How-to: Working wonders with OpenOffice 2.0's Web Wizard

I can't believe nobody told me about the Web Wizard in OpenOffice.org 2.0. Why haven't I been reading about it on all the blogs? It's one of the coolest new features in 2.0.

I feel like my boyfriend of two years just casually mentioned for the first time that he has a condo in Aspen. that I've discovered an old savings account I had totally forgotten about.

With Web Wizard in OpenOffice.org (OO.o) 2.0, you just choose File > Wizard > Web Page to open a whole new world of Web publishing, batch conversion to HTML and PDF, and automatic formatting.

Put this together with the fact that links in OO.o Writer documents, including linked tables of contents, retain their properties when you convert to PDF, and the potential increases exponentially.

The name of the navigation to the Web Wizard is the same as the previous versions of the software. However, back then, the Web Wizard was nothing but a quick way to get some prefab column layouts and color schemes. In 2.0, it's so much bigger.

About the Web Wizard

Here's what the Web Wizard can do:

So, here's what these capabilities allow you to do:

Using the Web Wizard

Here's how you use the wizard:

Looking at output From the Web Wizard

Let's look at what a few of the possible outputs look like. We'll start with OpenOffice.org Writer files, with a frameset navigation index page, converted to HTML.

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Now, let's look at OpenOffice.org Writer files, with a frameset navigation index page, converted to PDF.

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Excited yet? I hope so. The Web Wizard is a good, flexible system with implications for reducing workload by a huge amount.

OpenOffice.org isn't really known for its killer Web page development features, and, of course, Web Wizard doesn't turn it into DreamWeaver. But if you need quick conversion of existing documents, rather than delicately nuanced Web design, this Web Wizard feature is definitely for you.

Just one final note

On some Windows systems, this feature will work one time but not additional times. A message will prompt you to run Repair. You can try, but it probably won't work. If this is your situation, the bug has already been filed with the OpenOffice.org project team, so the best you can try is to install it on another machine, or wait until the next update version comes out.

Solveig Haugland has worked as an instructor, course developer, author and technical writer in the high-tech industry for 15 years, for employers including Microsoft Great Plains, Sun Microsystems,and BEA. Currently, Solveig is a StarOffice and OpenOffice.org instructor, author, and freelance technical writer. She is also co-author, with Floyd Jones, of three books: Staroffice 5.2 Companion, Staroffice 6.0 Office Suite Companion and OpenOffice.Org 1.0 Resource Kit, published by Prentice Hall PTR. Her fourth book, on OpenOffice.org 2.0, is coming this summer. For more tips on working in OpenOffice, visit Solveig's OpenOffice blog.

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