OpenOffice.org has all kinds of intelligent assistants to help you in your work, all of which have names beginning with “auto”.
Here we introduce you to just a few of these auto-functions. For detailed explanations,refer to the OpenOffice.org Help.
Using AutoCorrect and AutoFormat
OpenOffice.org can either format your documents as you type or afterward, plus correct typing errors. AutoFormat and AutoCorrect will work while you type thereby letting you draft your documents much more efficiently. Here are a couple of examples.
• AutoCorrect is useful if you often make the same typing errors. For example, if you tend to capitalize not only the first letter of some words but also the second, simply select the AutoCorrect function that corrects mistakes of this sort while you type.
• AutoFormat formats your texts. One AutoFormat feature automatically will detect paragraphs beginning with a hyphen followed by a tab or space, and reformat the
paragraph as a bullet point. The automatic bulleting is then applied to any paragraphs that follow as well. Automatic bulleting ends when you do not enter any text in a new
paragraph, but only press Return.
In text documents, AutoFormat can be toggled on and off by selecting Format >
AutoFormat. In the popup, check the While Typing command so that AutoFormat works as
you type. Writer can automatically format the whole document or the current selection at a later time, check the menu command Apply. Selecting the Apply and Edit Changes command let's you see all document changes made via AutoFormat. You then have the choice of accepting or rejecting all changes or reviewing each change separately.
You may also select and set the options in Tools > AutoCorrect/AutoFormat. AutoCorrect offers many options that you can selectively turn on and off. Some of these offer different methods for formatting while typing and post-processing. The Replace and Exceptions lists are language dependent. OpenOffice.org first searches in the list of the language of the text, then the list for the higher ranking language family, and finally in all installed languages (For example, first in "English (US)", then in "English", then in "All Languages").
The following graphic shows the various functions available in this dialogue. A detailed explanation of each function is given in OpenOffice.org Help.
In addition to the functions shown here, you can also select Custom Quotes. This means that all quotation marks that you enter as a simple computer character with (Shift)(2) are
automatically turned into correct typographer's quotes. You yourself can choose the characters to be used for this purpose.
Turning off URL Recognition by AutoCorrect
When you enter text,OpenOffice.org automatically recognizes a word that may be a URL and replaces the word with a hyperlink. OpenOffice.org formats the hyperlink with direct font attributes (color and underline) the properties of which are obtained from certain Character Styles.
Should you not want OpenOffice.org to automatically recognize URLs as you are typing, you may turn off this feature using one of the following methods.
Undo URL recognition
1. While typing, you notice that some text is just been automatically converted into a hyperlink, press Ctrl+Z to undo this formatting.
2. If you do not notice this conversion until later, select the hyperlink and choose
Format > Default.
Turn off URL recognition
1. Load a document of the type for which you want to modify the URL recognition. If you want to modify the URL recognition for text documents, open a text document. 2. In OpenOffice.org Writer select Tools > AutoCorrect/AutoFormat or AutoCorrect ...
for other modules.
3. In the AutoCorrect dialogue, choose the Options tab.
4. If you deselect URL Recognition, words will no longer be automatically replaced with hyperlinks.
In OpenOffice.org Writer there are two checkboxes in front of URL Recognition. The field in the first column is for modifying in a post-edit session while the field in the second column enables AutoCorrect to make the corrections as you type.
Other AutoCorrect functions
The AutoCorrect > Replace tab has a default list of items that will be automatically
replaced provided that Use replacement table on the Options tab page is checked. You can add all of your most frequent typos to this list and have AutoCorrect replace them with the right text. You can also use this feature to enter special characters or phrases that are keyboard intensive to do normally. For example, when you type (C), this is immediately turned into the copyright symbol.
Note: The fonts supplied with OpenOffice.org include the Euro symbol. If you work with other fonts, you can easily insert the Euro symbol from another font using AutoCorrect. When working in a text document, choose Insert > Special Character. Look for the Euro symbol and click OK.
Select the Euro symbol. Choose Tools > AutoCorrect/AutoFormat. The selected Euro symbol has already been inserted in the Replace with text box (although it may not appear if the system font used in the dialogue does not contain this symbol).
Enter in the Abbreviation text box eu, for example. The Text only box should not be marked. Click New. Now close the dialogue. As soon as you enter the eu followed by a space or at the end of a sentence, a Euro symbol
will be inserted.
On the Exceptions tab, you can enter exceptions for two types of automatic correction: • Assuming you have enabled the Replace option to automatically start each sentence with
a capital (uppercase) letter, you then enter “e.g.” and follow this with a lowercase “d” then the “d” would be capitalized. So to compensate for this behaviour you can enter “e.g.” into the Exception list to prevent this type of correction.
• Assuming you have enabled the Replace option that automatically converts the second of two capital letters at the beginning of a word to a lowercase letter, then you can enter exceptions that are correctly written with two capital letters, such as PC and CD.
These exceptions can also be automatically included by selecting the Autoinclude
checkboxes on the Exceptions tab. When this feature is enabled and you then use an idiom in your text that is automatically corrected but which you do not want corrected, you need to immediately press Ctrl+Z. Doing this not only undoes the automatic “correction”, but also sees to it that this particular “correction” will not be made automatically again in the session. AutoCorrect can also be used to replace one word or abbreviation with something more appropriate. For example, “ASAP” with the text “as soon as possible”; however, the OpenOffice.org AutoText function is a better choice for doing this.