When you want to start StarOffice Writer, you must click the Start button on the desktop and select StarOffice 8 in the Programs menu and StarOffice Writer in the sub-menu.
Once this has been done, the Writer application window opens and presents you with a blank document. This is called the Document window and it is here that you can begin word processing.
Try opening StarOffice Writer from the Start menu and then view the different parts of each window.
Creating a New Document
When you open Writer, it usually creates a new blank document called Untitled1. The document appears on the screen as if it were a sheet of blank white paper.
If there is no document open, blank or otherwise, the main part of the screen where the document would normally appear is grey.
To create a new document, do the following.
On the left of the Standard toolbar, click the New button.
The button represents a blank sheet. A new blank page will open up on the screen.
Type the text below:
A meeting will take place for all departments on Wednesday 19 May in the staff room.
StarOffice has many pre installed templates. To access a template do the following.
On the Standard toolbar, click New > Templates and Documents.
Double click the Business Correspondence folder in the Templates and Documents window.
Double click the Modern Letter template.
Make the necessary changes such as name, address, subject and body of the letter.
When you are finished save the template with a new file name to ensure you do not overwrite the existing template.
Saving the Document to a Location on the Drive
When working with a document, it is important to remember that in order to keep it for future reference, you must save it. The save procedure enables you to store your document in a location where it can be accessed when it is required.
When you want to save a copy of a document or file under a different name, Save As is used. This will avoid replacing the original copy of the document.
You have already created a document named May Meeting. The only change for the June meeting is the date. To save time typing out a new notice, you can save a copy of the May Meeting document and edit it, as follows.
Open the file for May Meeting.
In the File menu, select Save As. The Save As window opens.
Change the name in the File name box to June Meeting and click the Save button.
A new copy of the document is saved with the name June Meeting and the new name appears on the document’s Titlebar. Any work you do is now done on the new JuneMeeting file.
The original May Meeting document remains unchanged where it was originally saved in My Documents or on a floppy disk.
Make the changes to the text by typing in a new date for the June meeting.
When you send a document or file to another person, they may not be able to use it if they do not have the software version that you used to prepare it. It is possible to save documents in StarOffice Writer as an earlier version of StarOffice Writer, as a text document that can open in other applications or, should you require it, as a Web page. Use the following procedure.
Go through the Save process as before until the Save As window appears.
Click in the Save as type box to display a list of available file types.
The most popular options are explained below.
From the menu available in the Save as type options, select the word processor version your recipient uses. Different version options for Writer, e.g. OpenDocument Text, StarOffice 6.0/7 Text Document, StarOffice 6.0/7 Text Document Template, Text, RTF, appear as you scroll down through the options.
Saves the file as plain text. Any formatting in the original document is discarded, but the recipient will at least have access to the text that can then be inserted into other documents and reformatted if necessary. This format can be used by any word processor.
Web page
When you save a document as a Web page, you are saving it using a language known as hypertext mark-up language (HTML) and the document is now ready to be uploaded to the World Wide Web.
Rich text format (RTF)
Rich text format (RTF) can be used by most word processors. It preserves common formatting options such as text size, bold, italics and so on but will not be able to reproduce some more advanced formatting.
Document template
Select OpenDocument Text Template to save a document and all the features you created, such as font size, headings, etc. for future use.
Opening One or Several Documents
Occasionally, you may want to work with or access several documents at one time. It is possible to have several documents open and change from one to the other as your work requires. Start StarOffice Writer if it is not open. To open a document that has already been saved, do the following.
In the File menu, select Open.
The Look in box reference should contain the name of the folder where the file is located. If it has not, locate the folder using the down arrow in the Look in box to select the location where the folder is stored, and then the folder itself.
Select the file with the left button of the mouse.
Click the Open button at the bottom right-hand side of the window.
Recently opened documents or several documents in the same folder can be opened at the same time. Hold the Ctrl key of your keyboard and select each individual file you want to open with the mouse, then click the Open button in the window.
Alternatively, you could right-click the Quickstarter Icon on the task bar
It is possible to have two or more documents open on your desktop. It is also possible to see two documents displayed together. Because they then both share the desktop, a much smaller part of each document is displayed. When you switch between open documents, you normally see them displayed full size on the desktop.
In the following example, you are going to open two documents, May Meeting and June Meeting, and use both the taskbar and Window menu to switch between them.
To work with a document you must activate it in one of three ways. Note that the colouring of the selected document is intense compared to the deactivated document, whose colouring has been lightened. Simply click on a document and it will be selected for editing. Alternatively, you can use the Window menu or the taskbar.
Follow these steps.
Open the May Meeting and June Meeting documents.
The two documents are open in the window, one on top of the other.
On the taskbar, click the document button for June Meeting. This will bring the June Meeting document to the top.
Helpcan be accessed in the Help menu on the Menu bar. It can also be accessed on the Standard toolbar. From here you can choose to show StarOffice Writer Help, use the What’s This? feature or click your mouse on the Help button.
