Frequently Asked Questions

Installation

How do I install CompPad?

It's easy. There are a couple ways.

Here's the first way:

• launch your favorite file browser
• browse to the directory where the CompPad*.oxt is located
• double-click the file
• You will be prompted to install the extension 'CompPad'. Click "OK"
• You should now see CompPad in the list of extensions under Extension Manager
• Click "Close"
• Close ALL OpenOffice windows.
• Close the QuickStarter, if necessary (resides in system tray, usually next to clock, right click on the icon and choose exit, see OOo-wiki).
• Re-start OpenOffice Writer.

Here's another way:

• Launch OpenOffice
• From menu, select "Tools" -> "Extension Manager".
• Press button "Add..."
• locate and select the downloaded CompPad*.oxt file.
• You will be prompted to install the extension 'CompPad'. Click "OK"
• You should now see CompPad in the list of extensions under Extension Manager
• Click "Close"
• Close ALL OpenOffice windows.
• Close the QuickStarter, if necessary (resides in system tray, usually next to clock, right click on the icon and choose exit, see OOo-wiki).
• Start OpenOffice
• Open a new or existing OpenOffice Writer document.

You should see a new toolbar with active buttons, and a CompPad menu item.

If you are re-installing the plug-in, or upgrading to a new version, the procedure above sometimes fails. In that case, You may not see the toolbar, or the buttons are shaded out. Don't worry, the solution below "always" works!

After installing a new version, the CompPad toolbar is missing / non-functional!

Before going any further, make sure you actually downloaded the entire file. SourceForge has had some issues where the file download would stop in the middle of a file, leaving you with a partial file. OpenOffice will then install the extension as if nothing is wrong, but of course the extension will not work. One way to make sure you have an uncorrupted file is to compare the md5sum for the file to to the md5sum listed on SourceForge. To get the md5sum In Linux, do "md5sum ExtensionName.oxt". On Windows, you can use md5summer.

Also, make sure the file you download actually has the filename extension ".oxt". Some browsers automatically change / mangle the filename to ".zip". In fact, a .oxt file is a .zip file, but the Extension Manager treats the two file types differently, and the .zip file will appear to install but the extension will not work.

Once you have the complete, un-corrupted .oxt file, then in my experience, the following procedure "always" works. I include both Windows and Linux / OSX versions.

Linux

• Close OpenOffice, QuickStarter, etc...
• Launch a terminal.
• Change directories to the location of your CompPad*.oxt file
• In the terminal, type "unopkg list|more". The first couple lines will list the name of the .oxt file that is currently installed. In this case, it's "CompPad_0.3.x.5_rev241.oxt":

  Identifier: com.CompPad.CompPad
    Version: 0.3.x.5
    URL: vnd.sun.star.expand:$UNO_USER_PACKAGES_CACHE/uno_packages/Ikw0fd_/CompPad
  _0.3.x.5_rev241.oxt
  

• Type "unopkg remove com.CompPad.CompPad".
• Type "unopkg add CompPad_New_Package_Name.oxt", substituting the CompPad file you want to install. substituting the name of the CompPad file you want to install.

Windows

• Close OpenOffice, QuickStarter, etc...
• Launch "Command Prompt"
• Change directories to the location of your CompPad*.oxt file
• Type the following:

  "\Program Files\OpenOffice.org\program\unopkg.com" list
  

  The first couple lines will list the name of the .oxt file that is currently installed. In this case, it's "CompPad_0.3.x.5_rev241.oxt":

  Identifier: com.CompPad.CompPad
    Version: 0.3.x.5
    URL: vnd.sun.star.expand:$UNO_USER_PACKAGES_CACHE/uno_packages/Ikw0fd_/CompPad
  _0.3.x.5_rev241.oxt
  

• Type:

  "\Program Files\OpenOffice.org\program\unopkg.com" remove com.CompPad.CompPad
  

• Type:

  "\Program Files\OpenOffice.org\program\unopkg.com" add CompPad_New_Package_Name.oxt
  

  substituting the name of the CompPad file you want to install.

I tested this on Windows Vista and Ubuntu 10.0, both with OpenOffice.org 3.2

On installation I get CannotRegisterImplementationException error.

The error reads:

(com.sun.star.registry.CannotRegisterImplementationException)
{ { Message = "", Context = (com.sun.star.uno.XInterface) @0 } }

In this case your installation is missing some OpenOffice files, which are left out from the default install to reduce the size on disk. To install the complete OpenOffice package in Ubuntu or other Debianic systems, do:

sudo apt-get install openoffice.org

or, on newer Ubuntu systems, try:

sudo apt-get install libreoffice

Does CompPad work with LibreOffice?

CompPad has been reported to work fine with LibreOffice. The installation process should be exactly the same. Eventually, I will probably replace occurrences of "OpenOffice" and "OpenOffice.org" with "LibreOffice".

Use

After evaluating a document document several times, when I try to start the Formula Editor (by double-clicking on a formula, for instance) the editor is very slow to open.

It is necessary to change the embedded object cache configuration.

• Select menu item Tools -> Options -> LibreOffice (or OpenOffice) -> Memory -> Cache for inserted objects.
• Change "Number of objects" to a number larger than the number of formulas and other embedded objects in your document.

Development

How do I compile CompPad from source so I can begin developing?

Here are some rough instructions. I intend to get the build process cleaned up pretty soon, so this will change.

• Check out the current development branch, which is currently the !NoIDE branch.

  svn co https://comppad.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/comppad/NoIDE NoIDE
  

• Fix the paths to Java libraries in the build.xml file. You may have to install some libraries. More details are needed on this step!
• Type:

  ant jar
  

• Type (in linux)

  ./dist.sh 
  

Eventually I'll get these functions rolled into the build.xml file so this will build on Windows as well.