the version of openoffice in knoppix seems to be the debian package openoffice-de-en or something similar, not the standard english openoffice package, so that may be a glitch in the package. I believe that package is used becuase klaus and most of the other developers (fabian?) are German (this is the reason there is a German CD, and why the keyboard default is German). If you have a HD install you can probably fix it by removing the openoffic-de-en package and installing the english version from apt.