Tools: a handy OpenOffice.org tip: when typing, you often want to emphasise a word with italics, bold, or underlining. Interestingly, OOo adds a nifty text-markup-influenced AutoFormat feature — if you surround the word with asterisks, e.g.
I really *really* think you should foo
it’ll convert on-the-fly to bold:
I really really think you should foo
I like it! It’s much more natural than CTRL-B, CTRL-U etc. Only pity is that _underlines_ don’t turn into italics — I know that seems more logical, but nowadays, an underline means a hyperlink, and IMO the italic is more widely used for emphasis as a result.