I would not recommend using OpenOffice - or a similar application - at all! [Darren Cope][1] commenting an answer to the question "[DBF creation and manipulation without excel 2003][2]" said:

> it's that shapefiles get quite upset if you go and edit the .dbf in an 'outside' program


  [1]: https://gis.stackexchange.com/users/972/darren-cope
  [2]: https://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/3302/dbf-creation-and-manipulation-without-excel-2003/3309#3309