The hell that is open office

Fizban140

I want to stab the person who made this in the eye, with a broken pencil. The really splintered wood kind. Fuck this program.


Anyways I am trying to answer some rhetoric questions for english and I have to do the standardized format (mla or something) but still number and list the questions like so

1. Question 1
Answer 1

3. Question 3
Answer 3

Well this is very fucking hard for open office to figure out, it wants to keep numbering them in order (I think there is a way around this in the option but it keeps resetting on 5) and keeps indenting them all and they ARE NOT suppose to all be indented onto the number. How do I make this work?

Also I can't figure out how to edit paragraphs, like I have to delete everything to fix something in the middle. If I click the middle of something and hit space it erases what was there and replaces it with a space. I never though a program could make me feel handicapped, thanks a lot open office.

This is by far the most frustrating thing I have ever done in my life, and I have done some really stupid shit in the military. It is litterally like I have dicks instead of fingers and I am trying type with 10 limp dicks instead of fingers, all I do when i try and fix a mistake is fuck everything. It all gets so fucking fucked, then fixing that fuck up fucks up even more.

AresProphet

Fizban140 wrote: »

I want to stab the person who made this in the eye, with a broken pencil. The really splintered wood kind. Fuck this program.


Anyways I am trying to answer some rhetoric questions for english and I have to do the standardized format (mla or something) but still number and list the questions like so

1. Question 1
Answer 1

3. Question 3
Answer 3

Well this is very fucking hard for open office to figure out, it wants to keep numbering them in order (I think there is a way around this in the option but it keeps resetting on 5) and keeps indenting them all and they ARE NOT suppose to all be indented onto the number. How do I make this work?

Also I can't figure out how to edit paragraphs, like I have to delete everything to fix something in the middle. If I click the middle of something and hit space it erases what was there and replaces it with a space. I never though a program could make me feel handicapped, thanks a lot open office.

I don't know about the first bit, it's something I've never had to mess with in OO.

The last part, though. Trying hitting the INSERT key on your keyboard.

Fizban140

The dicks have been removed, thank you.

Dicks everywhere.

I can't figure out how to get a page number at the top, just those fucking headers. God open office is shit, I hope this person dies an extremely painful death for releasing something so shit.

Druhim

Open Office is actually pretty solid and robust, especially for free software.

And I found this in a few seconds on google.

http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/OOoAuthors_User_Manual/Writer_Guide/Page_numbering

corky842

For the page number:
Insert -> Fields -> Page number

For the numbering, don't add the numbers until you have everything typed. Then you can add the numbering and it won't try to add its annoying formatting.

bsjezz

i haven't used it myself, but if you're having problems with openoffice you might want to try libre office - looks like it's fast becoming the new default for open source office suites

edit: also sounds like it's to a large degree the same code, so it might not be worth the change if it's a hassle

Doc

I use google docs. It's not as feature-rich, but it mostly does what you want it to do, and you don't have to worry so much about where your docs are stored.

I only use Open Office if I can't get online for whatever reason.

jclast

Just like Word, if it applies an auto-format hit ctrl-z to undo that. If you're a fast typer you might lose a word or two in the undo, but it's better than raging about it.

Ruckus

bsjezz wrote: »

i haven't used it myself, but if you're having problems with openoffice you might want to try libre office - looks like it's fast becoming the new default for open source office suites

edit: also sounds like it's to a large degree the same code, so it might not be worth the change if it's a hassle

LibreOffice is OpenOffice since Sun got bought by Oracle.

bowen

Yeah googledocs is the key to your sanity, if you have internet access.

RadicalTurnip

Not too familiar with open office, but does Shift+enter work instead of the hard enter? Or Ctrl+enter? (So that it doesn't indent automatically)

Delzhand

ZoHo is another alternative. It's a bit more full featured than Google Docs, but it's still online. I used it a lot as an english major when I had specifically defined formatting requirements.

Generally I prefer Google Docs, but I have zero complaints about ZoHo.

brain operator

corky842 wrote: »

For the numbering, don't add the numbers until you have everything typed. Then you can add the numbering and it won't try to add its annoying formatting.

Really, this goes for any and all formatting you want to do. Always get as much content as possible down before starting on formatting, regardless of the software you use.

Also, if one of your issues is the Insert key you're on rather shaky ground when you call a program shit. The Insert key has nothing to do with the text editor you're using, it works the same for everything. Can I suggest taking a deep breath and relaxing a bit? Popping a coronary is not going to help you get this done any better or faster. I'm pretty sure that if you'd approached these problems a little more rationally you'd have figured out the solutions to them yourself in no time.