Currently I already have OpenOffice 1.0 on my laptop
but I am going to upgrade to 1.1 which is tons better

goto www.openoffice.org and download the linux version

you'll get a file
OOo_1.1.0_LinuxIntel_install.tar.gz

unpack it by
>$ tar -xzf OOo_1.1.0_LinuxIntel_install.tar.gz

go into the new directory
>$ cd OOo_1.1.0_LinuxIntel_install

view the README first (to make sure you understand what you're doing)

become root
>$ su

then run the install script
>$ ./install

then run the setup script
>$ ./setup

pick a directory to install
 (i picked /opt/OpenOffice.org1.1.0  )

pick a java installation (if yours wasn't found)
 (mine was /usr/lib/j2sdk-1.4.2_03  )

it should finish successfully

now we create the bin link
>$ ln -s /opt/OpenOffice.org1.1.0/program/soffice /usr/bin/soffice

now we should be able to get rid of the old version 1.0
>$ rm -rf /opt/openoffice

then get out of root
>$ exit

and run our program
>$ soffice