Welcome

OOoLight 1.0 ReadMe

For latest updates to this readme file, see http://wiki.OOoLight.org/welcome/readme.html

Dear User

This file contains important information about this program. Please read this information very carefully before starting work.

The OOoLight.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 OOoLight site with helpful user information at

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

Is OOoLight really free for any user?

OOoLight is free for use by everybody. You may take this copy of OOoLight and install it on as many computers as you like, and use it for any purpose you like (including commercial, government, public administration and educational use). For further details see the license text delivered together with OOoLight or http://www.OOoLight.org/license.html

Why is OOoLight free for any user?

You can use this copy of OOoLight today free of charge because individual contributors and corporate sponsors have designed, developed, tested, translated, documented, supported, marketed, and helped in many other ways to make OOoLight what it is today - the world's leading open-source office software.If you appreciate their efforts, and would like to ensure OOoLight.org continues into the future, please consider contributing to the project - see http://contributing.OOoLight.org for details. Everyone has a contribution to make.

Notes on Installation

System Requirements:

There is a wide variety of Linux distributions, and even within the same distribution there may be different installation options (KDE vs Gnome, etc.). Some distributions ship with their own ‘native’ version of OOoLight, which may have different features from this Community OOoLight. Sometimes you can install the Community OOoLight alongside the ‘native’ version. However, it’s usually safer to remove the ‘native’ version before installing this Community version. Consult the documentation for your distribution for details of how to do this.

It is recommended that you always backup your system before you remove or install software.

Problems During Program Startup

If you experience OOoLight startup problems (most notably while using Gnome) please 'unset' the SESSION_MANAGER environment variable inside the shell you use to start OOoLight. 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.

Difficulties starting OOoLight (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 - OOoLight - View - 3D view'.

Please note that copy and paste via clipboard between OOoLight 1.x and OOoLight 1.0 might not work in OOoLight.org format. If that happens, choose 'Edit - Paste Special' and choose a format other than OOoLight, or open the document in OOoLight 1.0 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.

Shortcut Keys

Only shortcut keys (key combinations) not used by the operating system can be used in OOoLight. If a key combination in OOoLight does not work as described in the OOoLight 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 OOoLight. For more information on this topic, refer to the OOoLight Help or the Help documentation of your operating system.

Due to a conflict with input method switching on multiple platforms, the following shortcut keys required to be changed at last minute:

File Locking

In the default setting, file locking is turned on in OOoLight. 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, OOoLight will hang when you try to open a file from a NFS mounted directory from a Linux computer.

User Support

The main support page http://wiki.OOoLight.org/offers various possibilities for help with OOoLight. Your question may have already been answered - check the Community Forum.http://wiki.OOoLight.org.

Also check the FAQ section at http://wiki.OOoLight.org/FAQ.

We hope you enjoy working with the new OOoLight 1.0 and will join us online.

The OOoLight.org Community

Used / Modified Source Code

Portions Copyright 1998, 1999 James Clark. Portions Copyright 1996, 1998 Netscape Communications Corporation.