'Access' your data - OpenOffice.org 1.0's best kept secret 'Access' for Linux? The launch of OpenOffice.org 1.0 in 2002 removed at a stroke one major obstacle to the universal use ofLinux on the desktop. At last, Linux users have office software - word processor, spreadsheet, graphics,and presentation - which not only works at least as well as the Microsoft Office equivalent, but can alsouse Microsoft Office file formats, and is genuinely open source. However, this hasn't prevented objections from Microsoft diehards that they still can't migrate to Linux,because "Linux hasn't anything like Microsoft Access". Well, have I got news for you. It has, and it's calledOpenOffice.org 1.0. One of the hidden secrets of OpenOffice.org 1.0 is that it also has a great user-friendlydatabase front end. All you need to do is wire it up to one of the many open-source databases on Linux,and you have a Microsoft Access (and more) equivalent. This document explains how to make this connection, and then provides a quick tour of the database toolswithin OpenOffice.org 1.0. Many hardened OpenOffice.org 1.0 users are completely unaware of what ishiding under the covers, and are amazed once they start playing with the 'hidden' tools.

Software options OpenOffice.org 1.0 uses ODBC 1 to connect to databases. ODBC is common on MS-Windows platforms, but is less common on Linux. This article will explain step-by-step how to connect OpenOffice.org 1.0 tothe MySQL database using unixODBC, an implementation of ODBC for *nix. There's no reason why youshouldn't use another database - as long as it's got an ODBC component, it should work. I just happen touse MySQL. The starting point for the examples illustrating this document was a 'workstation' install ofRedHat Linux 9, so the examples show software installation from RPMs. If you prefer another installationmethod, or another distribution, the principle is the same 2 . Like many procedures on Linux, it's not difficult to do. Just watch out for the 'gotchas' - little tricks whichare trivial to solve, but which can cause hours of head scratching if you don't know how.