OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/19924/Ten_Fantastic_Keyboard_Shortcuts_in_OpenOffice_org Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2012, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:57:16 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com The keyboard is your friend http://www.osnews.com/thread?320280 http://www.osnews.com/thread?320280 First of all, I have to admit that i'm a keyboard guy. :-) Keyboard shortcuts are fine - for those who are familiar with the keyboard and its key combinations.

Most shortcuts mentioned in the article are really ordinary functions that you find across word prrocessors since... 1990, or even earlier, when text processors were in text mode. They are not fantastic in their relationship to OpenOffice - they are standard stuff. This includes:
- Inserting a page break
- Moving around the document
- Selecting without the mouse

Regarding the page break, let me add that there are three main kinds of breaks, associated with the return key:
1. forced line break: Shift + Return
2. paragraph break (or new enum or list entry): Enter
3. page break: Ctrl + Return

Regarding movement and selection, you can apply any from the movement keys together with the Shift key in order to select, for example Ctrl + Left / Right moves word-wise, and Ctrl + Shift + Left / Right selects word-wise.

Some of them were new to me:
- Moving paragraphs (never needed this)
- Applying styles and formatting as you type
- Applying list levels as you type
- Inserting a non-numbered paragraph into a numbered list
- Superscript and Subscript (with varying key combinations in other applications, for example Ctrl + H, Ctrl + T in the german version of WinWord 1.1a, there paragraph adjustment Ctrl + L, Ctrl + Z, Ctrl + R and Ctrl + B according to the german translations (hoch, tief, linksbündig, zentriert, rechtsbündig, Blocksatz))
- Moving objects and images

The article was an interesting inspiration to me. Allthough I do most of my text processing stuff with LaTeX, I have several customers using OpenOffice who will be glad about a hardcopy of this article.

Still most important: Ctrl + S; reason: "I didn't know I have to save my documents, I thought the PC would take care of them by itself." :-) Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Doc Pain) Comments Fullscreen http://www.osnews.com/thread?320296 http://www.osnews.com/thread?320296 For fullscreen, you can type (SHIFT)(CTRL)(J).

Sometimes the best GUI--is no GUI.Edited 2008-06-26 21:36 UTC Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (BrendaEM) Comments RE: The keyboard is your friend http://www.osnews.com/thread?320298 http://www.osnews.com/thread?320298 Amen to that. Bring back the keyboard short-cuts. The mouse has it's place, but I the keyboard in many situations is far more efficient.

I'd love to see some regular articles on OSNews about keyboard shortcuts with cheat sheets. Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (flanque) Comments How about Alt-Ctrl-Del? http://www.osnews.com/thread?320322 http://www.osnews.com/thread?320322 They forgot that one. Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (tomcat) Comments RE: How about Alt-Ctrl-Del? http://www.osnews.com/thread?320426 http://www.osnews.com/thread?320426
[How about Alt-Ctrl-Del?] They forgot that one.


In OpenOffice? What exactly does it do? :-) Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Doc Pain) Comments RE[2]: How about Alt-Ctrl-Del? http://www.osnews.com/thread?320427 http://www.osnews.com/thread?320427 Ctl-Alt-Backspace is cool on unix-like OS's. It helps unclutter your screen. ;} Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fretinator) Comments RE[3]: How about Alt-Ctrl-Del? http://www.osnews.com/thread?320441 http://www.osnews.com/thread?320441
Ctl-Alt-Backspace is cool on unix-like OS's. It helps unclutter your screen. ;}


Well, that's common knowledge in UNIX / Linux world. :-)

When I press Ctrl-Alt-Del in OpenOffice, a system terminal (root) pops up. Is this a new OpenOffice feature? Or is it a bird? Or an airplane? No, it is Heinz, the meteor! :-) No, of course not, it's just a simple setting in WindowMaker's keyboard control dialog. Any key combination can gain priority and activate a WM function or an external program just as you wish.

To complete stupidity at this point, I think Ctrl-Alt-Del is so important that there are even keyboards for this key combination:

http://pauillac.inria.fr/~xleroy/stuff/ctrl-alt-del.jpeg

And because we're talking about keyboards right now, don't miss the StupidaKeyboard:

http://www.myl.ro/forum/sources/Gallery/display.php?t=f&id=247&...

Sometimes, I would be glad to hand such great equipment to certain kinds of users. :-) Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Doc Pain) Comments