The most common way to launch any component of OOo is by using the system menu, the standard menu from which most applications are started.
On Windows, it is called the Start menu. On GNOME, it is called the Applications menu. On KDE it is identified by the KDE logo. On Mac OS X, it is the Applications menu.
When OOo was installed on your computer, in most cases a menu entry for each component was added to your system menu. (If you are using a Mac, see note below.) The exact name and location of these menu entries depends on the operating system and graphical user interface.
Note for Mac users - You should see the OpenOffice.org icon in the Applications folder. When you double-click this icon, a text document opens in Writer. To open the other components (Draw, Calc, Impress, Base), go to the File menu of the Writer window and select the component you want. OOo does not automatically put a shortcut icon on the desktop, but you can add one if you wish. If you don’t know how to add shortcut icons for launching programs, please consult the help for your operating system.
Starting from an existing document
You can start OOo by double-clicking the filename of an OOo document in a file manager such as Windows Explorer. The appropriate component of OOo will start and the document will be loaded.
Note for Windows users - If you have associated Microsoft Office file types with OOo, then when you double-click on a *.doc (Word) file, it opens in Writer; *.xls (Excel) files open in Calc, and *.ppt (Powerpoint) files open in Impress. If you did not associate the file types, then when you double-click on a Microsoft Word document, it opens in Microsoft Word (if Word is installed on your computer), Excel files open in Excel, and Powerpoint files open in Powerpoint.
Using the Quickstarter under Windows
The Quickstarter is an icon that is placed in the Windows system tray during system startup. It indicates that OpenOffice.org has been loaded and is ready to use. (The Quickstarter loads library .DLL files required by OOo, thus shortening the startup time for OOo components by about half.) If the Quickstarter is disabled, see “Reactivating the Quickstarter” if you want to enable it.
Using the Quickstarter icon
Right-click the Quickstarter icon in the system tray to open a pop-up menu from which you can open a new document, open the Templates and Documents dialog, or choose an existing document to open. You can also double-click the Quickstarter icon to display the Templates and Documents dialog.
Disabling the Quickstarter
To close the Quickstarter, right-click on the icon in the system tray, and then click Exit Quickstarter on the pop-up menu. The next time the computer is restarted, the Quickstarter will be loaded again.
To prevent OpenOffice.org from loading during system startup, deselect the Load OpenOffice.org during system start-up item on the pop-up menu. You might want to do this if your computer has insufficient memory, for example.
Reactivating the Quickstarter
If the Quickstarter has been disabled, you can reactivate it by selecting the Load OpenOffice.org during system start-up checkbox in Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Memory.
Using the Quickstarter in Linux
Some installations of OpenOffice.org under Linux have a Quickstarter that looks and acts like the one described above for Windows (the checkbox on the Memory page is labeled Enable systray quickstarter).
Preloading OOo under Linux/KDE
In Linux/KDE, you can use KDocker to have OOo loaded and ready for use at startup. KDocker is not part of OOo; it is a generic “systray app docker” that is helpful if you open OOo often.
Starting from the command line
You may want to start OOo from the command line (using the keyboard instead of the mouse). Why? Well, by using the command line, you have more control over what happens when OOo is started. For example, using the command line, you can tell Writer to load a document and print it immediately, or to start without showing the splash screen.
There is more than one way to start OOo from the command line, depending on whether you have installed a customized version or the standard download from the OOo website. If you installed using the download on the OOo website, you can start Writer by typing at the command line:
soffice -writer or swriter
Writer will start and create a new document. Likewise, you can start other OOo components from the command line:
To see a list of options you can use when starting Writer at the command line, type:
soffice -?
Below is a list of some of the more popular options.
If you have a customized version of OOo (such as the one provided by Linux Mandrake or Gentoo), you can start Writer by typing at the command line:
oowriter
