Hi Alan,
It's great that you're giving OpenOffice try.
Which drawing tools did not show up for you by default?
The bezier curve tool is pretty confusing and frustrating. I don't use it much. I decided that for beginning computer map drawers it's probably best to avoid.
I just retested the "Export to PDF" option. On both my Mac and PC the layer must be both Visible and Printable for it to show up in the exported PDF. Could you email your OpenOffice file to me? I could try it on your particular file.