[Tutorial] The OOo user profile

[Hagar de l'Est]

OOo stores all the data user-related in a dedicated folder, often called the profile. You can check its location on your HD in the OOo menu Tools>Options>OpenOffice.org>Paths. Most of the folders mentioned in that dialog are in the OOo user profile.

The folders are hidden by default, make sure your file explorer is configured to display the hidden files and folders.

For Windows users:

• Before Vista: \Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data\OpenOffice.org\3\user\
• From Vista: \Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\OpenOffice.org\3\user

For GNU/Linux users:

• /home/<user name>/.openoffice.org/3/user
• /home/<user name>/.ooo3/ for OOo 3.x.x or /home/<user name>/.ooo-2.0/ for 2.x.x for OpenSUSE. NB: allows the installation of OOo Sun version in parallel with openSUSE version. More about openSUSE version of OOo.

For Mac users:

• /Users/<user name>/Library/Application Support/OpenOffice.org/3/user

NB: version 3 profile has slightly changed from the 2.# branch, a directory level has been added, former profile was ...\OpenOffice.org2\user\.

[Hagar de l'Est]

That's rather easy, just copy the whole profile (\user\ ...) to the new machine. You can even do that between a Windows install and a GNU/Linux one.

Note that version 3 asks during the install if you want to transfer your personal data, that is import your former 2.# version user configuration. Don't check that option! It can lead to issues afterwards, so better start from scratch and do that step by step (see below).

[Hagar de l'Est]

A corruption of your profile can sometimes occur (an OS crash when using OOo for example). If you notice some strange behavior of OOo or if it just crashes or doesn't start, the first thing to try is to reset the user profile.

• Rename it: change the \user folder (see here for its location) to \user.old for example. This way, you still keep a backup of your configuration.
• Restart OOo, it will create a new profile. You'll have to go through the welcome process again. Note that if you had a version 2.x installed before, version 3 asks if you want to transfer your personal data, that is import your former 2.x profile. Don't check that option! It can wreck the new profile because of deprecated configuration files.
• See if the issue has been fixed or not.
  
  • Not fixed. Then the user profile may not be involved and you can replace the new profile by the old one (delete the new and rename back the old one to \user).
  • Fixed. It means that one or few configuration files have been damaged. But it doesn't mean that the whole profile is dead. If you've heavily customized OOo, you can still try to retrieve some parts of your configuration: as you have kept a backup, copy the subfolders (one at a time), and restart OOo to see if the issue is back or not. You can therefore spot from where the issue comes.

[Hagar de l'Est]

The user profile has several sub-folders realated to dedicated items:

• autocorr: table of replacement from Tools>AutoCorrect
• autotext: your AutoText entries
• backup: backup files if you've activated the feature in Tools>Options>Load/Save>General, Always create a backup copy. Each time you save manually a file, the previous version is saved here (overwriting the former one). So you have the version n-1, n being the current version saved.
• basic: contains all the macros you've installed
• config: some configuration files
• database: registered databases
• gallery: customized gallery (Tools>Gallery)
• psprint: used for PDF export I guess
• registry: contains most of the configuration files that could be damaged, especially in /data/org/openoffice/Office subfolder
• Scripts: no idea
• store: no idea
• temp: no idea
• template: where are stored your custom templates (File>Templates>Organize>My Templates)
• uno_packages: where are stored the extensions installed for the user only (including the spell checking dictionaries)
• wordbook: contains the custom dictionaries (see also the [Tutorial] Spell check and Language configuration)

Note that in parallel with this user profile, OOo also takes into account the configuration set for all users, that is the subfolders located in the main installation directory:

• /opt/openoffice.org3/share under GNU/Linux
• \Program files\OpenOffice.org 3\share under Windows

[Hagar de l'Est]

If you want to change the profile location, you have to bootstrap OOo, see here : Bootstrapping the Configuration.

NB: following hints have not been tested yet for OOo 3.#.

Once OOo has been installed, close both OOo and the Quickstarter:

• Open the bootstrap.ini file with a text editor. It's located in \Program Files\OpenOffice.org #.#\program.
• Change the line
  
  UserInstallation=$SYSUSERCONFIG/OpenOffice.org2
  into
  UserInstallation=file:///d:/OOo2 (for example).

You can also use the argument -env:UserInstallation in the command line/shortcut.
For GNU/Linux (soffice -env:UserInstallation):

• -env:UserInstallation=\$SYSUSERCONFIG/.Custom_folder (user sensitive)
• -env:UserInstallation=file://home/A_place/.A_folder (for all users)

Or for Windows (soffice.exe -env:UserInstallation):

• -env:UserInstallation=$USERNAME => A /<user> (Windows user login name) profile in the OOo installation folder/program folder.
• -env:UserInstallation=file:///c:/OOo/$USERNAME => A single shortcut for everyone and all the profiles will be in C:\OOo\<user>, so each user has his own profile in a common parent folder !

[bugmenot]

You can also use the argument -env:UserInstallation in the command line/shortcut.
For GNU/Linux (soffice -env:UserInstallation):

• -env:UserInstallation=\$SYSUSERCONFIG/.Custom_folder (user sensitive)
• -env:UserInstallation=file://home/A_place/.A_folder (for all users)

Or for Windows (soffice.exe -env:UserInstallation):

• -env:UserInstallation=$USERNAME => A /<user> (Windows user login name) profile in the OOo installation folder/program folder.
• -env:UserInstallation=file:///c:/OOo/$USERNAME => A single shortcut for everyone and all the profiles will be in C:\OOo\<user>, so each user has his own profile in a common parent folder !

With the latest version (3.0.1) the "-env" switch was changed to "-ooenv".
Anyways it seems this trick does not work anymore, user profile is always read from %APPDATA%\OpenOffice.org.
Any suggestion?

EDIT: solved now using "-env" switch and relative path.