I have to say, Norman, that's the first time I've ever heard of such a thing.
I'd recommend he re-installs Openoffice in the first instance (ie. go to Synaptic and uninstall, then install) and if that doesn't work re-install Ubuntu... and ideally 9.04 rather than 8.10 (though that is irrelevant to your issue it's always good to be on the latest version - 8.10 isn't LTS so there's no point installing it rather than 9.04). His issue sounds particularly bizarre. I've never heard of that behaviour in Openoffice before. Sean -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/