutoFormat is not available.
Figure 127: Choosing an AutoFormat 3) To select which properties (number format, font, alignment, borders, pattern, autofit width and height) to include in an AutoFormat, click More. Select or deselect the required options. 4) Click OK. If you do not see any change in color of the cell contents, choose View > Value Highlighting from the menu bar.
Defining a new AutoFormat
You can define a new AutoFormat that is available to all spreadsheets. 1) Format a sheet. 2) Choose Edit > Select All. 3) Choose Format > AutoFormat. The Add button is now active. 4) Click Add. 5) In the Name box of the Add AutoFormat dialog, type a meaningful name for the new format. 6) Click OK to save. The new format is now available in the Format list in the AutoFormat dialog.
Formatting spreadsheets using themes
Calc comes with a predefined set of formatting themes that you can apply to your spreadsheets. It is not possible to add themes to Calc, and they cannot be modified. However, you can modify their styles after you apply them to a spreadsheet. To apply a theme to a spreadsheet: 1) Click the Choose Themes icon in the Tools toolbar. If this toolbar is not visible, you can show it using View > Toolbars > Tools. The Theme Selection dialog appears. This dialog lists the available themes for the whole spreadsheet.

Figure 140: Navigator

Working with views
This section describes the use of the five views.

Normal view

Normal view is the main view for working with individual slides. Use this view to format and design and to add text, graphics, and animation effects. To place a slide in the Slide Design area of the Normal view, click the slide thumbnail in the Slides pane or use the Navigator. To select a slide in the Navigator, scroll down the list until you find it and then double-click it.

Outline view

Outline view (Figure 141) contains all the slides of the presentation in their numbered sequence. It shows topic titles, bulleted lists, and numbered lists for each slide in outline format. Only the text contained in the default text boxes in each slide is shown, so if your slide includes other text boxes or drawing objects, the text in these objects is not displayed. Slide names are also not included.

Figure 141: Outline view

Outline view serves at least two purposes. 4) Making changes in the text of a slide: You can add and delete the text in a slide just as you would in the Normal view. You can move the paragraphs of text in the selected slide up or down by using the up and down arrow buttons (Move Up or Move Down) on the Text Formatting toolbar. You can change the Outline Level for any of the paragraphs in a slide using the left and right arrow buttons (Promote or Demote). You can both move a paragraph and change its outline level using a combination of these four arrow buttons. 5) Comparing the slides with your outline (if you have prepared one in advance). If you notice from your outline that another slide is needed, you can create it directly in the Outline view (pressing Enter when the cursor is on the first line of the slide) or you can change to the Normal view to create it, then return to Outline view to continue reviewing the slides against your outline. If a slide is not in the correct sequence, you can move it to its proper place. a) In the slide pane, click the slide icon of the slide you are moving. b) Drag and drop it where you want it.

Notes view

Use the Notes view to add notes to a slide. 1) Click the Notes tab in the Workspace (Figure 142). 2) Select the slide to which you want to add notes. Click the slide in the Slide pane, or Use the Previous Slide and Next Slide buttons to move to the desired slide in the Navigator. 3) In the text box below the slide, click on the words Click to add notes and begin typing. You can resize the Notes text box using the green resizing handles and move it by placing the pointer on the border, then clicking and dragging. To make changes in the text style, press the F11 key to open the Styles and Formatting window.

Introducing a New Product and Recommendation of a Strategy are prepackaged presentation templates. They can be used to create a presentation by choosing From template in the first step (Figure 146).
4) Select how the presentation will be used under Select an output medium. Most often, presentations are created for computer screen display. Select Screen. 5) Click Next. The Presentation Wizard step 3 appears.
Figure 148. Selecting a slide design 6) Choose the desired slide transition from the Effect drop-down menu. 7) Select the desired speed for the transition between the different slides in the presentation from the Speed drop-down menu. Medium is a good choice for now. 8) Click Create. A new presentation is created.
You might want to accept the default values for both Effect and Speed unless you are skilled at doing this. Both of these values can be changed later while working with Slide transitions and animations. These two are explained in more detail in Chapter 9 of the Impress Guide. If you selected From template on step 1 of the Wizard, the Next button will be active on step 3 and other pages will be available. These pages are not described here.
Formatting a presentation
Now put your presentation together based on your outline.
Remember to save frequently while working on the presentation, to prevent any loss of information should something unexpected occur. You might also want to activate the AutoRecovery function (Tools > Options > Load/Save > General). Make sure Save AutoRecovery information every is selected and that you have entered a recovery frequency.

Creating the first slide

The first slide is normally a title slide. Decide which of the layouts will best suit your purposes for this first slide: simplicity would be appropriate in this instance. You can use the prepackaged layouts available in the Layout section of the Tasks pane. Suitable layouts are Title Slide (which also contains a section for a subtitle) or Title Only, however all but one layout (the blank one) contains a title section, so you are not restricted to the two layouts described here.

If you do not know the names for the prepackaged layouts, you can use the tooltip feature. Position the cursor on an icon in the Layout section (or on any toolbar icon) and its name will be displayed in a small rectangle. If the tooltips are not enabled, you can enable them. From the main menu, select Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > General > Help and mark the Tips checkbox. If the Extended tips checkbox is also marked, you will get more detailed tooltip information, but the tooltip names themselves will not be provided.
Select a layout in the Layout section of the Tasks pane by clicking on it: it appears in the Workspace. To create the title, click on Click to add title (assuming the Blank Slide layout was not used) and then type the title text. Adjustments to the formatting of the title can be done by pressing the F11 key, right-clicking the Title presentation style entry, and selecting Modify from the pop-up menu. If you are using the Title Slide layout, click on Click to add text to add a subtitle. Proceed as above to make adjustments to the formatting if required.
Inserting additional slides
The steps for inserting additional slides are basically the same as for selecting the title page. It is a process that has to be repeated for each slide. Unless you are using more than one slide master, your only concern is the Layouts section of the Tasks pane (Figure 149).
Figure 149: Choosing a slide layout First insert all the slides your outline indicates you will need. Only after this should you begin adding special effects such as custom animation and slide transitions. Step 1: Insert a new slide. This can be done in a variety of waystake your pick. Insert > Slide. Right-click on the present slide, and select Slide > New Slide from the pop-up menu. Click the Slide icon in the Presentation toolbar (Figure 150).
Figure 150: Presentation toolbar Step 2: Select the layout slide that bests fits your needs. Step 3: Modify the elements of the slide. At this stage, the slide consists of everything contained in the slide master, as well as the chosen layout slide, so this includes removing unneeded elements, adding needed elements (such as pictures), and inserting text.
Changes to any of the pre-packaged layouts can only be made using View > Normal, which is the default. Attempting to do this by modifying a slide master may result in unpredictable results and requires extra care as well as some trials and errors.
1) Remove any element on the slide that is not required. Click the element to highlight it. (The green squares show it is highlighted.) Press the Delete key to remove it. Tip
Sometimes you will accidentally select the wrong layout slide or decide to change it. This is safe and does not cause loss of the contents already on the slide.
2) Add any elements to the slide that you do need. a) Adding pictures to the clipart frame, if your chosen layout includes one: Double-click the picture within the frame. The Insert picture dialog opens. Browse to the location of the picture you want to include. To see a preview of the picture, check Preview at the bottom of the Insert picture dialog. Select the picture and click Open. Resize the picture as necessary. Follow the directions in the Caution note below. b) Adding pictures from graphic files to places other than the clipart frame: Insert > Picture > From File. The Insert picture dialog opens. Browse to the graphic file. To see a preview of the picture, check Preview at the bottom of the Insert picture dialog. Select a picture and click Open. Move the picture to its location. Resize the picture, if necessary. c) Adding OLE Objects is an advanced technique covered in Chapter 7 of the Impress Guide.

Gluepoints and connectors
All Draw objects have associated invisible gluepoints, which become visible when you choose any of the connectors under the Connectors icon on the Drawing toolbar and then move the mouse pointer over the object. Most objects have four gluepoints, as shown in Figure 174. You can add more gluepoints, and customize gluepoints, using the toolbar under the Gluepoint icon on the Drawing toolbar.
Figure 174: Four gluepoints Gluepoints are different from handles (the small blue or green squares around an object). Use the handles to move or resize an object; use the gluepoints to attach connectors to an object. Connectors are a type of line or arrow whose ends dock to glue points on other objects. When you move the other object, the connector moves with it. Connectors are particularly useful for making organizational charts. You can reorganize the blocks of your chart and all the connected objects stay connected.
Figure 175 shows two Draw objects and a connector.
Figure 175: A connector between two objects Draw has a range of advanced connector functions. You can change connector types by opening the floating Connectors toolbar (click on the Connector icon ) and modify various attributes of a selected connector by right-clicking and choosing Connector from the pop-up menu. For more about connectors and gluepoints, see Chapter 9 (Organization Charts, Flow Diagrams, and More) in the Draw Guide.

Drawing geometric shapes

Geometric shapes include basic shapes, symbol shapes, block arrows, flowcharts, callouts, and stars. Figure 176 shows part of the Drawing toolbar with the icons referred to in the following sections. Clicking on the arrow next to the icon opens a floating toolbar with the relevant work tools. The use of all these tools is similar to that of the Rectangle tool, even though they produce different geometric shapes.
Figure 176: Part of the main Drawing toolbar Basic shapes The Basic Shapes icon makes available the range of tools for drawing basic shapes. If you choose the rectangle tool from this toolbar, it looks the same as a rectangle drawn using the Rectangle tool on the Drawing toolbar. The only differences you will see are in the information field in the status bar (for example: shape selected).
Symbol shapes brings you to an The Symbol Shapes icon array of tools for drawing the various symbol shapes.
Block arrows The Block Arrows icon toolbar.

opens the Block Arrows

Flowcharts The tools for drawing flowcharts are accessed by. clicking on the Flowcharts icon The creation of flowcharts, organization charts, and similar planning tools are described in Chapter 9 (Organization Charts, Flow Diagrams, and More) in the Draw Guide.

Figure 184: Selecting fields for the table
Step 2: Set field types and formats. In this step you give the fields their properties. When you click a field, the information on the right changes. (See Figure 185.) You can then make changes to meet your needs. Click each field, one at a time, and make the changes listed below.
Figure 185: Changing field types
If any of these fields requires an entry, set Entry required to Yes. An entry with that field blank will then not be allowed. In general, only set Entry required to Yes if something must always be put in that field. By default, Entry required is set to No.
CollectionID: Change AutoValue from No to Yes. AlbumTitle:
Entry required: Leave Entry required as No, unless all of your music is in albums. Length: Unless you have an album title that exceeds 100 characters counting the spaces, do not change the length.
In Base the maximum length of each field must be specified on creation. It is not easy to change this later, so if in doubt specify a greater length. Base uses VCHAR as the field format for text fields. This format only uses the actual number of characters in a field up to the limit set. So, a field containing 20 characters will only use space for 20 characters even if the limit is set at 100. Two album titles containing 25 and 32 characters respectively will use space for 25 and 32 characters and not 100 characters.
Artist: Use the Default setting. And since music has artists, set
Entry Required to Yes. Date Purchased: Field type: default date setting. Entry required should be No. (You may not know the date.) Format: Only change the Entry Required setting: from No to Yes. Notes: No changes are required.
NumberofTracks: Change the Field Type to Tiny Integer
[TINYINT]. Your allowable number of tracks will be 999. Small Integer [SMALLINT] would allow 99999 tracks if you needed more than 999 tracks. Photo: Use the default settings. When you have finished, click Next.
Each field has a Field Type, which must be specified. Types include text, integer, date, and decimal. If the field is going to have general information in it (for example, a name or a description), use text. If the field will always contain a number (for example, a price), the type should be decimal or another numerical field. The wizard picks the right field type, so to get an idea of how this works, see what the wizard has chosen for different fields.

The first view displays the current slide, including the effects, and
the upcoming slide. The second view shows the speaker's notes in large, clear, and scalable type, plus the current and upcoming slide. The third view is a slide sorter view with the slide thumbnails. From Sun Microsystems. Open source. Note
The Presenter Console works only on an operating system that supports multiple displays.

Report Builder

Creates stylish, complex database reports from Base. You can define group and page headers, group and page footers, and calculation fields. Export your reports into PDF or OpenDocument formats, or
send them as email attachments. From Sun Microsystems. Open source.
Professional Template Pack II
Provides more than 120 templates for Writer, Calc, and Impress. Available in several languages. After you have installed this extension, you will find the templates under File > New > Templates and Documents. From Sun Microsystems. Freeware.

Template Changer

Adds two new items to the File > Templates menu in Writer that allow you to assign a new template to the current document or to a folder of documents. All styles and formatting will be loaded from that template and the document will behave as it was created using that template. Open source.
Appendix Keyboard Shortcuts
You can use OpenOffice.org (OOo) without requiring a pointing device, such as a mouse or trackball, by using its built-in keyboard shortcuts. Tasks as varied and complex as docking and un-docking toolbars and windows, or changing the size or position of objects, can all be accomplished with only a keyboard. OOo has a general set of keyboard shortcuts, available in all components, and a component-specific set directly related to the work of that component (Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, and Base). This appendix lists some of the most common general shortcuts. For component-specific shortcuts, see the relevant component guide or the OOo Help. For help with OOos keyboard shortcuts, or using OOo with a keyboard only, search the OOo Help using the shortcut or accessibility keywords. In addition to using the built-in keyboard shortcuts listed in this Appendix, you can define your own. See Chapter 14 (Customizing OpenOffice.org) for instructions.
Some of the shortcut keys may be assigned to your desktop system. Keys that are assigned to the desktop system are not available to OOo. Try to assign different keys either for OOo (described in Chapter 14), or for your desktop system (see your systems documentation).

The copyright is shared by Sun Microsystems and all the volunteers who have contributed. No. The licenses under which OOo is developed and distributed can never be revoked, so it cannot be taken away. You may, within the parameters set in the LGPL. Read the license: http://www.openoffice.org/license.html
That feature is probably a third-party add-on that Sun cannot distribute with OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice.org is not written in Java; it is written in the C++ language. Java is one of several languages that can be used to extend OOo. The Java JDK/JRE is only required for some features. The most notable one is the HSQLDB relational database engine. Note: Java is available at no cost. If you don't want to use Java, you can still use nearly all of the features of OOo. You can help with the development of OOo in many ways, and you do not need to be a programmer. To start, check out this webpage: http://www.openoffice.org/contributing.html There really is none; you can read the licenses here: http://www.openoffice.org/license.html
How can I contribute to OpenOffice.org?

Whats the catch?

accepting or rejecting changes 127 accessibility features 420 accessibility options 49 advantages of OpenOffice.org 13 antialiasing screen font 40 appearance options 48 Apply Style list 66 area fill, editing 242 arranging objects 237 arrow styles, customizing 241 arrows 241 Asian language support 58 Asian languages enabled 207 AutoCorrect 61, 102 AutoInput 156 AutoLayout 206 automatic changes 156 automatic saving 29 AutoRecovery 29, 53 AutoUpdate styles 68 color options 44 color palette 222 color scheme 49 combining objects 246 comma separated values (CSV) 138, 140 command line, starting from 19 Community Forum (user support) 16 complex text layout (CTL) 13, 58 components of OpenOffice.org 11 conditional formatting 168 connectors 232 consultants 16 context menu 240 context menus 25 conversion 247 copying object from Gallery 347 create document from template 73 creating a document 27 cross-fading 245 cross-references inserting references 129 overview 128 CSV files 138, 140 Ctrl-click required to follow hyperlinks 48 custom dictionary 59 Customize dialog 396 customizing keyboard shortcuts 412 menus 404 toolbars 408
background images from Gallery 347 Basic 379 bitmaps 247 BitTorrent 14 book preview 120 booklet printing 120 bookmarks 129 borders, editing 240 brackets (Math) 321 bring forward 237 brochure printing 120 bulleted list 209 Bullets and Numbering dialog 210