Saving Image Files

This is where things get a little tricky. Remember when I said that OOo treats images as part of a page or presentation? That's how it likes to save them, too. If you select File > Save As while you're working with an image file, you'll end up with a file type that works only with OpenOffice.org, not an image file that can be opened by all kinds of picture-editing software. So, being a bit tricky yourself, if you plan to use an image file in anything other than an OOo document or presentation, you export it to the file format you want. Instead of choosing Save As when you want to save your graphics file all by itself instead of as part of something else, select File > Export. This brings up the Export dialog box and a long list of graphics file format choices.

Choosing File > Export.

If you're an experienced artist or Web designer, you'll see most of your favorites hereeven Macromedia Flash. If you don't know one graphics file format from another, the safest choice is JPEG. This is the format used by most digital cameras. Virtually all known graphics programs and Web browsers, for all operating systems, can read JPEG pictures.

Exporting a graphic.

You need to select only two more options if you decide to save your image in JPEG format: Quality and Color Resolution. The default quality is 75%, which is good enough for Web publishing, but unless you're sure this is all you'll do with this graphic, it's probably better to choose 100%. You can always lower the quality later, but after you've lowered the quality, you cannot raise it.

In the Grayscale versus True Colors choice, it's better to choose True Colors for much the same reason: You can always turn a color image into a black-and-white one later, but you can't add color into an image you've saved in black and white.

The JPEG options dialog box.

All you need to do now is pick a name for your file, decide which directory and folder are the best place to put it, and click Save. Your picture is now ready to liven up your next text document, slide presentation, spreadsheet, or Web page.