The problem – Open Office 3.3 not creating pdfs in the same directory as source file when exporting as pdf
A client mentioned to me that when creating pdf documents from odt documents in Open Office that the pdfs were not being created in the correct folder – more often that not in a folder where they had previously created a pdf. I checked the Open Office 3 documentation and it stated that the default behaviour for this should be exactly what the client was after. Given that each time they were creating a pdf that they had to navigate to the correct folder to keep a copy of the pdf and the odt together this was a real bind.
The solution required two things – 1) in Tools->Option->OOo->General->Open Save dialogs option – select the option to use Open Offices dialog boxes. 2) change the default file location for documents to be the parent folder of where the documents are created. This means File Save as takes the user directly to the folder above where the user will ultimately save the document. Then when they export after saving the document – the correct folder will be selected.
So all in all a reasonable workaround for the user – which will no doubt save them time.
I have to say that I am impressed each time I look at OpenOffice and must make more time to use it as the functionality is coming on in leaps and bounds.