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Welcome
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OpenOffice.org 2.0 ReadMe
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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 

http://www.openoffice.org/about_us/introduction.html 

Also read the sections below about getting involved in the OpenOffice.org project. 

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Notes on Installation
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System Requirements:

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.

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Problems During Program Startup on Gnome
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If you experience OpenOffice.org startup problems (most notably while using Gnome) please 'unset' the SESSION_MANAGER environment variable inside the shell you use to start OpenOffice.org. This can be done by adding the line "unset SESSION_MANAGER" to the beginning of the soffice shell script found in the "[office folder]/program" directory.

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Changing the User Interface Font
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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.

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Shortcut Keys
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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.

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File Locking
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In the default setting, file locking is turned on in OpenOffice.org. To deactivate it, you have to set the appropriate environment variables SAL_ENABLE_FILE_LOCKING=0 and export SAL_ENABLE_FILE_LOCKING. These entries are already in enabled form in the soffice script file.

Warning: The activated file locking feature can cause problems with Solaris 2.5.1 and 2.7 used in conjunction with Linux NFS 2.0. If your system environment has these parameters, we strongly recommend that you avoid using the file locking feature. Otherwise, OpenOffice.org will hang when you try to open a file from a NFS mounted directory from a Linux computer.

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Used / Modified Source Code
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Portions Copyright 1998, 1999 James Clark. Portions Copyright 1996, 1998 Netscape Communications Corporation.

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Getting Involved 
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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 

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Registration 
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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 
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User Survey 
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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.

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Report Bugs & Issues 
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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. 

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Subscribe 
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Here are a few of the Project mailing lists to which you can subscribe at http://www.openoffice.org/mail_list.html
- News: announce@openoffice.org *recommended to all users* (light traffic) 
- User support: users@openoffice.org *recommended to new users* (heavy traffic) 
- Main user forum: discuss@openoffice.org *easy way to lurk on discussions* (heavy) 
- Marketing project: dev@marketing.openoffice.org *beyond development* (getting heavy) 
- General code contributor list: dev@openoffice.org (moderate/heavy) 

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Join one or more Projects
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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.

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User Support
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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/.

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Way to Start
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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.

The OpenOffice.org Community



