...
My other issue is that with the OpenOffice that came native with my
Ubuntu 10.04 I can't download LibreOffice for testing without blowing my
OpenOffice away. That doesn't seem like a very friendly way of doing
business because what if I truly don't like LibreOffice once I get it
loaded? Not saying that I won't but I've been in the computer business
since 1964 and know that not is all as it seems 
That is not an issue at all. Forget all the other "advise" telling you
to uninstall OpenOffice before installing LibreOffice (LO). When you
install LO, it installs in the /opt directory and doesn't touch your
installed OOo application.
Download both the tar.tz files for Debian -
https://www.libreoffice.org/download/?nodetect:
clink on Linux (deb): and your architecture (x86 for 32bit or x86_64 for
64bit). That will link you to (32 bit in this example):
https://www.libreoffice.org/download/?type=deb-x86
Select your language (English (US)?):
That gets you to:
https://www.libreoffice.org/download/?type=deb-x86&lang=en-US
Click on the 3.4.6 (you can install 3.5 later if you wish and even run
3.4 + 3.5 + OOo 3.2 in parallel at the same time) and download both the
Main installer and the Help file. Those will download as:
LibO_3.4.6_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz
and
LibO_3.4.6_Linux_x86_helppack-deb_en-US.tar.gz
Open Nautilus and right click on the tar.gz and select 'Extract here'
for both files. That will create two directories:
LibO_3.4.6rc2_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US
and
LibO_3.4.6rc2_Linux_x86_helppack-deb_en-US
Open a terminal and cd to
LibO_3.4.6rc2_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US/DEBS. Install:
/LibO_3.4.6rc2_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US/DEBS$ sudo dpkg -i *.deb
That will install LO into the /opt directory as /opt/libreoffice3.4.
Now do the same for the help file:
/LibO_3.4.6rc2_Linux_x86_helppack-deb_en-US/DEBS$ sudo dpkg -i *.deb
Now create a menu by installing the desktop integration deb:
/LibO_3.5.1rc2_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US/DEBS/desktop-integration$
dpkg -i *.deb
I don't currently have a 10.04 installed, so if that gives you errors
don't try to install the again, and instead create your own menu.
On the top panel right-click 'Applications' and select 'Edit Menus'. Go
to 'Office' and click on 'New Item'. Fill in as:
Name: LibreOffice 3.4
Command: /opt/libreoffice3.4/program/soffice
Comment: whatever you'd like
To run: Applications|Office|LibreOffice 3.4
Sorry, can't help you with any of the rest.