Sams Teach Yourself StarOffice® 5 for Linux in 24 Hours

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Hour 22: Creating Internet Documents with StarOffice

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Hour 22
Creating Internet Documents with StarOffice

This hour describes how to use key Internet features of StarOffice to integrate the documents that you create with StarOffice with those that you find or want to provide on the Internet.

StarOffice is the most completely integrated Office suite available. Whereas the rest of this book has described how to use the basic features of StarOffice, in this hour you'll learn how to integrate many of those features into an Internet environment.

Setting Internet Options


In order to use StarOffice as an Internet-aware office suite, you must be connected to the Internet. If you are not connected, you can still create HTML pages (described later in this hour) but you can't browse the Web or send and receive email as described in Hour 23, "Using StarOffice Email and Newsgroup Features."

If you are connected to the Internet and have a correctly configured Linux system, the browser features of StarOffice will work correctly without any additional action on your part. This hour provides a review of the Internet options to help you understand a little more about how StarOffice interacts with the Internet.

The technical descriptions are kept to a minimum as the Internet options are described, but you might find that you need more information to set up the Internet connection properly. Contact your system administrator or, if you are the system administrator, pick up a copy of Sams Teach Yourself Linux in 24 Hours or Special Edition Using Linux, 4 th Edition . Either of these books can teach you more about the protocols and Internet server tools of Linux--things that are only touched on here.

Using StarOffice with the Internet involves three separate sets of option settings within StarOffice:

The following section describes the Internet options that allow your connection to the Internet to work correctly. The browser and HTML options are described later in this hour.

Choosing Internet Server Options

StarOffice provides many Internet capabilities, but you have to set them up before you can use them all. This setup is done in the Internet Options dialog box, which you can open by selecting Options from the Tools menu, and then selecting Internet... from the Options submenu. (See Figure 22.1.)

The first tab, Proxy, defines the proxy server that you're using for your Internet connection. If you have no proxy server, you can leave this set to None. If you are using a proxy server, choose Manual and enter the server name and port number for each protocol that uses the proxy.

For example, the server might be something such as gw.thomastravel.com, and the port might be something such as 3260. The server and port are often the same for all the protocols in the list.

Figure 22.1
The Internet options dialog box controls the configuration of Internet servers and protocols within StarOffice.

Tip - If you thought you had an Internet connection, but the browser functions (described later) don't work, your network might require a proxy to access Internet protocols such as HTTP. Check with your network administrator for more information.


Email and newsgroups are the subject of Hour 23; however, setting up the connection to use them is part of this dialog box, so it is described here.

In the Mail/News tab (see Figure 22.2), enter the server names and user information required to retrieve and send email messages and newsgroup postings.

The Outgoing and Incoming mail servers are often different. The Outgoing mail server might be the name of the system on which you are running StarOffice, if your Linux system is running a mail server program such as Qmail or Sendmail.

The Incoming mail server can also be your Linux system, but might be another server on your network or the Internet. StarOffice can use several different mail protocols to send and receive email, depending on how your network is configured and how you set up an email account (described in Hour 23). The User ID and Password that you enter in this dailog box are used mainly to retrieve POP3 email from a POP mail server.

Figure 22.2
In the Mail/News tab, enter the server names and usernames needed to access your email and post to newsgroups.

The News server is the computer that contains the newsgroups that you want to read and post to. Unless you have a large system and a lot of expertise, your desktop Linux computer is probably not the news server (they are difficult to set up and are not set up by default like mail servers are).

Enter the name of the nearest news server on your network, or the news server at your ISP location.

Finally, the Text Format area defines how incoming messages for email and news are formatted. You can save a message in any of these formats as you view it, so the choice is not restrictive.

The other server option that might need some attention is the LDAP Server tab (see Figure 22.3).

Note - LDAP is a directory service protocol that enables you to access worldwide listings of people and resources through your Web browser. LDAP is growing rapidly in popularity. Linux is developing strong LDAP support, so you might be able to use LDAP for these directory services soon.


Figure 22.3
The LDAP server tab lists directory servers that StarOffice can use as you access the Internet.

The name of each LDAP server is listed in the Server list. You can define a new Internet LDAP server that you want to access by pressing the New... button. You can also select any of the servers listed and choose Modify... to see or update the information related to that LDAP server. (See Figure 22.4.) Note that the standard port for the LDAP protocol is 389. If you choose another port number, you might not be able to access the LDAP server.

Figure 22.4
Each LDAP server can be set up with a server and port number.

Four11, a master LDAP directory server that is available to everyone on the Internet, is already included in the LDAP Server list.

Setting up Internet Searching

The Web is becoming much more friendly to those who don't know their way around. Directories, search engines, and other portals provide guidance as you seek information on a particular topic.

StarOffice integrates access to seven of the most popular search sites (or portals) as part of its browser capabilities. In the Search tab (see Figure 22.5), you can review the search options that are set by default, or you can alter the list as needed.

Figure 22.5
In the Search tab, you can review or alter how popular search engines are used to retrieve information on topics for which you search.

For example, Yahoo! is shown in the list of search engines. When you click on Yahoo, the Prefix field shows the URL that StarOffice uses to send a search query to Yahoo. Words that you enter as subjects to search for are added to the information shown so that you can receive a list of search hits.

Unless you discover that one of the seven nationwide search engines has altered their searching format, you won't need to change anything in the Search tab.

Setting up Internet Protocols

Internet connectivity for your Linux system is not set up in StarOffice. You can use commands such as route and ifconfig at a Linux command line to examine your networking (if you're logged in as root).

Within StarOffice, however, you can set a couple of networking options. These are included on the Protocol tab of the Internet Options dialog box. (See Figure 22.6.)

Figure 22.6
In the Protocols tab, you can define settings for HTTP, FTP, and DNS.

In the HTTP area, you can define how many connections are used at the same time to retrieve a document. For example: If you request an HTML document which in turn contains ten small graphics, StarOffice can request several of them at the same time instead of requesting one, waiting for a reply, and then requesting the next one.

Tip - If you have a fast Internet connection (such as a 56K modem or faster), you can increase this number from the default of four. If you are using a slow modem, increasing the connection won't improve the speed of document downloads.


The Include email address checkbox determines whether your email address (as entered in the General Options dialog box, described in Hour 4, "Configuring StarOffice") needs to be included as part of each request that is sent to a Web server. If this checkbox is selected, Web servers can log your email address and use it to send you information (such as advertising). Most people probably prefer to leave this unchecked (the default setting).

Note - Not all Web servers can or do track email addresses submitted with page requests. Most of those who track them for statistical purposes will never use them for unsolicited advertising--but why give them the chance?


Connections for FTP servers are handled like those for Web servers (HTTP servers). You can choose to have multiple connections at the same time to speed up the retrieval of files. However, using an FTP server usually involves only a single interaction. An FTP site doesn't include multiple graphics that are downloaded at the same time to create a page.

The default setting of two FTP connections will be fine, even if you're using a fast Internet connection.

In the DNS server area, you define how the Domain Name Service is used within StarOffice. Domain Name Service is the network system that maps from an Internet IP address to a name such as www.cnn.com.

The DNS server area works independently of the settings within your Linux system; that is, it can. If you select Automatic, StarOffice uses your Linux settings to find a DNS name server. If you prefer to use a different name server while browsing with StarOffice, you can select Manual and enter the IP address of another DNS name server.

Caution - The DNS name server on your network might work in conjunction with a proxy server (see the Proxy section earlier in this hour). Choosing a different name server might not be possible.


When you have finished setting options in the Internet Options dialog box, choose OK to apply your changes and close the dialog box.

Sams Teach Yourself StarOffice® 5 for Linux in 24 Hours

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Hour 22: Creating Internet Documents with StarOffice

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