For latest updates to this readme file, see http://www.openoffice.org/welcome/readme.html
Dear User
This file contains important information about this program. Please read this information very carefully before starting work.
The OpenOffice.org Community, responsible for the development of this product, would like to invite you to participate as a community member. As a new user, you can check out the OpenOffice.org site with helpful user information at
- Microsoft Windows 98, ME, NT (Service Pack 6 or higher), 2000 or XP
- Pentium compatible PC
- 128 MB RAM (256 MB RAM recommended)
- 320 MB (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean versions: 350 MB, multi-language version: 500 MB) available hard disk space
- 800x600 resolution or higher, at least 256 colors
Note: Please be aware that administrator rights are needed for the installation process.
Note for Windows 98 users only: If you choose to install Java during the OpenOffice.org installation program, the installer will ask you to reboot your system. You should either ignore this message or open the OpenOffice.org installation program again after the reboot.
Difficulties starting OpenOffice.org (e.g. applications hang) as well as problems with the screen display are often caused by the graphics card driver. If these problems occur, please update your graphics card driver or try using the graphics driver delivered with your operating system. Difficulties displaying 3D objects can often be solved by deactivating the option "Use OpenGL" under 'Tools - Options - View - 3D view'.
You can install OpenOffice.org 2.0 alongside of an older version of OpenOffice.org. If you later choose to deinstall the older version of OpenOffice.org, you must call the installation program of the newer version and choose 'Repair'. This ensures that the new version is correctly registered in your system.
Please note that copy and paste via clipboard between OpenOffice.org 1.x and OpenOffice.org 2.0 might not work in OpenOffice.org format. If that happens, choose 'Edit - Paste Special' and choose a format other than OpenOffice.org, or open the document in OpenOffice.org 2.0 directly.
Please make sure you have enough free memory in the temporary directory on your system and that read, write and run access rights have been granted. Close all other programs before starting the installation.
If, when starting the system, problems should occur in calling the OpenOffice.org Quickstarter (e.g. invalid link), this is probably due to the fact that the network drive on which the network installation is installed is not yet available.
In most cases, this happens when the network drives are logged in via a login script, thereby establishing the connection for the network drives parallel to running the programs of the autostart group from which the Quickstarter is also started.
To avoid this problem, the network drive should be connected via the system's services. If this is not possible, the link used to call the Quickstarter can be removed from the autostart group of the system, or the Quickstarter can already be disabled when installing the workstation installation. If the system administrator already disabled the Quickstarter during installation of the network installation, then the Quickstarter cannot be selected by the user in a later workstation installation.
Due to a Windows driver issue, you cannot scroll through OpenOffice.org documents when you slide your finger across an ALPS/Synaptics touchpad.
To enable touchpad scrolling, add the following lines to the "C:\Program Files\Synaptics\SynTP\SynTPEnh.ini" configuration file, and restart your computer:
[OpenOffice.org]
FC = "SALFRAME"
SF = 0x10000000
SF |= 0x00004000
Note: The location of the configuration file might vary on different versions of Windows.
If you want to use Ai Squared ZoomText with OpenOffice.org 2.0 , you need version 7.11 or higher. The date of the Ai Squared ZoomText download must be after June 12, 2002 for it to contain all the necessary program enhancements.
In OpenOffice.org you can change the font used for screen display and printing by replacing it with a different font installed on your system. This can be done using the font replacement function. Choose 'Tools - Options - OpenOffice.org - Fonts' to access the font replacement table.
To change the font of the OpenOffice.org user interface, you have to replace the default font "Andale Sans UI" with another font and mark the "always" setting for this replacement.
Refer to the OpenOffice.org Help for a detailed explanation of the dialog.
Only shortcut keys (key combinations) not used by the operating system can be used in OpenOffice.org. If a key combination in OpenOffice.org does not work as described in the OpenOffice.org Help, check if that shortcut is already used by the operating system. To rectify such conflicts, you can change the keys assigned by your operating system. Alternatively, you can change almost any key assignment in OpenOffice.org. For more information on this topic, refer to the OpenOffice.org Help or the Help documentation of your operating system.
When sending a document via 'File - Send - Document as E-mail' or 'Document as PDF Attachment' problems might occur (program crashes or hangs). This is due to the Windows system file "Mapi" (Messaging Application Programming Interface) which causes problems in some file versions. Unfortunately, the problem cannot be narrowed down to a certain version number. For more information visit http://www.microsoft.com to search the Microsoft Knowledge Base for "mapi dll".
The OpenOffice.org Community would very much benefit from your active participation in the development of this important open source project.
As a user, you are already a valuable part of the suite's development process and we would like to encourage you to take an even more active role with a view to being a long-term contributor to the community. Please join and check out the user page at: http://www.openoffice.org
Please take a little time to complete the minimal Product Registration process when you install the software. While registration is optional, we encourage you to register, since the information enables the community to make an even better software suite and address user needs directly. Through its Privacy Policy, the OpenOffice.org Community takes every precaution to safeguard your personal data. If you missed the registration at installation, you can return and register at any time at http://www.openoffice.org/welcome/registration20.html
There is also a User Survey located online which we encourage you to fill out. The User Survey results will help OpenOffice.org move more rapidly in setting new standards for the creation of the next-generation office suite. Through its Privacy Policy, the OpenOffice.org Community takes every precaution to safeguard your personal data.
The OpenOffice.org Web site hosts IssueZilla, our mechanism for reporting, tracking and solving bugs and issues. We encourage all users to feel entitled and welcome to report issues that may arise on your particular platform. Energetic reporting of issues is one of the most important contributions that the user community can make to the ongoing development and improvement of the suite.
You can make major contributions to this important open source project even if you have limited software design or coding experience. Yes, you!
At http://projects.openoffice.org/index.html you will find projects ranging from Localization, Porting and Groupware to some real core coding projects. If you are not a developer, try the Documentation or the Marketing Project. The OpenOffice.org Marketing Project is applying both guerrilla and traditional commercial techniques to marketing open source software, and we are doing it across language and cultural barriers, so you can help just by spreading the word and telling a friend about this office suite.
You can help by joining the Marketing Communications & Information Network here: http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html where you can provide point communication contact with press, media, government agencies, consultants, schools, Linux Users Groups and developers in your country and local community.
For help with the OpenOffice.org 2.0 office suite, take a look at the archives to find questions already answered on the 'users@openoffice.org' mailing list at http://www.openoffice.org/mail_list.html. Alternatively, you can send in your questions to users@openoffice.org. Remember to subscribe to the list to get an email response.
Also check the FAQ section at http://user-faq.openoffice.org/.
The best way to start contributing is to subscribe to one or more of the mailing lists, lurk for a while, and gradually use the mail archives to familiarize yourself with many of the topics covered since the OpenOffice.org source code was released back in October 2000. When you're comfortable, all you need to do is send an email self-introduction and jump right in. If you are familiar with Open Source Projects, check out our To-Dos list and see if there is anything you would like to help with at http://development.openoffice.org/todo.html.
We hope you enjoy working with the new OpenOffice.org 2.0 and will join us online.
