Please tell me I can kill the "clippy" thing!

[fitzhugh]

I am a Very Bad speller. I LIKE having my programs correct things for me, but Clippy in word was the WORST IDEA EVER (though naming every single product of the past few years iSomething is almost as irritating)

But here I'm all eager to leave microsoft behind forever, only they clearly have infiltrated the open source community with ranks of gates worshiping programmers sneaking in major chunks of code. I've read Gate's wife managed microsft bob, from which clippy spawned. Any chance she's a major OpenOffice.org contributor now? Why else would a clippy-like thing pop up in the lower right corner - looks kinda like a lightbulb/smileyface flipping me off with an x I can click to tell me how to turn it off, only apparently that turns off the vital ability to correct my screwups as I type. AND IT STAYS THERE, flipping me off and smiling, just to make sure I build up unconscious rage at the whole open source world and actually consider returning to using office.

OK, perhaps it isn't really flipping me off, just holding up its hand saying STOP, but I won't look at it. Makes me crazy. Really.

So, to sum up the tirade part: making interfaces all cute and interactive with eyes and stuff is not good - it is creepy and irritating, or maybe that is me, being creepy and irritating, like a typical user, writing for help instead of rtfming, but I needed to share my angst instead of taking it out on my poor wonderful dog - and needed to do so quickly.

Now for the help request part: Please help me kill it while retaining OpenOffice's ability to wipe up after me and fix my endless mistakes. I need that ability - I found this out when trying to write the judge deciding whether to allow the ACLU to persue torture charges against Rumsfeld, and it would not do to start with "Dear Cheif Judge Thomas F. Hogan," because he could immediately toss my letter into the ignorant fool pile and ignore it. So, this really is a matter of huge historic note, could change the fate of, well, me. Or something.

Lastly, here's the accolade part: OpenOffice is wonderful, of course, or I am sure it is if I can get this resolved, as the whole open source approach has matured incredibly since I first tried choking down linux and various office replacements years ago and crawled whimpering back to windows and office and that dirty guilty feeling that came with each such negated migration attempt.

Thank you for any help on this.

[9point9]

[foxcole]

Now that 9point9 has given you all the right answers (and a bit of great entertainment on the side), you are aware, right, that the spelling and grammar checkers that come with any office suite are not to be relied upon? The spell checker can only test that the spelled word is a legitimate word. It can't tell whether you've used the correct word or not. That's why the sudden proliferation of errors such as "it's" for "its" and "who's" for "whose" (well, that and utter confusion on the part of the writers), or any combination of wrong usage of "they're" "there" and "their."

There is an alternative. Oh, yes. A nearly infallible one: a real, live editor.

Of course, most people won't want to hire an editor just to look over some letters and daily blogs and such... things that don't normally bring income to share with an editor. But, you write well and with good humor, fitzhugh, regardless of spelling, so I suggest that if you don't do so already, you should be writing articles and stories and books. You'd then have a real editor on your team who might also be willing to look at important items like persuasive letters to a judge considering whether to pursue charges against an internationally recognized politician. An editor might oblige you in exchange for dinner or movie tickets, if not cash.
_________________
Cheers!
---Fox

WinXP Pro SP2, OOo Portable 2.3.1, OOo local 2.4 RC4
New OpenOffice forum: http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/
Manuals: http://documentation.openoffice.org/manuals/index.html

[Kaatje]

fitzhugh, thanks for asking the question. I had no idea there might be a way to have that thing not pop up. 9point9, thanks for the solution.

[fitzhugh]

Took me forever to get back here, but thank you! I'm glad to hear others agree that it is an icky thing that leaves one feeling kinda dirty, like walking in on your cousin in the bathroom. Of course, my cousin was a hottie, but she never forgave me for breaking her arm as a kid.

As for real live editors, its vs. it's etc... on that front I'm very lucky, as my house mate who shares a home office with me is an editor for accedemic journals and has correct answers to just about any such question. Spellcheckers ARE notoriously fallible, but my spelling abilities are bad enough that it is a good first check.

Thanks for the compliments. Today I have a cold that has stuffed my head with all sorts of ick other than wit, so nothing entertaining to add.

Most of all, THANKS for showing how to kill the damn thing!