Using the Direct Cursor in OpenOffice.org Writer for ease of use and proper formatting (indent formatting instead of tabs or spaces)

When you indent from the left margin, you never never want to do a bunch of tabs.

- You're relying on the Default Tab Setting, which can vary from computer to computer. Your .25 inch tab setting might be .5 on someone else's computer and you know that'll change the way your document looks.

- Pressing tab more than once is just improper document setup. You want to specify the tab setting where you want it, at 1.5 or 2.25 or .75, then press tab just once. To set the specific tab setting, you just select the paragraph(s) then click on the ruler. Bam, you see your tab stop. Click at the left of the paragraph and press Tab. Once.

And if you're indenting the whole paragraph, don't use tabs either. Drag in the left margin by dragging the bottom triangle shown here, or just choose Format > Paragraph, Indents&Spacing tab, and set the indent there.

But there's another option. I don't explicitly recommend this, since it doesn't follow good document setup rules. But you would consider setting this up for your users if you're the IT person where otherwise, your users would be pressing Tab a lot, using the default tab settings, creating documents that don't travel well from one computer, office suite, or OS to another. It's a way to let users who are less experienced in correct formatting do it correctly without having the classes on how to do it and enforcing the rules.

Let's say you've got this situation.


You could press Return once or more and indent as described above. And that is absolutely fine. It's the right way to do it.

But you could also use the Direct Cursor, which lets you click wherever, in horizontal or vertical that you want, and just start typing without having to press Enter or indent manually to get there. Pressing Enter and indenting manually is the right thing to do, remember, but for people who have never done that, this is a shortcut for doing it without knowing the indenting formatting that well.

First choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Formatting aids and make the selections shown. Click OK.

Now when you move your mouse roughly to where you want the new paragraph to begin, the cursor looks a little different.

And when you click and start typing, it looks like this.

Now, I haven't used this extensively so there might be gotchas I'm not aware of. But it seems like it would be something to try. The only issue is you'll probably end up with less than matching left margins unless you've got really good aim.

Comments

[John]

What's so wrong about using tabs to indent the first line of a paragraph?? Seems simpler to me than what you suggest!

[John]

What's so wrong about using tabs to indent the first line of a paragraph?? Seems simpler to me than what you suggest!

[Solveig]

More info added -- forgot to include the context.

[hribek]

"The tab key, on a computer keyboard, automates indenting text to a preset position. The tab key is commonly used for indentation in word processors and other software." [wikipedia]
Yeah, whats wrong with using indentation key to actually indent text? My oh my.

[Charles Lindsay]

The problem with using tabs to indent text is that tab width varies between software, computers, printers, as Solveig mentioned above. Certainly you can use the tab key to indent the first line of your paragraphs, but you'll have to manually adjust each paragraph if you need larger or smaller indents. This happens more and more as documents get viewed on computer screens, smart phones as well as paper.

Using the tab key isn't recommended for indenting an entire paragraph