Success--thanks to you both. sulu's "...add,fullscreen" headed me in the right direction and auouymous helped me get the commands working in his great app.

Oddly enough, I never could get the standard minus-fullscreenbutton working. The .xbindkeysrc.scm just didn't work, so I replaced it with .xbindkeysrc, with only:

"wmctrl -r :ACTIVE: -b toggle,fullscreen"
F6

and that puts me in good shape.

To get xbindkeys running, I used various scripts based on:

xbindkeys
sleep 1
debbie oowriter /media/mmc1/chapter1.doc

I find that calling a document makes things load easier into openoffice.

Since I just use icedove's addressbook [which syncs nicely with google contacts with gcontactsync.xpi add-on] "icedove --addressbook" cuts down on start time.

Again, thank you for your fast, effective help. I have at last a real word processor and a true PIM.
Jake