A lot of people think that that the only thing Open Office is used for is to write documents and create spreadsheets. That is of course it’s main purpose, so why would you need to set up proxies in a software package when it doesn’t need access to the internet? This is where you’ll wrong, the suite can connect to the internet to provide you with some great additional features. In this article, we’re going to be telling you about how you can set up proxies with ease so that all internet traffic in the package will be routed through the proxy of your choice.
The first thing you’re going to need to do is go into any of the tools included in the download and then go into Tools –> Options. You’ll see a simple navigation menu at the side which includes many different tabs, and next to it you’ll probably see some settings that you can change. We want to set up a proxy so we’re going to go into the “Internet” tab and then once again into the “Proxy” tab. This is where you’ll find everything you need to set up the proxy so now we can discuss what each option does and what you may want to enter in each field.
- Proxy server – This option allows you to select how you want to set up your proxy server. There are three different selections – “None”, “System” and “Manual”. Selecting none will make sure that no proxy is used, selecting system will use the one that you’ve set in the operating system and selecting manual will allow you to fill in the fields below it to set your proxy up. We recommend that you select “Manual” here.
- HTTP proxy – If the proxy that you’re going to be using is a HTTP proxy (not secure) then this is where you’ll need to enter your information. What is required is the IP address of the proxy (should have been given to by your provider) as well as the relevant port number that the software will connect to. You just need to enter this into the boxes.
- HTTPS proxy – If the proxy you’re going to be used uses the HTTPS protocol (and is therefore secure) then you need to enter the same pieces of information but in the boxes below it. This will make sure that the office suite transfers everything securely so that no other tool will be able to sniff the data you’re sending (as everything is encrypted). This is recommended if you haven’t found a proxy yet.
- FTP proxy – You may even be wanting to use an FTP proxy which is also fine, as we’ve stated above the same information is required for all of these types. Simply enter the IP and the port number and you should find that the software will automatically connect to it as long as no authentication is required by the proxy (such as usernames and passwords).
- No proxy for – If there are websites where you don’t want a proxy to be used for whatever reason, you’re able to specify them in this field. All you need to enter is the URLs separated by “;” and Open Office will handle the rest for you. It’s a good idea to simply enter the root domain rather than a specific page so we recommend that you be careful when you’re entering data into here but it’s entirely up to you anyway.
In conclusion, if you’ve read this article you should know about the options you need to enter in order to set up a proxy. Of course, this doesn’t tell you about how you can purchase a proxy or how to use it afterwards but the basics we can say are that when you’ve filled in the options, you don’t need to do anything else. As long as the proxy is valid, the office suite will automatically use what you’ve entered and you’ll see it for yourself when you try to use any of the internet features in it. If you haven’t installed it onto your system yet, you really do need to go ahead and do so now otherwise you’re really missing out.
Tags: internet, open office, proxies