OpenOffice.org Training, Tips, and Ideas

How to make sure that your graphics are embedded (not linked) in your documents, especially for templates

When you add a graphic to a document, you can either plop it straight in so it's stored in the document, or you can link the graphic so that the document just points to where the graphic is stored.

It looks the same either way, but here's the thing. When you email your document to someone, or post your template in a network directory, what happens to that link pointing to the graphic?

The link points back to your directory at home\documentdrafts\2008\graphics\teamphoto.gif  or whatever the path is. And your cousin in Phoenix or the other people on your team can't get to that graphic.

So what you want to do, typically, when you're sending documents or templates to other people that those people need to work with, is to make sure that your graphics are embedded in your document.

NOTE: If you're doing large books or other documents where there are significant benefits to just linking to graphics, or if you have really big graphics of a few hundred KB or more, think hard before doing only embedded graphics. You'll have some issues, including really really big documents. Consider working with the documents only on the network so that the graphics are there on the network too and you don't have path issues. You might want to link as you work with the document, then if necessary break the links (see the last section here) or even better, make a PDF, before distributing the document.

How to Insert Graphics in Documents so They're Not Linked

When you drag a graphic from the Gallery (Tools > Gallery) into your document, it's automatically embedded. But when you choose Insert > Picture > From File, then you can choose to link or to not. If you want the graphic embedded, then don't select Link.

How to Add Graphics to the Background of Headers, Footers, or Pages So They're Not Linked

You can just click in a header or footer and choose Insert > Picture > From File. But you can also set up headers, footers, and pages with a graphic in the background.

Choose Format > Page.

Click the Header, Footer, or Background tab.

For Headers or Footers click the More.

Then you'll see this window. Select Graphic then click Browse. Find the graphic. Again, just be sure you don't click the Link checkbox which in this case is next to the Browse button.

 

How to Un-Link (Embed) Graphics When They're Already In Your Document

Let's say you've got a document chock full of linked documents and you reallllly don't want to re-insert them. It's easy to fix; just break the link and the graphics will be embedded.

Under the Edit menu, look at Links. If it's dimmed as shown, then you don't have any linked graphics and you're good.

If it's not dimmed, then choose Edit > Links. In the Edit Links window, just select the graphics listed and choose Break Link. The graphics stay, but now they're embedded and you can mail the document wherever you want or store it in another location.

(You could also select a graphic link and choose Modify to change where it's pointing to.)

---

---

Selecting two or more drawing objects in an OpenOffice Writer document

I have been spending some time under Tools > Customize, Keyboard tab, looking through the features. I was looking at the Writer features for 2.4 when I came across this little item.

Gosh, I said to myself, could this be the option, very well hidden, that would let me multi-select objects in Writer?

Because, as you may have experienced, it is difficult to select two or more objects at the same time using Ctrl or Select.

Well, not quite. You still can't select two or more pictures or frames at the same time. But Ctrl + F8 does let you select two or more drawing objects at the same time. Select the first one, hold down Shift, and select the next one.

---

---

Undocking the Gallery

READ THE WHOLE POST BEFORE YOU DO THIS.

The Gallery is a nice tool for easy access to clip art or any graphics. Here are a couple blogs on it.

http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2007/09/getting-a-pictu.html

http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2007/04/adding_graphics.html

Here's a tip from Dave Richards -- you can make the gallery float, so that you can position it in a more convenient place in your work area.

What the Gallery Generally Looks Like

Choose Tools > Gallery, and you get the clip art and categories on your system. (You can click on each of these images to see a bigger version.)

Adjusting the Amount of Space for the Gallery

You can make the gallery take up less, or more, room, by moving your mouse over the small dotted portion of the border, as shown. When you mouse turns into a double-ended arrow, drag up or down.

Then the Gallery portion is smaller or larger, depending on your adjustments.

Floating the Gallery

However, if you'd like your Gallery to be a floating pane like some of the other windows in OpenOffice.org, you can do that. Click and hold down on the gray part at the top, and drag down into the middle of the document.

When you see a rectangle with a gray dashed border, release. The Gallery will be a floating pane.

You can resize and move the pane as you would normally for any floating pane.

Redocking the Gallery

Now, here's the question -- how do you get the Gallery back to where it was, docked at the top?

Not easily. ;>

You can drag the Gallery easily to the left, right, or bottom, and redock it there. Just drag toward the border and when you see the gray dashed border again, release and the Gallery will be docked.  (To turn off the Gallery, just choose Tools > Gallery again.)

You can redock the Gallery at the top, it's just really tricky. There is a very small area where you can position the Gallery floating pane and the gray dashed border will appear. Here's the area where it is. Drag the Gallery through it slowly; dragging down usually works better for me than dragging up.

---

---

Removing a white background, or switching any color to another color

This is a useful if well-hidden feature, in OpenOffice Draw and Impress.

Let's say you've got some lovely  graphics for your business, and you're going to put them on your web site.

So you add the logo, the first one, to your web page. But! Hey, what's up with that? There's a white background that didn't show up before. And you're not about to change the pink background.

So to get rid of the white background, here's what you do.

1. Create a new Draw document and insert the graphic.  (File > New > Drawing, then choose Insert > Picture > From File and find your graphic.

2. To see things better, put a colored object behind the graphic, or make the background colored. To change the background, choose Format > Page, Background tab, and instead of None, select Color from the list. Select any color and click OK.

3. Choose Tools > Eyedropper.

4. Click on the graphic. Then click in the first checkbox on the left.

White is the default source color. However, if there's a different background color, or just to practice, you can then move your mouse over the white part of the graphic and click on it to select the color you want to get rid of.

5. Select Transparent in the corresponding dropdown list on the right. Again, this is the default.

6. Click Replace. The white will be replaced by Transparent.

7. If you didn't get rid of enough white, increase the tolerance to 20% and try again. Keep going as necessary; sometimes you need to do 50% or more, up to 99%.

8. Select the graphic and choose File > Export. Select the format you want: PNG, JPG, etc. Click Export, and enter any additional options if prompted.

Now you can insert the new picture wherever you need it.

Now, what happens with other pictures, when you try to replace one color with another color? It all depends on the picture. Here's what happens when I replace a light lavendar with a darker lavendar in the cupcake graphic. The following illustration shows before and after. It works better if you have something very structured where there are no gradations of colors.

---

---

Back to School: Creating cute graphic-filled borders in OpenOffice Writer like you can in Microsoft products

One of the nice things about Microsoft products is that they have a lot of prefab goodies.  OpenOffice.org is a little more of a from-scratch situation. But you have much more flexibility, and you can still do a lot of great stuff. It's not easy, at least not using this approach, to add borders all around, but you can do it in the top and bottom.

Step 1: Add graphics to the gallery.
You can find lots of great graphics on the Internet by googling for "free clip art." For the purposes of borders, keep an eye out for graphics that are small, i.e. under an inch by an inch, and also that have some white space around them.

Step 2: Learn to use the feature documented here.
I'll also describe it in this blog but that's another one that talks about using it in general. Can't hurt to skim that blog.

Step 3: Use this blog entry to add top and bottom headers and footers with any appropriately sized graphic in your gallery.

NOTE: To take out the repeating background borders in this blog, use the instructions here or just Undo (Ctrl Z or use the Undo icon) to go back to not having a background border.

How to Create Graphical Top and Bottom Borders in the Header and Footer

First, open your document.

Turn on the header and footer. Choose Insert > Header > Default, then Insert > Footer > Default.

You now have headers and footers. The graphics will repeat in the background of each to create the graphical border.

Next, turn on the Gallery by choosing Tools > Gallery or clicking the Gallery icon.

Find a category you like, then find a graphic you want to use. Drag the graphic into the document to see how big it is, if you don't know. This one, for instance, is too big. To delete it, just select it so that the green handles are showing, in the document, and press Delete on your keyboard. You can also press Ctrl Z or use the Undo icon.

This one is better. It's a good size, plus there's some white space around the graphic so that when it tiles, you won't see part of another row of the graphic.

Delete the graphic from the document once you know which one you're going to use.

Click in the header.

Right-click on the graphic, in the gallery, and choose Insert > Background > Header.

The graphic will appear, repeating, but not all of it will show at first.

Click in the header and press Return once or more times to add more space, to show the entire graphic.

If part of the graphic is showing on the right side, click in the header and move your mouse over the ruler, at the edge of the right margin. When your mouse becomes a 2-ended arrow, click and hold down, and drag to the left or right to show the amount of graphic you want.

Then only whole graphics will show.

Then click in the footer, and do the same thing. Insert the same graphic, or another graphic if you want, in the background of the footer, then adjust it as necessary the same way you adjusted the header.

Choose File > Page Preview to see the document.

---

---

Getting a Picture from a Document Into the Gallery

I've already written about how to get a graphic from a file on your computer into the Gallery. But how do you get a graphic you like, that's just sitting in some OpenOffice document, into the Gallery? You could just copy it and paste it from that document to others, but putting it in the Gallery is more convenient.

1. Open the document containing the graphic.

2. If the gallery isn't showing, open the gallery by choosing Tools > Gallery or clicking on the Gallery icon.

3. Select the theme, the category you want to put the graphic in, in the gallery.

4. If you want to make a new one, click New Theme. Type the new name and click OK. Then select that theme in the Gallery.

5. Select the graphic. Release the mouse.

6. Click and hold down, and keep holding down on the graphic, for at least two seconds. Don't release the mouse, and drag the graphic into the gallery.

7. The graphic will appear in the gallery, at whatever location is set up as your gallery location, in a subdirectory for draganddrop.

You can set or change your gallery paths here. Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Paths.

---

---

Making Illustrated Callouts With Clip Art From the Gallery, and the OpenOffice Callout Drawing Tools

I love the callouts in OpenOffice.org. I also love that they're available in Draw, Impress, Writer, and Calc.

To get started, just choose View > Toolbars > Drawing. If there isn't a checkmark next to the Drawing option, select it.

Now look for the Drawing toolbar. It usually appears at the bottom of your work area.

Adding a Graphic

You can choose Insert > Picture > From File to add a graphic if you know where it is. Or just choose Tools > Gallery to turn on the picture gallery, and drag in a graphic from there. Click here to learn more about using the Gallery, including adding graphics to it.

Adding a Callout

You can choose Insert > Picture > From File to add a graphic if you know where it is. Or just choose Tools > Gallery to turn on the picture gallery, and drag a graphic into your document.

1. Be sure you've got the Drawing toolbar on, according to the instructions at the top of this blog.

2. Find the Callouts icon.

3. Click and hold down on the black triangle to the right of the Callouts icon.

4. Click on the tool you want. Move your mouse into the drawing area.

<>

5. Click and hold down, drag your mouse down and to the right (or up and to the left) and you'll see the callout being drawn.

6. Release the mouse, the callout you drew appears.

<>

7. Select a different fill color for the callout.

8. Select different line width, style, and color for the callout.

9. Double-click in the graphic; the cursor will appear.

10. Type the callout.

11. If the text is too big, click the callout border, find a handle, and drag the handle to resize the callout.

12. Double-click in the callout to select the text so you can change the font, then select a font from the dropdown window.

13. Drag the point of the callout to where it needs to be; it will change sides if necessary. Alternately, drag the callout to a different position in relation to the graphic.

And you're done!

From Draw or Impress: Exporting the Graphic to Reuse Later (for Use in the Gallery, on a Web Page Like This Blog, or Any Other Reason)

You can copy and paste to Writer or Calc. However, if you want to add your graphic with callout to the Gallery, put it in a web page, or anything else more reusable, do this.

Select everything you want to export. You can select everything manually, press Ctrl A, or just draw  a box with your mouse (not the box tool) completely around the items to select.

Choose File > Export.

Specify the location to export to and name the file. Select the format, not HTML but JPG, PNG, or something similar.

Click Save.

If a message prompts you to make some choices, either click OK accepting the options, or make your choices. For instance, with JPG, the highest number is the best quality.

 

---

---

Back to School: A few of the many, many sites with free clip art for schools

I've been working on finding more fun goodies for education. Here are a few site with free clip art including stuff from the Discovery channel!

(I'm pretty sure that these are all free but I would be remiss if I didn't say that it's best to check the licenses yourself, as well.)

Some clip art

http://clip-art.kaboose.com/index.html
http://school.discovery.com/clipart/new.html
http://www.teacherfiles.com/clip_art.htm  (BIG collection)

Free animations
http://register.freeze.com/download/index.aspx?sx=348413c5-d957-4f6c-bfe7-d91ca643ee6a

Add it to the Gallery for easier access.

---

---

Very nice features in the gallery for putting graphics in the background on OpenOffice Writer

I learned this while training the fine folks at the Bainbridge Island School District. And man, it just goes to show that I should listen more to my own advice, which is:

When in doubt, right-click.

Here's the Gallery. It's a wonderfully customizable convenient area for storing images or video. (OR VIDEO.) There's not much in it but you can add whatever you like, using whatever legal clipart you can find anywhere. One excellent site is  http://www.teacherfiles.com/clip_art.htm

(Click any of these graphics to see them bigger.)

Click the Gallery icon or choose Tools > Gallery to add or show. It looks like a little framed picture, five from the left below.

Here are directions for using the gallery, including adding to it.

To add a graphic from the gallery to your document, just drag it in.

Now, a seemingly different topic. It's ever so slightly complicated, not really but not wildly obvious, to add graphics to the background of a document.

To put just one graphic in the background of whatever text it's by, you right-click on it and choose Wrap > In Background.

Now it's in the background.

To fade it, you click on the graphic, and in the Picture toolbar that appears, type 50% or more in the Transparency field and press Enter.

In another approach, to put a graphic in the background of the paragraph, or in the background of the entire document or at least all pages in the document with the current page style applied, you choose Format > Page or Format > Paragraph,  click Background, select Graphic, browse for the graphic, specify Tile Position or Size, and click OK.

To add it to the background of the header or footer, just click the Header or Footer tab of that same page style window, and click More.

Hey. There's an easier way, with the gallery. THERE IS A CATCH WHICH I EXPLAIN AT THE END OF THIS BLOG. NOT A BIG CATCH FOR MOST PEOPLE, BUT THERE IS A CATCH.

Show the gallery. Choose Tools > Gallery or click the little gallery icon.

Find the theme you want, the category at the left.

Find the picture you want.

Right-click on the graphic and choose Insert > Background> Page, Background or Header/Footer.  NOTE THAT THE DEFAULT FOR THIS IS FOR THE GRAPHIC TO APPEAR REPEATEDLY TO FILL THE AREA YOU SPECIFY.

To get the Header or Footer option, you need to have clicked in the header or the footer.

(To turn on a header or footer, choose Insert > Footer > Default or Insert > Header > Default.)

And there you are. It appears as it should based on your choice.

Background of page

Background of paragraph (sometimes it doesn't fit that well, so the first approach I mentioned earlier is better.)

Background of a header or footer. Note that if the graphic is big as shown the graphic won't all show at first.

So just click in the header or footer and press Enter to add space til the graphic shows sufficiently.

Undoing

If you want to undo it, then either press Ctrl Z or click Undo as many times as necessary, or

1. Choose Format > Page or Format > Paragraph, and click the Background tab.

2. Select Color instead of Graphic in the list at the top.

3. Select No Fill and click OK.

Issues
Now, the only thing is that:

- You can't fade it using this approach; you need to make the graphic file itself lighter.

- It repeats, it tiles, by default. To modify it:

     Choose Format > Page, Background tab and choose Position or Area instead. Position just puts it in one place, Area changes the size and aspect ratio of the graphic to fill the area.

    Choose Format > Page, Header tab or Footer tab, then click More and ditto above.

   Choose Format > Paragraph, Background tab, and ditto above.

Pretty dandy, eh?

ONE BIG FAT WARNING ABOUT THIS.

This does not STAY in the document if you save it in .doc format. You MUST save it in .odt format. Otherwise it will go away.

If you add graphics to the background of the header, footer, paragraph, or page, you have the exact same problem. Somehow Word format doesn't like background graphics.

---

---

Darkening the OpenOffice Impress or Draw Grid, and Changing the Increments

I was going to blog about this straight-up, but then I thought, hey, I've got this already in my book. So I've posted an excerpt from the book, a three-page PDF of the instructions for using the grid, plus darkening the grid and increasing the number of increments. 

The instructions are for Draw but apply to Impress as well; when you choose Tools > Options as in the instructions, just choose either Draw, or Impress, whichever application you want to modify the grid for.

Download grid.pdf

---

---

Best export graphics for OpenOffice Draw

I've done some testing with the quality of export from Draw. I'm not absolutely wildly impressed with any but PNG and JPG seem to be best. Oddly, EPS gets bitmappier and so does GIF.

Note: The graphic was already shrunk once and reduced in quality; I'm just looking for comparisons between the four types and they all kinda seem to be the same.

Here's a file where you can look at the different files exported and inserted in Writer. I mainly looked at the edges of the thought bubbles.

HOWEVER.

Check out what PDF export looks like. Couple sizes, regular and with the graphic preshrunk in Draw.

The quality for those is fabulous. Extremely smooth lines on the thought bubble.

Unfortunately, you can't insert PDFs in a Writer doc.

But keep in mind that PDF export of lines is fabulous. If you have a Draw doc that you need printed as is, export to PDF if you need to send the file to others, don't export to the graphics formats.  Just be sure to export with no graphics reduction if graphics quality is your main goal. Lossless Compression is the option you want.

 

---

---

Publisher Users: Making Postcards, Brochures, and Other Cool Stuff With OpenOffice Writer and Draw, and Existing Microsoft Templates (Repost)

Reposted April 2007 because this post doesn't show up in Technorati searches.

Update: See The Linux Box for more ready-made OpenOffice Impress templates.

One of the biggest losses people experience when switching to open source is the loss of all those cool templates. They are, as the song says, a hard habit to break.

The good news is, you usually don't have to break the habit. (Unless you've been using Publisher, unfortunately, and you can't open Publisher files in anything—not even Word.) Here's how to keep on using the same templates you know and love; find new ones, or create your own in Draw and Writer.

You Can Still Use Your Own Word Templates and Any Others You Can Find

Here's where you might really start to enjoy the value of OpenOffice.org's compatibility with Microsoft Office.
You can still use all those Microsoft Office templates you got with the software. (Assuming the license doesn't forbid it--just putting that in just in case. ;> ) In OpenOffice.org, just choose File > Open, go to Program Files\Microsoft Office\templates (or wherever) and find the one you want. 

You can also set up OpenOffice.org to just find those templates. See this blog on templates. Go to the end.

And you can google around for more. I googled for “postcard templates” and came to this nice site from HP. The templates are available not just in Publisher but in Word. Click the image to see it larger if you like.

http://www.hp.com/sbso/productivity/office/direct_marketing.html

Follow a few links, and you get here. Click the image to see it larger if you like.

http://www.hp.com/sbso/productivity/office/stocklayout/stocklayout_overview.html

 

I decided to download the postcard template and the brochure template. I clicked on each; here's what it looked like to choose the brochure template.

Once the files were downloaded, I just went to OpenOffice.org, chose File > Open,  and opened them in OpenOffice Writer. Here's what the postcard template looks like.

 

I modified it according to my own information; it was relatively easy. Here's what that looks like. Here's the file itself. Right-click on the link and choose to save link as.

So that's really all there is to it. Use your own  or find new ones. There are a zillion free templates out there, and you can use the Word format templates (or Powerpoint, or Excel) in OpenOffice.org. Just google for the free ones, or ask friends where they are.

Making Your Own Postcards, Brochures, etc. in Draw and Writer

Now, that's not all the fun. If you want to create a postcard yourself, let's say in Draw, you can go ahead and do that, too. Or a brochure, or anything with specific measurements.

(You can do this in Writer to; I'm just showing it in Draw since the previous section was all about Writer.)

You need to know three  things.
- Choose Format > Page and click the Page tab to set the overall page size and orientation.

- Use the drawing tools like the text box and shapes to create the borders of the items in the document. Choose View > Toolbars > Drawing to bring up that toolbar.

- Select any item, right-click, and choose Position and Size. In the window that appears, click the Position and Size tab. will let you specify that the border of the postcard box, for instance, is 4x6. Remember to mark or unmark the Keep Ratio checkbox depending on whether you want to change one measurement of the object or both.

 

So let's do an example.

 

I'm going to create another postcard template. So I choose File > New > Drawing to create a new Draw document. I choose Format > Page, click the Page tab, and set the page size and margins.  I'll need a document that's like the first one or the second one, depending on what I'm printing on.

Option 1: A document with no margins, 6 across by 8 high (for two 4x6 postcards), and portrait orientation

Option 2: A document with half-inch margins, 7 across by 9 high (for two 4x6 postcards with two half-inch margins around the outside),  and portrait orientation

Next, I create a box to show me where the content should go. I just click on the rectangle tool in the Drawing toolbar and draw the box. I don't want a fill in it so I make the fill Invisible.

I right-click on the border of the rectangle, choose Position and Size, and click on the Position and Size tab. I choose 6 wide by 4 high, and unmark the Keep Ratio checkbox.

I put the edge of the box against the edge of where the postcard paper will end.

At this point, I make a template of it, so I can get at it again. See this blog on templates. If you want my document to download and make into a template,  here it is. Right-click on the link and choose to save link as.

 

Now I just make one version of the postcard, the way I want it. I put the content in the box, keeping in mind I need a bit of space between the text and the edge of the paper.

 

I copy the postcard and paste it, and drag the pasted version down to the bottom end of the document.

 

And now I just delete the boxes.

 

That's all there is to it. A little bit of work to set up, but the template takes care of that; you only need to do it once.

 

---

Adding Graphics, or Video, to the Gallery for Easier Access to Clip Art and Other Pictures

Note, August 20th: I just discovered a very simple way to add graphics from the Gallery to the background of your header or footer, page, or paragraph.

I would  say that a nice big gallery of clip art or other useful graphics is worth way more than a thousand words, if you're trying to convince your users to like OpenOffice.org. (Nothin' wrong with the program, but we know that change can be a pain.) Some users find it difficult to navigate a file system, which is what you need to do if you're using Insert > Picture > From File. And, frankly, dragging from a nice pane of graphics is easier.

When I go to a client site, there's always some resistance among users to doing the switch. However, people just love going through the gallery. The mood definitely changes when people see the graphics and start dragging pictures of cheese and armadillos and yellow school buses onto their documents.

To get a bunch of graphics, just google for free clip art and download it.  Here are a few options specifically for teachers.

Some clip art

http://clip-art.kaboose.com/index.html
http://school.discovery.com/clipart/new.html
http://www.teacherfiles.com/clip_art.htm  (BIG collection)

Free animations
http://register.freeze.com/download/index.aspx?sx=348413c5-d957-4f6c-bfe7-d91ca643ee6a

You might also consider the phenomenal Big Box of Art, vast amounts of clip art for not a lot of money.

So whether you want easier access to pictures or video, or good change management techniques, the gallery is a nice feature.

The locations of all the gallery graphics and other gallery info is stored in openoffice\share\gallery, in the .sdv files. Copy those files to other computers if you want them to have the same graphics, when you're done doing the configuration.

1. Click the Gallery icon or choose Tools > Gallery.

2. The gallery will appear.

3. Click New Theme.

4.  Click the General tab, and type the name of the theme that you want displayed in the Gallery.

5. Click the Files tab and click Find Files.

6. In the window that appears, go to the directory containing the graphics. The directory can contain subdirectories; all graphics in all subdirectories will be brought in for you to choose from. Click OK.

7. All the graphics in that directory and any subdirectories will be brought into the window.

8. To add only some, use Ctrl select or Shift select to select specific graphics. Select the Preview checkbox to see graphics. Then click Add.

To add all graphics, just click Add All.

9. A window will show the graphics being added.

10. Find more graphics and add them the same way, or just click OK. You'll see the graphics in the gallery. To add a graphic to a document, just drag it into the document.

If  you need to change the name or add files later, right-click on the theme and choose Properties. This will take you back to the same window.

---

---

Things That Are Hard to Figure Out in OpenOffice Writer: Page Numbers, Different Page Orientations, Watermarks, New Document Formats, and Dragging Cells (Repost)

Another "classic" post! These are perennial questions and through reposting I'll be able to get these to come up as searchable in blog searches.

Note: Here's a related article I wrote for TechTarget.com.

I get a lot of questions when I train, and just in emails. A lot of them are about things that aren't actually hard to do but they're hard to figure out how to do in the first place. Here's how to do some of them.

Adding a Page Number to an OpenOffice.org Writer document
Note: See a related post on starting a document with no page number on the first page and page 1 on the second page.

You can do this a number of ways, but this is the quickest.

1. First, make a footer for the page number to appear in. Choose Insert > Footer > Default.
2. Scroll to the bottom of the document; you'll see the footer.
3. Click in the footer. Press Tab if you want the page number in the middle, press again if you want it at the right.
4. Type the word page if you want, followed by a space.
5. Choose Insert > Fields > Page Number.
6. Format the text in the footer the way you want it.

If you want to have no page number on the first page and start with 1 or 2 on the second page, that's a bit more advanced. Stay tuned for the blog on page styles.

(You can do the footer turn-on by choose Format > Page > Footers, too.)

Putting a Portrait Page and a Landscape Page in the Same Document

You absolutely can do this. It just takes a little while. You set up a page style that's horizontal, and one that's vertical, and then you just switch.

Here's a 2.0 document (twopagestyles.odt) that has a vertical page style and a horizontal page style. (You can set them up yourself using styles—Format > Styles and Formatting, then use the help.)

1. Type your content.
2. Choose Format > Styles and Formatting.
3. Click the Page Styles icon at the top of the Styles and Formatting window.
4. Double-click the first page style you want to use, the vertical or the horizontal. (It should probably be vertical, since this page style will apply to everything above your cursor in the document.)
5. Click at the bottom of the page using that page style.
6. Choose Insert > Manual Break.
7. In the Page Style list, select the other page style, such as Horizontal.
8. Click OK.
9. Put the content on that page that you want.
10. Click at the bottom of that page.
11. Choose Insert > Manual Break.
12. In the Page Style list, select the first page style, such as Vertical.
13. Click OK. Now you're back to where you started.

Stay tuned for the blog on page styles, to create page styles yourself from scratch, and to do some gnarly pagination control.

Getting exactly what you want when you choose File > New ____ Document.

The default empty blank text document and spreadsheet are fine but you'd like the margins to be wider, or the font to be different, or for it to have certain styles. It's easy to switch out what comes up under File > New > ____ Document.

1. First, make a new document or spreadsheet. Set up the page the way you want, create or import styles, add footers and page numbers, etc.
2. Then choose File > Templates > Save.
3. Name the document, leave the category My Templates selected, and click OK.
4. Choose File > Templates > Organize.
5. Double-click the My Templates category.
6. Right-click on your template you created previously and choose Set as Default Template.
7. Click OK.

Now that document will come up when you choose File > New > _____ Document (text or spreadsheet).

To go back to the original, just repeat those steps but instead of choosing Set as Default Template, choose Reset Default Template > Text Document or Reset Default Template > Spreadsheet.

Making a Watermark

If you want a graphic or piece of text behind the content of your page, you can approach it a few different ways.

If you want a text-based watermark for your document, like CONFIDENTIAL, behind just a few pages, follow these steps. You'll  need to place the text box on every page where you want it to appear.

1. Click the “T” text icon, or if you don't see one, choose View > Toolbars > Drawing to make it appear.

2. Draw a box with the tool and type what you want inside, like CONFIDENTIAL.

3. Select the text and make it really big, maybe 66 points. You can use the font size dropdown list on the object bar for this.

4. Make the text gray if you want it lighter. Use the Font Color icon on the object bar.

5. Click somewhere else in your document, like a blank spot or some regular text.

6. If you want the text vertical or diagonal, click on the text box, right-click and choose Position and Size, click the Rotation tab, and in the Rotation field type the number of degrees. (You can also click on a point in the Default Settings region.) 55 degrees is good for a diagonal watermark.

7. Click on the text box you just drew, right-click, and choose Wrap > In Background.

8. Drag the text box to reposition it if it's not where you want, make the text larger or smaller, rotate it more or less, and make any other adjustments.

Here's an OpenOffice.org 2.0 document (watermarktemplate.odt  ) you can use with a watermark.

If you want a graphic-based watermark for just a few pages of your document, paste it into your document on each page where you want the graphic, or choose Insert  > Picture > From File. Then  do step 7 from the previous step to wrap the graphic in the background.

To make the graphic lighter, select it. The Picture toolbar should appear but if it doesn't, choose View > Toolbars > Picture. Use the Brightness icon to make the graphic lighter and use the Contrast icon to decrease contrast.

To put a graphic in the background of every page of your document (every page with the Default page style, that is, or every page with the page style you modify if you know styles), follow these steps.

1. Be sure you have the graphic, that it's light enough, and that you know where the graphic is.
2. Choose Format > Page.
3. Click the Background tab.
4. From the As dropdown list, select graphic.
5. In the Type area, be sure Position is selected.
6. Click Browse and find the graphic.
7. Click Open.

Dragging a Cell in a Spreadsheet

I get a kick out of how obscure this is. You can select two or more cells and drag them, but you can't drag just one.

Unless you do this.

1. Select the cell.
2. Click and hold down, drag the mouse down one cell, then back up one cell, and release.

Now you can drag the cell wherever you want.

---