In Tool -> Options, Accessibility Deselect: Use system font for user interface
Config file setting is in ~/.openoffice/1.1.2/user/registry/data/org/openoffice/Office/Common.xcu
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<oor:component-data xmlns:oor="http://openoffice.org/2001/registry" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" oor:name="Common" oor:package="org.openoffice.Office">
<node oor:name="Path">
<node oor:name="Current">
<prop oor:name="OfficeInstall" oor:type="xs:string">
<value>/usr/lib/openoffice</value>
</prop>
</node>
</node>
</oor:component-data>
Inserted before "</oor:component-data>":
<node oor:name="Font"> <node oor:name="SourceViewFont"> <prop oor:name="FontName" oor:type="xs:string"> <value>Bitstream Vera Sans</value> </prop> <prop oor:name="NonProportionalFontsOnly" oor:type="xs:boolean"> <value>false</value> </prop> </node> <node oor:name="Accessibility"> <prop oor:name="IsAllowAnimatedGraphics" oor:type="xs:boolean"> <value>false</value> </prop> <prop oor:name="IsAllowAnimatedText" oor:type="xs:boolean"> <value>false</value> </prop> <prop oor:name="IsSystemFont" oor:type="xs:boolean"> <value>false</value> </prop> </node>
documented on: 2004.08.20
> The fonts for the menus and dialog boxes and buttons etc are this > extremely weird looking font. I have had a bit of a look around the > menus to try to find where this might be changed but I can't find > anything (the almost unreadable menus don't help).
Openoffice Menu Fonts are sometimes to small on high resolution displays. Open the Tool -> Options Menu and enter:
Openoffice.org-Fonts Under Font: type(!) new fontname: Andale Sans UI Under Replace with: select the font you like (Verdana, Helvetica, …)
Openoffice.org-Accessibility Deselect: Use system font for user interface
Openoffice.org-View Scale: Set to 110 or more
The official Openoffice fontguide is on http://www.openoffice.org/FAQs/fontguide.html
Table of Contents
Font antialiasing does not work
Disable antialiased fonts
Antialiased fonts are gone on second and forthcoming start of OpenOffice.org application
Bad quality of screen font rasterization
Adding TrueType or Type1 fonts to OpenOffice.org
Application crashes
Bad font appearance in PDF documents
User interface font looks garbled
Changing the user interface font
Reporting a font related bug
documented on: 2004.08.20
Tue, Jun 29 '04 from: manutter51
I just installed OpenOffice 1.1.2 under OS X Panther, and the fonts, out of the box, looked like bit-blasted heck. But a few minutes of poking around the docs and experimenting yielded the following cure:
Open up any new OpenOffice document (text is probably easiest).
Under the "Tools" menu, select "Options."
Under the heading "OpenOffice.org," select "Fonts"
Check the "Apply Replacement Table" checkbox
Underneath the checkbox line, in the "Font" combobox, type "Andale Sans UI" (it wasn't in my popup menu, I had to type it in by hand)
In the "Replace With" combobox, type or select "Interface User"
Click the green check mark to add that to your list of substitutions, and make sure the "Always" and "Screen" checkboxes are checked in the listbox, and then click OK.
Voila, a big improvement.
THANK YOU! I hate to shout,…but THANK YOU! I just received an order of 100 iBooks for my school and was trying to figure out how I was going to buy 100 more copies of Office because the fonts looked so horrible in OpenOffice,…you just saved me $5000!!
For something a bit more graphical, try AbiWord, which is a very nice GPLed word processor. It seems to be able to load Word files fine. At a first glance I can't immediately see how to save them in that format, but a review in http://www.wininformant.com/display.asp?ID=2213 (amusing location) says that it can, as well as its native XML-based format and a number of others. It's also distributed with Debian, or you can download it in source or binary form from:
http://www.abisource.com/ http://www.abisource.com/dev_download.phtml http://download.abisource.com/releases/0.7.11/linux/i386/
unpack & run "install.sh"
will prompt for installation dir Installation path for AbiSuite [/usr/local/AbiSuite]: /opt/wp/abiSuite
Optionally can create symbolic links in another dir. Suggest to create them manually, 'cause it create links with absolute path.
cd /opt/bin lns /opt/wp/abiSuite/bin/AbiWord lns /opt/wp/abiSuite/bin/AbiWord abiword
