(Somewhat) Infrequently Asked Questions

Why wasn't my really cool Impress template accepted?

I have probably rejected most of the templates that have been submitted. The problem is that most of the submissions are basically some very nice digital photo put onto the master slide of a template with no other changes or at most just some font color changes.

However nice the digital photos are, that almost invariably makes a bad impress template. An impress master slide should look attractive, but rather than drawing attention to itself, it should draw attention to the text. Digital photos do exactly the opposite.

How do I install the files I download (except galleries)?

There are two ways to use the files you download.

First, you can just open them in OpenOffice. The template files will open to an "Untitled" document. The other files will just open. In fact, if your browser gives you the option of opening the files when you download them, you can simply launch OpenOffice.org right from the web browser and use the templates directly.
Second, you can install the template files in template directory. Just where this directory is depends on your operating system and installation. To find out what directory your template should go in, open an OOo application and click Tools/Options from the menu bar. Open the "OpenOffice.org" node in the options tree and click Paths. Find the "Templates" entry. Copy the templates to one of these directories. Then it will show up as a template inside of OpenOffice. This is particularly nice with SImpress, as your templates just become visible inside of the application itself.

How do I install galleries?

Galleries come in a .tar.gz file containing three files. These files should be uncompressed and copied to one of your "Gallery" directories. Please click Tools/Options/OpenOffice.org/Paths in an OpenOffice application and look at the "Gallery" entry to see what directories you can copy them to. After you've copied the files to a gallery directory and restarted OpenOffice, you will see them listed in the gallery. To see the gallery, click "Tools/Gallery." If the gallery is open but minimized, you can also click on the small down arrow below the filename at the top left of your application.

Note: It is important not to overwrite any existing files in your gallery directory that might have the same name. To help avoid this, all galleries you download from OOExtras will have the name sd2XX.* and will be unique. In other words, the number of all our galleries will be start in the 200's.

Note: If you are using Windows, you will have to exit the application loader in the system tray before the new galleries will appear. You can still use the application loader, you just have to quit and restart it.

If you have any questions on this, please feel free to join and ask a question in our mailing list.

How do I contribute?

Click here for more information and the upload form.

What are your submission policies?

These are still evolving, so you'll see some entries that probably break these guidelines, but here's the basic principle right now:

An entry should either show a non-trivial use of features in OOo. If an entry does not show a non-trivial use but is either really attractive (like in an Impress template or artwork) or really useful (like some layout in a spreadsheet), this is okay.
All impress templates go in the same category, regardless of language, if its purpose is to be a template for presentation. If the impress file is for some other purpose (like the artwork presentation in the artwork section), this it will get categorized elsewhere.
Translating one template into another language will get it a new entry as long as the translation is non-trivial. In other words, changing one or two words into another language will not necessarily get it a separate entry. Translating a paragraph of directions almost certainly will.

Can't we just copy templates from template sites of other Office Suites and use those?

If the license agreement of that site makes you agree forbids you to use their templates for reasons other than personal or business correspondence, then no, we can't. We are interested in original templates and artwork that we can distribute freely under the LGPL. Please don't copy from others. Make better ones.

If you recognize templates copied and imported from other office suites, please email me (tlbauer at users.sourceforge.net) so I can remove them.

Why LGPL

The idea is that you can take it and use it to create proprietary documents, but if you are going to distribute it as a template, you have to give it away for free.

Can we send you a truckload of money for setting up this cool site?

This is actually a pretty infrequently asked question. The answer is no. If you want to support this work, please send me a really nice template or sample document I can include.

Please submit questions and comments to ooextras.@smalldataproblem.org