Turning Off Annoying Features

If you weren't charmed or impressed by the features in the section on managing the automatic features, here's how to just turn them off.

Note

Because some features have a Schroedinger-like capability of being annoying or not depending on how you look at them, see also the following, not included in this section: Selecting the Open and Save Dialog Boxes to Use on page 131, Configuring What Key to Press to Accept AutoSuggestion on page 128, Good Sources of Information Online on page 39, Repairing Damaged Installations on page 40, Disappearing Icons and Menu Items on page 99, Setting Up Security on page 149, Using Automatic Spellcheck on page 191, Preventing OpenOffice.org From Opening MS Office and HTML Files on page 152, and Automatically Saving at a Specified Interval on page 156.

Turning Off the Help Agent

The program offers its own context-sensitive help system called the Help Agent (which is actually a useful feature, but it can be distracting if it pops up constantly). In theory it's similar to the Microsoft Office Assistant (the paper clip). By default, just about every time you start to perform a new task, the Help Agent icon pops up in the lower right corner. Click on it to get information specific to the task you're trying to perform ( assuming you close the window each time it launches).

The program lets you turn off the Help Agent for all topics.

1. Choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > General.

2. In the Help Agent section of the window, deselect the Activate option (see Figure 5-34).

   Figure 5-34. Turning off the Help Agent

   

3. If you just want to restrict the amount of time the Agent spends displayed, change the number of seconds.

4. Click OK. You can reset Help Agent to its default behavior by selecting the Reset to default start settings option and clicking OK.

Preventing and Removing Automatic Hyperlinking of URLs

We've all been there. You put in a URL like www.mymoneymakingscheme.com , and now it's all underlined and hyperlinked and every time you select it, it opens the Web site.

How do you make it normal text again? Just follow these steps.

1. Turn off URL recognition. Choose Tools > AutoCorrect/AutoFormat, then click the Options tab. Deselect both URL Recognition options.

2. Click next to the misbehaving hyperlinked URL.

3. Hold down the Shift key and press the appropriate left or right arrow key to highlight the URL.

4. Then choose Format > Default.

   

Dealing With That Series of # Symbols Turning Into a Double Line

A series of # symbols is a keyboard short cut to creating a solid line below a paragraph in a text document. To switch it back to # symbols, select the line and choose Format -> Default.

Turning Off Auto Completion as You Type

As you type in a text or HTML document, the program tries to guess what you're typing and inserts the rest of the words automatically. Most of the time the words it completes aren't the words you really want. To turn this feature off:

1. With a text or HTML document open, select Tools > AutoCorrect/AutoFormat.

2. Select the Word Completion tab.

3. Deselect the Complete Words option and click OK.

To use it and configure the key to press to accept the suggestion, see Managing AutoCompletion on page 127 and Configuring What Key to Press to Accept AutoSuggestion on page 128.

Turning Off Everything Automatic

This should get pretty much everything off that's going on without your permission.

1. See Using Automatic Spellcheck on page 191.

2. See Automatically Saving at a Specified Interval on page 156 and turn it off.

3. See Using Automatic File Extensions on page 157 and don't do it.

4. See Preventing OpenOffice.org From Opening MS Office and HTML Files on page 152.

5. Choose Tools > Options > Text Document > Table and Tools > Options > Text Document > Table. Deselect the Number Recognition option in each window.

6. Choose Format > AutoFormat and unmark everything that shows up until you don't see checkmarks next to any of the options.

   

7. Use the program for a while. If it's still doing automatic stuff, complete the next step.

8. Choose Tools > AutoCorrect/AutoFormat (this varies somewhat among applications.) Click on every tab and turn off everything.

   • On the Replace tab, delete anything that's still driving you crazy; you can click Reset at the bottom of the window to restore everything deleted if you need to later.

   • On the Exceptions tab, unmark the AutoInclude options.

   • On the Options tab, deselect everything.

   • On the Word Completion tab, deselect Complete Words.