Useful Variables in OpenOffice Writer

(New! Not a repost! ;> )

I was watching some Strongbad Email and laughing very hard, when I realized that this was fun for me, but not that useful for someone looking for cool stuff to do with OpenOffice.org

Here's a little something that can be very helpful for anyone with a lot of documents, a lot of people who use those documents, and a strong urge to actually keep track of all those documents.

Bring up the document field variables and you'll see what I mean. Choose Insert > Fields > Other and click on the Document tab.

A host of useful tracking info awaits you.  Here are a few examples.

- Select the Templates option in the Type list and insert the template name, preferably the full path, in the document. Then the template that the document is based on will be displayed. (If the document wasn't based on a template, nothing shows up.)

- Select the File Name option in the Type list and use the option that you like the best. Again, I prefer the full path with file name.

Here's what a document looks like with those pieces of information inserted. Click the image to see it bigger if you want; the inserted fields are at the bottom.

Another approach is using the statistics variables. In the same tab, select the Statistics option in the Type list.

You can insert all sorts of information about the document so it's always there. I'd recommend Arabic in the Format list. The data is updated when you save, reopen, or choose Tools > Update.

Here's an example of what some inserted statistics look like. I typed the words after each; when you click Insert you only get the number. Click the image to see it bigger; the inserted fields are at the bottom.

You can insert any of these variables in the header or footer of your documents, as well, if that's where you like the info.

 

 

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Comments

[Nick Jones]

Dear Solveig

I hope i have got this right. Your blog was very helpful with this tip. I've been using OO for about 2 months and wanted to add full path and file name for some time.

Just a quick scan of your article let me in under 30 seconds to add a header with full path and the time. Now to write a quick macro to do this.

Nick

[Solveig]

Hi Nick,

I'm glad it was helpful! Insert > Fields > Other is a big candyland of powerful stuff.

Solveig