Running Linux, 5th Edition - Matthias Kalle Dalheimer [128]
Password-protecting documents
You can secure OOoWriter documents from unwanted access by saving files with password protection turned on. When saving with File → Save As, simply check the "Save with password" box and enter and confirm your password when you are prompted to do so during the save.
To turn off whole document password protection at any time, simply choose File → Save As, uncheck the "Save with password" box, and complete the save.
OOoWriter offers a variety of ways to protect your documents against alterations to revision markings, sections, frames, graphics, objects, indexes, and tables. Consult the system Help under "passwords : protecting content."
OOoWriter Customization
OpenOffice offers many ways to customize its settings. A quick browse of the five tabs under OOoWriter's Tools → Configure (Menu, Keyboard, Status bar, Toolbars, Events) offers a good sense of the scope of OOoWriter's customization possibilities for the advanced user or system administrator.
OOoWriter toolbar customization
The workflow habits and nature of the business of each organization dictate the shape of its desktop toolset. So wide latitude in toolbar customization can help system administrators or power users bring the most frequently used toolbars or object elements to the top to increase productivity for themselves or all users in the workgroup.
In addition to the default toolbars available out of the box (main menu, function bar, object bar and main toolbar) the following additional toolbars are available through customization: table object bar, numbering object bar, frame object bar, draw object bar, control bar, text object bar/graphics, Bezier object bar, graphics object bar, objects, text object bar/Web, frame object bar/Web, graphics object bar/Web, object/Web, and user-defined no.1.
You can hide any of the toolbars (except main menu) by unchecking their names in the top half of the context menu that opens when you right-click in the empty space within any of the toolbars (Figure 8-20).
Figure 8-20. The context menu for configuring toolbars
You can further rearrange elements and redesign toolbars to your personal or workgroup preference by choosing any of the other four choices in the bottom half of the contextual menu: Visible Buttons, Configure, Customize, and Reset. Changes made using these commands apply to the specific toolbar on which you right-clicked to call the context menu.
Adding an OOoWriter icon on the desktop or taskbar panel
Launching OOoWriter with a quick double-click of an icon is usually faster and preferable to wading through a series of cascading menus. You can add separate Launchers to open each of the OpenOffice modules directly. Here's the easiest way to set up a launcher specifically for OOoWriter on both your desktop workspace or the edge panel across the top or bottom of your desktop. The example is given from the GNOME environment; KDE will be different.
Right-click on an open space on the edge panel and select Add to Panel → Launcher from menu → Office → OpenOffice Text Document (the path may vary across different Linux distributions). This will place a OOoWriter icon onto that location on your Taskbar Panel. To add either an OOoCalc or OOoImpress icon, simply choose OpenOffice Spreadsheet or OpenOffice Presentation in the last step.
To add the same Launcher icon to the desktop space, simply drag and drop the OOoWriter icon you've just created on your taskbar panel onto your desktop workspace. This places a duplicate Launcher icon on the desktop, if that location is useful to you, and you can remove the taskbar panel icon if you wish by right-clicking it and selecting Remove From Panel on the context menu. To remove a desktop icon, right-click it and select Move to Trash in the context menu.
Adjusting unpopular default settings
OpenOffice is set by default to automatically complete