OpenOffice.org Training, Tips, and Ideas

Things that don't work when you save in .doc format

OpenOffice.org has a feature that lets you automatically save documents in Microsoft Office format. Save Writer as Word, save Calc as Excel, etc. This lets your users send out documents to the outside world without having to remember to save in MS format first.

Choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Load/Save and use the lists in the bottom half of the window.

Likewise, you can save an OOo document in MS format by choosing File > Save As, or by choosing File > Send > Document as [microsoft format for that document type].

However. There's a but. It's not a huge but, but it's significant.

In some versions of OpenOffice.org, the following features don't work when you save a Writer document in Word format. It's not just the automatic saving, it's saving in Word format through File > Save As, as well. So the only way to get around it is to save as PDF (click the PDF icon on the toolbar or choose File > Export as PDF).

This isn't a complete list; please add your own through comments. I just tested all of these on the standard 2.3 release.

Mail merge prints field names, not content. If you save your mail merge document in Word format, then print, all you'll get is the names of the fields, like Firstname, rather than the data, like Bob.

Background graphics disappear. If you choose to put a graphic in the background of a header footer or page, under Format > Page, the graphics will disappear when you save in Word format.

Custom frame, page, and list styles get screwed up This one is an issue because page styles are the basis for doing so much really good, powerful stuff. (I hope this is on the list of things to fix, and/or not a problem in other builds.) I just tested, in 2.3, a file I'd created with custom page styles to automatically switch from a page style with no page number on the first page footer to a page number on subsequent page footers.

If you insert page breaks between page styles with Insert > Manual Break, and the  Break With feature in the Text Flow tab of a paragraph style, do preserve more formatting than the Next Style feature in the Organizer tab, which preserves nothing.  The headers and footers are preserved in the first two approaches, as are page borders and jumps from page 2 to page 66.  Landscape versus portrait is also preserved.

However, no background formatting is preserved, and the page style names are changed to Default for the first one, Convert1 for the second, and so on.

If these are issues for you, please vote to have the following bugs prioritized as things to work on. (I'm actually having trouble bringing up the OOo issue tracker right now; I think these are correct but I will check them later.)

http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=78723

http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=73533

http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=11522

http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=22635

---

---

How to insert graphics in OpenOffice Writer that are reasonably manageable

I sat down a few weeks ago to figure out the best way to anchor pictures.  Specifically, how to do it in a standard context like this. You have a paragraph or line of text describing something, and you might then say "....as shown in the following illustration." Then you have a picture on a line by itself. No wrapping or anything, very simple. Like this.

The horses at the Kalispell Dude Ranch are well-trained and gentle.

A very reliable way to do it is by anchoring  As Character.

Anchor As Character treats the graphic like a letter. Which means you can't drag it around, but that you can position it using the text alignment and indent features. And the less dragging, the less it is likely to be a little Skittery.

How to Use Anchor as Character

Step 1: Insert the Picture.

Create a blank line for the picture by pressing Return after the text. Choose Insert > Picture > From File and find the file (or just drag the picture in from the Gallery).

Step 2: Anchor the Picture As Character.

Right-click on the picture and choose Anchor > As Character.

Step 3: Position the Graphic Horizontally

Click NOT on the graphic but in the empty line NEXT to the graphic. Then just use the Left, Center, or Right alignment icon on the toolbar.

Troubleshooting: If the picture shows up about a quarter inch high, that's because the paragraph style applied has a height max on it. Nothing wrong with that, it's just not suitable for a style that's applied to the line a picture is on.

Either:

* Click in the paragraph marker next to the picture and choose Default from the dropdown style list

* Or click in the paragraph next to the picture, choose Format > Paragraph, Indents&Spacing tab, and select Single as shown.

Step 4: Position the Graphic Vertically

To control whether the graphic is vertically at the top, middle, or bottom of the blank line, right-click on it again and choose Align > Base At Top, Middle, or Bottom. You don't have to do this if you think the way it looks is fine.

Optional 1: If you want to make sure that the graphic automatically stays with the previous line of text describing it, here's what to do. Select the text above the graphic, choose Format > Paragraph, Text Flow tab, and select Keep With Next Paragraph.  Be sure to do this only with the paragraphs that precede graphics or you’ll end up with unusual pagination.

You might decide to create a specific style that you use for paragraphs that precede graphics, and define that style with the Keep With Next Paragraph attribute.

Optional 2: Click on the line, on the same line as the picture, and choose Format > Paragraph, Indents&Spacing tab. In the Spacing section in the middle, you can set spacing above and below the picture to space it so that it looks good and not too crowded up against the text.

Optional 3: Click on the picture and choose Insert > Caption to create a caption that stays with the picture.

The text, with a numbered field, will be inserted next to the picture, and the picture AND the new caption will be encased in a frame. That's how the caption stays with the picture.

Other Tips

A Setting You Probably Really, Really Don't Want

Here's what not to do. Right-click on the picture, choose the Type tab, and unmark the Follow Text Flow setting.

That will give you this result, with the picture going outside the margin. Yuck.

What About Anchor to Paragraph?

Anchor to paragraph is OK, as long as you don't unmark the Follow Text Flow option above. (I.e. keep that option marked.) You can drag the picture around with Anchor to Paragraph. But anytime you have that amount of freedom, it's possible to accidentally put the graphic where it shouldn't be. So I recommend trying Anchor as Character for solid graphics that stay where you put them.

---

---

Whoohoo! An outline numbering level attribute as part of the paragraph style definition

Just got this email from the new features mailing list. It makes me very happy. Just define your styles, and you don't have to go into Outline Numbering to set which level it's used at. This also begs the question, can we finally use two or more headings at the same level? That would be huge for many reasons.

(Now all we need is to have a Restart Numbering attribute in the paragraph or numbering style definition windows (it's in the formatting window but not the equivalent style definition window) and I will be perfectly happy. Self-actualization will be just around the corner.)

 Product: Word Processing
   Type: new
   Title: Introduction of an outline level attribute for paragraphs and paragraph styles
  Posted by: [email protected]
  Affected: sw, xmloff
   TaskId: i70748
<http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=70748>
Effective from: cws outlinelevel
   CWS:
<http://eis.services.openoffice.org/EIS2/cws.ShowCWS?Path=DEV300/outlinelevel>
 CWS status: ready for QA


*Flags*
-------
API/ BASIC [x]
Configuration [ ]
File format change [ ]
Help/ Guide [x]
Performance test [ ]
Translation [x]
UI relevant [x]


*Description*
-------------
Introduce a new paragraph and paragraph style attribute, named
“outline level”, to transform a normal paragraph directly and
independently from any certain list style or paragraph style into a
heading.

*Specification URL*
-------------------
http://specs.openoffice.org/writer/numbering/OutlineLevel.odt


Send feedback to [email protected]

Simple labels in OpenOffice Writer 2.0 or 3.0: Just typing or pasting the content

Here's how to just print out a few labels very simply.

I follow this procedure when I ship out books. Let's say I've got five people who've ordered books directly from me through PayPal or Amazon. I've got five emails in my inbox, with five addresses. So I need to make five labels.

I describe the simple but more labor-intensive way in the following steps. Then at the end I show what I actually do that adds a little bit of one-time extra setup and makes the whole process much simpler.

1. Choose File > New > Labels.* (See note at end.)

In this window, look at the two lists in the lower right corner. Pick the right layout, usually Avery Letter, and the kind of labels you're using (the number is on the box or envelope) like 8160.

2. Click the Options tab and make sure that the Synchronize checkbox is NOT marked.

3. Click New Document.

4. You'll see the new empty label document.

5. Now just type the content you want in each box. OR copy and paste. In my example, I copy the address from my email and paste it into the box.

If you've already used up some of the labels on the physical sheet you're going to print onto, then just start pasting or typing in the next available box.

If you have trouble clicking in a box to type, click somewhere in the blank margin around the area where the boxes are, then click in the middle of the box. You'll then see a normal blinking cursor and you'll be able to type.

6. To format the text differently, you could do a few different things. Pick any of the following; I recommend b or c.

a - Just format every text box the same, manually.

b - Format the first text box how you want it, and select some of the formatted text. Then DOUBLE-CLICK the Paintbrush icon.

Select every additional text box with text to format the same way.

Then CLICK the Paintbrush icon again and you're done.

c - Format the first text box how you want it. With some formatted text selected, choose Format > Styles and Formatting. Click and hold down on the far right icon and choose Update Style. All the other boxes will be formatted the same way.

7.  Now just stick the label sheet in your printer and print. If you want more than one sheet of labels, then just print out these, then type the new addresses over the old addresses and print a second sheet. (Or save this sheet, then choose File > Save As and save the sheet under a different name, and type the second set of addresses over the old addresses.)

* NOTE: What I actually do instead of steps 1-4 and 6 is open the label template that I created. I went through this entire process, then formatted the text the way I wanted it. I formatted the text in the first label box the way I wanted it. Then I choose Format > Styles and Formatting, I clicked and held down the mouse on the far right icon, and chose Update Style, as in step 6-c above.  After that, I chose File > Templates > Save. I named the template Labels and clicked OK.

That's what I did to create the template the way I wanted it. Then instead of step 1, I choose File > New > Templates and Documents, and pick Labels from my list of templates.

---

---

Making a Specific Template Come Up When You Create Any New Document, in OpenOffice.org Writer, Calc, Impress, or Draw (repost)

This is a very useful feature, I think, so I'm reposting it.

Anytime you can help people do something without actually have them do anything is great for them and great for you.

Templates are a great way to save time. Set up templates with the styles, graphics, etc. that people need, and they don't need to re-create them. (Or create them in the first place.)

However, getting users to use the templates is another step. For them, choosing File > New > Templates and Documents might not be something some will want to do or remember to do every time.

What if one of the templates you've created is one that many or all users use all the time as the basis for new documents?   You can make it come up when users just choose File > New > [type of document] by setting it as the default template. I.e. the user uses the template but doesn't even need to select it.

First, create a new document and make it how you want it: create styles, apply styles, include canned text, whatever.

Choose File > Templates > Save. Select a category and name the template. Click OK.

Choose File > Templates > Organize.

Open the category your template is in, in the left side.

Right-click on the template and choose Set as Default Template.

Click Close. You're done! Choose File > New > [type of document] and you'll see the effect.

To switch back to the normal original boring blank document, repeat the steps but this time choose Reset Default Template > [type of document]

---

How to go to the next field in an input field form in OpenOffice Writer

Let's say you've made this form, or opened one from Word.  If you created it in Writer you choose Insert > Fields > Other, Functions tab, and in the Type list you used Input Field. So far, so good.

You're done, and you start filling in the fields. You click on the first field, you get the window, you enter data...then you have to click OK, and click on the next field, and fill that in....that's not very fast, is it?
 



Close the window. Press Ctrl Shift F9.  That gives you this window with Next functionality built in.

 

Then to go from one field to another easily:

• Either press Ctrl Enter
• Or click Next

 

Annoyed by the complexity of pressing Ctrl Shift F9? Make it a different shortcut. Use this blog and this window; note where the function is in the following screen shot.
http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2007/04/creating_keyboa.html

Pasting from HTML or Word into OpenOffice Writer: use Paste Special > Unformatted Text

You might not do it today or tomorrow, but you'll do it someday. You'll need to paste some content from a Web page, or a Word document, or something else that's got some goofiness embedded in it, into your Writer document.

Don't do it.

That is, don't just do a plain paste. Copy > Paste from here

gives you this.

Lots of cleanup.

Plus, when you paste from outside sources you sometimes get lots of sections. Sections are indicated, when you have nonprinting characters and text boundaries showing under the View menu, like this.

Choose Format > Sections and you'll see allllllll the little sections and how complex they are.

 

Why do you care? It's just icky and unnecessary, the sections will behave differently, you'll pull out your hair. Here's one example. I'm changing the left margin for the whole document, but only the section my cursor was in behaves.

 

 

So not to get into too much detail, but a plain paste will not give you what you want.

 

Choose Copy, then choose Edit > Paste Special (or Ctrl Shift V) and choose Unformatted Text.

 

And then you get this as your pasted result. MUCH better.

The most straightforward wizardless way to create an envelope in OpenOffice.org Writer (and then reuse it as a template)

Envelopes can be problematic. Yes. This is primarily because envelopes are not Letter or Legal. Each printer has its own approach to printing, and you'll need to do a little experimenting.

But you can do it. The Envelopes category and the Mail Merge catogory of my blog each has various approaches.

But with this new entry I've tried to clarify what I think is the best and most straightforward approach to making envelopes. The thing is, creating the first doc is a little work, and figuring out how to print is a little work. But once you do it, you don't have to create the envelope document again. You don't have to figure out which way the printers go in. You know. So the second time and all other times, you just open the old doc, whether you made it into a template or just saved it in

C:\myreusabledocs\envelope.odt

and retype the info. Then you print, and you now know how to print.

Just do the hard work once. Then re-use.

THE PART YOU ONLY HAVE TO DO ONCE: CREATING THE ENVELOPE THE FIRST TIME AND FIGURING OUT HOW TO PRINT

A) Make the envelope document once

B) Print

C) Save it as a template so you never have to make it again

THEN ONCE YOU'RE SET UP PRINTING ADDITIONAL ENVELOPES IS MUCH SIMPLER

D) Open the template, retype or paste, and print

Here we go.

---

THE PART YOU ONLY HAVE TO DO ONCE: CREATING THE ENVELOPE THE FIRST TIME AND FIGURING OUT HOW TO PRINT

---

A) Make the envelope document once

1. Create a new empty document. This will be your envelope.

2. Now make it look like an envelope. Choose Format > Page, Page tab. Make your window match the settings in this window, then click OK.

 

 3. This is what it should look like.

 

 
4. Type the return address if you want (skip it if you've got that already on your envelopes.)

After typing, you want to take the cursor, the entry place where you type, down and over. Click after the return address and press Enter a few times til the cursor is about as high as you'd want it to be for the regular address.

 

 5. See the top item circled on the ruler? Click and hold down on the bottom triangle and drag it about halfway over.

6. And now the cursor is where you need it to be to type the address.

 

7. Type the To address.

 

8. And now you can format it of course any way you want.

 

9. If you don't like where the To text is, click above the text and press Enter a few times to lower it or press Backspace a few times to raise it. Just the same way you'd do it in a normal doc.

 

10. And to move it left or right, select at least part of the To text and drag that bottom triangle left or right. Same way you did it before.

  

---

B) Print

Take out some cheap envelopes. You're going to need to experiment a little potentially.

1. Choose File > Print. In the Print window, click Options and in the window (this varies by printer), find the paper size and choose Envelope 10. This is the most important part of printing. You must do this or it won't work.

 

Click OK in the settings window, then specify your print options and click OK to print.

Now, it's up to you to fiddle with which way to insert the envelope, up or down or one end first or the other. That's allllll your printer.

If you end up getting the address printed 90 degrees off, then make this change to the print setup in your print window too. Print it landscape. How it looks in your printer will vary.

Click OK in the settings window, then click OK to print.

At this point it should  work.

Once you've got it working, write down all the settings you did that work.

Note: You can also choose File > Printer Settings in your document and make the same paper size and landscape/vertical settings there. And theoretically those settings are saved so you don't have to do it again each time you print. If it works for you, great. However, I've found this slightly less reliable.

---

C) Save it as a template so you never have to make it again!

Had enough formatting? Then just save it as a template so you never have to create it again. You can make it into a template by choosing File > Templates > Save, selecting the My Templates category, naming it, and clicking OK.

 

Then use the template. When you want another envelope, choose File > New > Templates and Documents, click the Templates icon in the window that appears, and open the My Templates category.

 

 Inside the category, find your envelope. Double-click it. And you'll get a new untitled envelope document just like the one you made.

 

Then just type or paste new info.

 

---

THEN ONCE YOU'RE SET UP PRINTING ADDITIONAL ENVELOPES IS MUCH SIMPLER

---

D) Open the template, retype or paste, and print

This is all you have to do once you've done all this stuff.

• When you want to print an envelope, open up that template. (Or skip the whole template-making thing and just open the old document, wherever you saved it.)
• Type or paste in new information.
• Print, being sure that the printer is set for Envelope 10 and, if necessary, Landscape.

That's all.

Notes in OpenOffice.org 3.0 Writer

Notes are easy to use, easy to format, and really, really easy to read, in 3.0. Printing is the same, so not that great but not less than what we had.

You start out the same way. Choose Insert > Note.

 

You get a box, and you just type. Note two things: first, just the note box there which is just what you'd expect, but also check out the circled icons. Those icons, the enabled ones such as font and bold/italic/underline, are available to use when formatting the note.

 

  

Then you finish formatting, and you could have something plain, or something as silly as this.

 

  

If you click on the little black triangle in the lower right corner you get a few options.

  

  

And you get those options plus formatting options if you just right-click somewhere in the text of the note.

 

 

To print notes, just File > Print, and click the Options button. You can print the notes where you want, at the end or after each page. You can also print only notes.

 

Using the zoom to view 2+ pages in the editable view, in OpenOffice.org Writer 3.0

Here's another nice new 3.0 feature. You can view pages side-by-side in editable mode, up to three.

Here's a normal page.

 

Here are the controls, in the lower right corner, for viewing side by side and zooming. The icons are Single, Double, and Double-with-first-page-on-right-side (more on that later).

You can drag the little slider bubble in the middle and drag it from right to left and back to control magnification. The vertical lines indicate how far you have to be for one, two, and three pages at time.

And the 100% zoom is the regular approach to zoom; right-click on it or double-click it to get different magnification choices.

 

Here's what you get. Please click each image to see it bigger. When you have the icons set this way, with the single icon showing, the little slider dot to the right of the second line, and magnification at 100%, you only have room to see one page at a time, and even if it were smaller, it would only show one at a time.

 

I click the Double Page icon and I drag the little slider dot to the left.  It gets smaller but that's all. That's because the slider dot is still to the right of the first vertical line.

 

Now I drag the slider dot to the left of the first vertical line. The Double Page icon is also still marked, and I get two pages side by side. This is in the low 60% for zoom.

 

Now see what I get when I drag the slider dot to the left of the second vertical line. There are three pages displayed across.

 

Now when I click the Double-Pages-But-With-The-First-Page-On-The-Right, the right-hand of the three icons, and drag the slider back a little, we get this. This view is great for book production, when the first page, an odd page, is always on the right side. (Take a look at any printed book and you'll see the odd pages are on the right.)

 

Easy way to insert nonbreaking hyphen, etc. in OpenOffice.org Writer

Insert > Formatting Mark has a host of goodies for extra control over your text flow, such as a non-breaking space or hyphen.

First, set up OpenOffice so you can get all the options. Choose Tools > Options > Language Settings > Languages and select the indicated Enabled for Complex Text Layout option. Click OK.

 

Now choose Insert > Formatting Mark and choose the one you want.

You can see the keyboard shortcuts on the menu, and here are a couple as described in the Help.

* Nonbreaking space: To prevent two words from being separated at the end of a line, press the Ctrl key when you type a space between the words.

* Nonbreaking dash: An example of a non-breaking dash is a company name such as A-Z. Obviously you would not want A- to appear at the end of a line and Z at the beginning of the next line. To solve this problem, press Shift+Ctrl+ minus sign. In other words, hold down the Shift and Ctrl keys and press the minus key.

Updated the 10th: An Impress PDF presentation on OpenOffice.org 3.0 features

I created this presentation  for a client, about the 3.0 features in OpenOffice.org. I'm going to do a more detailed article but I thought I would post this since I've done it. Here's the solver.ods spreadsheet you can use to fiddle with.

I got pretty excited about some of them, especially the 3-up layout with lines already in there, and the far easier Impress handout printing.

And for those who like a good cross-reference, you don't need to create them first; you can just point to a heading in a list and select it, to make the cross-reference.

Also very exciting is the PDF editing, which does some very Adobe Acrobat type things. It's in an extension you can get here.

In the words of Douglas Adams, share and enjoy!

The OpenOffice.org Web Wizard, for mass-converting docs to HTML or PDF

I wrote this article  for TechTarget about the fabulous Web Wizard and its uses for mass PDF conversion and quick web publishing of existing documents. This is a "classic" post but it's a great feature that bears re-posting about.

Assigning OpenOffice or StarOffice Styles With the Keyboard

I occasionally mention, in class, that you can apply styles with the keyboard too. However, I'm a menu user by nature so I usually forget to emphasize it enough. Here are the steps for setting up styles so you can apply them with a keyboard shortcut.

1. Choose Tools > Customize.
2. Select the Keyboard tab.
3. Select the shortcut key to assign from the list of shortcut keys.
4. Select Style from the Category list.
   Scroll down to the Styles entry and click the + sign to show the style types of OOo.
5. Select the style to assign from the Function list.
6. Click OK.

Why Styles?

Note: This is part of a three-part post on styles. See this post for the intro and links to the other posts.

Why should you use styles?

Lots and lots of reasons.

Styles Mean You Do the Formatting Once, Then Apply It Quickly Each Additional Time

Styles aren't so necessary for your short scathing memo to your intern, but anything longer and more complex will be a lot easier to format with styles.

Let's say you've got a 100-page white paper on how your company's flotsam server works. You've got these types of things in the document:

• Four levels of headings in various sizes and the same font (Arial)
• Regular body text in 12 point type and Times New Roman font
• Notes in bold, 10-point Arial, indented a half inch from the left
• Warnings bold and italic 10-point Arial, indented a half inch from the left
• Numbered lists with 1 at the top level, A at the 2nd level, and a special purple bullet at the third level

A cover page with no footer, introductory text that should be numbered in roman numerals, main body text with arabic numbers in the footer and the document title in the header, and two pages with big diagrams that need to be landscape (horizontal)

Do you really want to painfully do the formatting of every heading, every bulleted list, ever note and warning, every page, manually each time you have a new one?

You really don't.

With styles, you just do the formatting for each heading and each other formatted element of the document once, and then you just select the text and select the style each time you want to apply the formatting. Instead of selecting the text, clicking the Bold icon, clicking the Italic icon, selecting the font size, selecting the font, indenting the text....and so on for every freakin' individual chunk of differently formatted text.

Styles Mean You Can Update a Long Document's Formatting Easily

Let's say you wrote that 100-page white paper and formatted it manually. There's a layoff and you have a new manager who tells you that your paper needs to conform to the corporate marketing formatting standards. Which are completely different.

If you formatted it manually, you have days of work ahead of you.

If you formatted it with styles, you just need to either import a template from the corporate marketing group and be done with it. That's the best case scenario. If your marketing group isn't that organized, then you just need to update about 15 styles. That's all. When you update the styles, all the text says to itself “Oh, I'm Heading3, and Heading3 has changed. I'd better change too.”

Styles Are Required for a Lot of Essential Features in OpenOffice.org.

Do you want to create a table of contents? Do some fancy formatting in a table of contents or list? Do running headers? Do conditional formatting in a spreadsheet? You're going to need styles.

 

---

Creating templates, and documents based on templates

This is a "classic" post but important and useful. See also info on styles .

Let's say you have the following:

• A bunch of styles you need to have when you create a document.
• Some canned text, like your signature or a graphic logo, that you use in a lot of documents
• Or you just have to make sure that all your white papers or customer contracts or brochures follow certain formatting standards
  

You are an excellent candidate for using templates. Templates are documents that store styles, text, graphics, general formatting—whatever you want. You create a document, save it as a template in the Template Place, then point to that template when you want to create a new document using what it's got.

Making a Template

Open a new document.

Put in it what you want in the template. Styles, graphics, text of every kind and variety. Whatever.

Then choose File > Templates > Save.

Specify My Templates unless you have another idea for a category.

(To create a new category, click the Organizer button, select a category in the button that appears, right-click on it and choose New. An untitled category will appear. IMMEDIATELY start typing the name of your new category. Click somewhere else in the category list when you're done typing. Click Close.)

Type the name of your template like Meeting Minutes.

Click OK.

Now you've got a template.

Using a Template

You need to create a new document using that template.

Choose File > New > Templates and Documents.

Select the Template icon on the left.

Open the category you chose like My Templates. You'll see your template.

Click Open and you'll have a new untitled document based on that template.

The Coolest Part—Making That Template Come Up When You Create Any New Document

Choosing File > New > Templates and Documents is fine but what if that's your template you use all the time? You can make it come up when you just choose File > New > [type of document] by setting it as the default template.

Choose File > Templates > Organize.

Open the category your template is in, in the left side.

Right-click on the template and choose Set as Default Template.

Click Close. You're done! Choose File > New > [type of document] and you'll see the effect.

To switch back to the normal original boring blank document, repeat the steps but this time choose Reset Default Template > [type of document]

Pointing to an Existing Directory of Templates

If you have a bunch of templates, Microsoft or OpenOffice.org, set up OpenOffice.org to know where they are. Then you can get to them as above by choosing File > New > Templates and Documents.

Converting, If You Want to Point to Microsoft Format Templates
First, if they're in Microsoft format, you need to convert them to OpenOffice format. Choose File > Wizards > Document Converter. Follow the wizard through to create a converted set of copies of the templates.

Step 1.

Step 2, then just follow the wizard as prompted.

Pointing to Templates to Use
Now, choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Paths. Select the Templates line.

Click Edit, then click Add, and add the path to the templates you want to point to. (Click this image to see a larger version if you like.)

Click OK, and OK, and OK  again.

Now you'll see the templates when you choose File > New > Templates and Documents.

---

Two ways to preview your data in an OpenOffice Writer mail merge

There isn't a preview button per se but there are two ways to see the actual data, rather than the mail merge fields, in a mail merge.

Here's a PDF from my workbooks with two approaches. One is just printing several or all of the records to one OpenOffice Writer file, then opening that up to look. The other is to click a button in the database view area, which lets you see just one page of records (one, for a mail merge letter or an envelope, or a whole label sheet full for labels).

The PDF starts out with standard mail merge printing instructions, and the two preview techniques are at the end.

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.

Checking for broken links when you're using Edit > Paste Special, Link, in OpenOffice

Paste Special is a great feature. Copy something, then go to a different spreadsheet sheet, or a different OpenOffice.org, and choose Edit > Paste Special. (Or Ctrl Shift V.) You get these options.

If you're pasting a spreadsheet to a spreadsheet

If you're pasting a spreadsheet to a text doc

If you're pasting a text doc to a text doc, or a text doc to a spreadsheet

 

If you select the Link option in spreadsheet-to-spreadsheet, or the DDE Link option when pasting any other time, you get a connection between the pasted from doc and the pasted into doc. When what you originally copied changes, then the pasted version of it changes, too.

This continues to work unless somebody deletes, renames, or otherwise messes with the original file you copied.

Unfortunately, if this happens, there's no big red flag waving to tell you. The data is still there; the link is just lost.

Here's how to check to see if the link is still working. Choose Edit > Links.

If you see links listed there, they're working and nobody has messed up the name or location of the original file.

If the the Links option is dimmed, or if a link to the file you're checking on isn't listed, then the link is broken and you need to do Paste Special, Link again to make the pasted data update when the original data does.

Quirks in OpenOffice.org Writer 2.x notes (comments) that you can easily get around

This will all change with OpenOffice.org 3.0, which is bringing in Microsoft Office-style display of notes. However, until then, here's some good stuff to know.

You can insert a note, aka a comment, by clicking in the text and choosing Insert > Note. You get this box; you type; you click OK.

You then see the note indicator. It's a small yellow box. Move your mouse over the box and you'll see the note.

It's not big and not obvious. One thing you might consider doing is to choose Tools > Options > Openoffice.org > Appearance and choose a different color for your notes.

It doesn't make it bigger but if the color is more obvious to you, then that's good.

Here's something else to know. The note display is affected  by whether nonprinting characters are on. Choose View > Nonprinting Characters to toggle back and forth.

Not showing

Showing

Now, as you can see the same two notes are shown regardless of whether nonprinting characters are showing, at this point. The document is in .odt format, normal format. BUT if you save the document as Word format, AND someone adds comments/notes using Word, AND then you open up the document again in OpenOffice, you won't see the notes they added.

UNLESS you have nonprinting characters turned ON.

So here I am editing one comment, and adding another comment, in Word.
 

Here I am opening up the document again, the .doc format document, in Writer. Nonprinting characters are OFF so you don't see the comment that was added in Word.

 

Choose View > Nonprinting Characters, and it appears. Look at the end of the paragraph.

 

Here's another way to more easily see all your comments, without having to look for the little yellow or green or magenta marker. Press F5 to open the Navigator, scroll down, and find the Notes item. Click the + to expand it and you'll see all your comments. Double-click one to go to the place where the comment was inserted. See that even though nonprinting characters aren't showing, all three comments are shown in the Navigator.

Video tutorial for creating cross-references

It takes a while to load, but should run fine once it gets going. (Optimization is one of the things I'm working on as I create more of these.)

It's about how to create cross-references in Writer, and what they are.

Note: The video uses the Navigator (press F5) to get around more easily to various headings being referenced. The Navigator shows you the structure of your document and the objects in it. By "structure" I mean that it shows all the text to which you have applied the paragraph styles Heading1, Heading2, and so on. More specifically, it shows whatever you have set up as the paragraph styles defining your documentBy structure under Tools > Outline Numbering. That's a whole nother topic, though a very useful one. To learn more about outline numbering and the Navigator, see these blog entries.

http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2006/10/in_praise_of_ou.html

http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2007/06/using_the_navig.html
http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2007/06/going_to_a_spec.html
http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2007/06/leaving_a_trail.html

---

---

TechTarget Article: Just Say No to Unnecessary Tabs and Carriage Returns (and Say Yes to Better Interoperability

I've written an article for TechTarget that's not really about using OpenOffice.org per se. It's more about good document construction and formatting. 

The thing is, though, when you do the formatting correctly, lots of nice things happen. The document looks more professional, it's far easier to update, and goes between Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org more easily with fewer formatting snafus. And it's not just between those two office suites--better-formatted documents transfer better between different versions of the same office suite, different platforms, and different computers.

It's all about letting the software do a bit of the work, based on what makes sense for it and its environment, rather than laying down the law yourself with manual things like tabs and carriage returns. Instead, you want to just use the formatting capabilities in the program, typically under Format > Paragraph. Doing this, as well as giving your document some wiggle-room and not cramming content into each page, will make a bi-office-suite life go more smoothly.

Separation of format and content. It's not just for XML anymore.

Note: This isn't wildly revolutionary stuff, at least not in the world of publishing and techwriting that I started in 15 years ago. (We had a templates guardian who would threaten to break our knees if we even created an unauthorized style, much less did manual formatting like the stuff described in the article.) But in the--oh, let's say "real world"--where you just sit down at your desk and try to churn out reports for that crazy boss of yours, or when you come from a programming background where vi was your text editor, this could be new and useful info.

The article is based on my experience, as well as what makes sense logically. I've seen a lot of documents that have the manual formatting mentioned in the article, when I go out to train and consult. The first thing I do when I'm looking at a problem document for a client is to choose View > Nonprinting Characters and something manual almost always turns up. There'll be extra tabs, unexpected soft returns, spaces instead of indenting, etc.

I also encounter fewer conversion issues with documents I create, than people in the world at large seem to. I was puzzled by this before I started training, but then realized that it was probably my techwriter/desktop publishing background making the difference.

So--this is just an explanation and an implied caveat. I don't double-dog guarantee that your conversion problems between MS and OpenOffice.org will dribble away to nothing if you format your documents as I recommend. But my experience is that it should help, much of the time.

---

---

OpenOffice Writer Styles Article on TechTarget.com

I've written a big  "what, why, and how" article on styles for TechTarget.com. http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid39_gci1230137,00.html It starts with just how useful styles are in daily life and why they make life great, then goes into just how to apply, create, and update them.

---

---

TechTarget Article: Numbered and Bulleted Lists in OpenOffice Writer

I've written a fairly comprehensive article for techtarget on lists.

See also this post on how to do numbering with fields. Fields are a more reliable but more complex approach.

---

---

TechTarget Article: Using Master Documents in OpenOffice Writer

I've written an article for TechTarget.com about using master documents in OpenOffice.org Writer.

http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid39_gci1230368,00.html

Master documents are used to combine lots of other Writer documents. They're similar to Word master files or Frame book files in that they organize your subdocuments, let you create a unified table of contents, etc.  They're a bit picky but once you've got them set up, they work quite reliably.

I've also written an article for TechTarget.com about how to bring spreadsheets into master documents, too. You link the spreadsheet to a Writer document, then bring that "dummy" writer document into your master document. It's a hack but a practical hack since big publications often need to combine different document types. There's an approach (even hackier, but useful) for bringing in presentation content, too.

---

---

How to lay out a page using tables and two or more columns

I've created some quick-reference sheets. The layout looks like this. Click the image to see it bigger. It's tables that repeat in three columns on each page. I needed columns so that I could keep the procedure name, in the left column of each table, together with the content in the right side of each table, the steps for the procedure. I also needed a heading at the top that spanned the columns.

I fiddled with a few ways to do it but here's what I ended up with.

- I set the top margin of the first page as 1.5 inches or so from the top, then inserted a frame the width of the page, to hold the heading content. (Insert > Frame.)

- I set up the page layout with three columns. (Format > Page, Columns tab.)

- Then I just put in the tables. I made sure that the tables were allowed to break over page and column breaks, and I used the Break options when I needed to have the columns start at the top of various columns and pages.

I set the table width to the total width of the column. Then I set the proportions of the columns within the table. I did both using the table properties window. (Table > Table Properties, Table tab and Columns tab.)

I fiddled a bit with column sections but the page layout approach was simpler.

---

---

Table and table-text flow control features for OpenOffice Writer

I've been doing some table-based layout recently, in my quick-reference cards. I got to know the table flow options real well. Here are some good solid table control features.

Text Flow tab

Get to know this one. Click in the table and choose Table > Table Properties. Click the Text Flow tab.

Break: If you want a cell to start at the top of a new page or column click in that cell, and then in this window select Break and Column or Page. Conversely, if you've got a table that starts at the top of a page or column and don't want it to, unmark the Break option.

Allow Table to Split Across Pages and Columns: You're going to have some weird layout with your longer tables if you don't let the table at least split across columns.

Allow Row to Split Across Pages and Columns: However, I think it looks a little weird, at least in some circumstances, to let the row split. So I don't mark that.

Repeat Heading: Here's how you get the first, or first and second, and so on, rows of a table to repeat on each additional page. Helps readers to know what each column of information is about.

Putting a Carriage Return Above a Table at the Top of a Page

If you've got a table at the top of a page and you want a blank line above it, just click in the upper left cell of that table and press Return.

Getting Rid of a Carriage Return Above a Table at the Top of a Page or Between Tables

Click on the line where the carriage return is and press Delete. 

Bam, the two are consecutive. Not the same table, but consecutive.

Split/Merge Options on the Table menu

Let's say you've got a long table, and you want to split it into two. Just click in the line where you want the 2nd table to being, and choose Table > Split Table.

If you've got two tables and you want them to be one, then click in the top line of the second table and choose Table > Merge Table.

If there's just one to choose from, the merging will just happen with the  table above it. If there's a table above and below, you'll get this window. Make the choice you want and click OK.

---

---

Having different layout and page numbering within a document

See also my post on the pagination extension.

All right. It's the elephant in the room, and it's time to address it.

How do you have no page number on the first page, then have the second page start with the page number 1 in the footer? Or with page number 42, or 623?

(Or how do you have a landscape page in a portrait document?)

Good question. It's a common one. It's actually not more complex than the tax code, but there's some setup you need to do that's a little more complicated than the task at hand. I would like to see a checkbox/field combination somewhere  that would let you specify "For this document, start the page footer on page __ and make the first page number be ___". However, for now, we do it this way.

There are two things to control in this situation:
- Whether there is a page number in the footer--i.e. whether there is any number at all in there, regardless of what it is.
- If there is a page number in the footer, what that page number is.

You control the first with page styles: you set up the page style, say "yes, there's a footer and a page number in it" or "no, no stinkin' page numbers here" and then apply that page style.

You control the second a few different ways. I'm going to show you the most straightforward which is just to create a page break, switch to a different page style, and specify what the page number for that page is.: 1, 42,  623, or anything else.

Let's look at part 1 first.  Page styles are actually a really nice, useful feature.

Part 1: Setting Up Page Styles

Bring up the document you're working with.  Remove any page breaks you've put in between the first and second pages. This sample  document I'm using has some text that clearly goes on a cover page, and then it runs immediately into the content text that should start on page 2.

For any of these images, just click on any of them that are too small for you to read. (They mostly all are, but you might not need to get more detail on all of them.)

Here's my sample document. I want no page number on the first page and page number 1 on the 2nd page.

Choose Format > Styles and Formatting. In that window, click the Page Styles icon at the top.

Right-click in the blank part and choose New. You're going to make the page styles you need.

In the Organizer tab of the page styles window, just name the style  something like Cover Page. This is the one with no footer and no page number.

You actually don't need to do anything else. But just to make sure it's clear when we're applying the styles in this procedure, I'm going to suggest that you  click the Background tab and give it the  light gray background.

Click OK.

Now, right-click in a blank part of the Styles and Formatting window again, and choose New. This time you're creating the other page style, the one for the main body where you're going to have a page number and start it at 1. Call it Main Body or something, in the Organizer tab.

Then click the Footer tab and turn it on by marking the checkbox.

That's all you really need to do, so click OK.

Part 2: Applying a Page Style, Then Switching to Another

Click in the first page of the document, where you want the Cover Page page style. In the Styles and Formatting window, double-click the Cover Page style you created. The style will be applied, as you can tell from the gray background.

The style is applied not only to that page, but to the entire document. That's what's supposed to happen at this point.

Now you're ready to switch. So click to the left of the first word where you want to switch, the first word of the next page usually. Or click to the right of the last word on the current page. Whatever works. Here I've clicked to the left of "Why".

Choose Insert > Manual Break. In the window that appears, just tell it that now you want to switch to the Main Body page style by selecting it in the list.

That second page is also really the first content page of the document, so you'd like it to be page 1. So select the page numbering checkbox and specify 1. (Or any number you want.)

Click OK.

A page break will be inserted where your cursor was, and the new page style you specified, Main Page, will be applied from that page on in the document.

Now, there's one more step. You've already created the footer for that Main Page style, but it's time to put content in it.  I.e., the page number. This is easy. Just scroll to the bottom of the first content page (the second page), type the word page and a space if you want, then choose Insert > Fields > Page Number. The page number will appear. And  you already specified that on this page where the page style switches to MainPage, the page numbering should restart at 1.  So it restarts at 1. (If you had specified page number 42 earlier, this number would be 42.)

That's All There Is To It

Just create the styles you want, apply the first style, then just switch page styles the way we did in this example.

Tips for Landscape and Portrait in the Same Document

To have a landscape page in a portrait document, just create a page style and select the Landscape option of the Page tab. So in this example, you could create a third page style, call it Landscape or Horizontal. Switch to it the way we did here with the manual break, but just don't change the page number.

Tips for Automatic Switching From One Page Style to Another

If you want to automatically switch from one page style to another, you have two options.

In the page style definition window, click the Organizer tab and find the Next Style list. You'll still need to insert manual page breaks sometimes but you won't have to switch styles as we did earlier.

In the paragraph style definition window, click the Text Flow tab and find the section in the middle dealing with creating a page break with a particular page style on the next page.

Or try using all three approaches together.

---

---

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.)

---

---

Searching and replacing for carriage returns, tabs, and other characters, using regular expressions

Call them carriage returns, line breaks, paragraph marks, whatever, sometimes you want fewer of them. Maybe you've brought in some ASCII text that had a line break or two after every paragraph and now with formatted text you don't need it. Or you're turning a spreadsheet or database into text or vice versa.

At any rate, it would be nice to use the Find and Replace window to quickly find'em and change them to whatever you want: nothing at all, or the phrase "el elegante" or whatever.

Note: If you're a macro kind of person, see this page on the ooo forum.

Searching and Replacing, Step by Step

In your OpenOffice.org document, choose Edit > Find and Replace or press Ctrl F. The Find and Replace window will appear.

In the Find and Replace window, enter the symbol for what you want to search for, in the Find field. Here's a quick reference to the symbols to enter for what you're looking for.

• Regular carriage returns  are $
• Soft returns inserted with a Shift Return, are \n
• Just an empty paragraph, i.e. a carriage return but with no text on that line, is ^$
• Tabs are \t

In the Replace field, you typically don't enter anything since you're probably just trying to get rid of whatever you're searching for.

• If you want to replace something with a carriage return, put \n in the Replace field.
• If you want to replace one carriage return with two, put \n\n in the Replace field.
• One thing--you can't replace something with soft returns. As you see, a \n in the Replace field turns into a normal hard return.
• Just use \t normally, in both the Search and the Replace fields, for a tab.

Once your Find and Replace fields contain what they should, click the More Options button. Select the Regular Expressions checkbox. This will make the program look for what those codes represent, rather than literally those characters.

If you're using a mix of regular expressions and normal characters, you might need to use a \ in front of anything you want evaluated normally. For instance, if you really are looking for the symbol $ but you want to replace it with a carriage return \n, then you need to actually search for \$ in the Search field and replace it with \n because $ is a special character.

This illustration shows you're looking for a carriage return (any carriage return), and you're going to replace it with nothing.

Click Find. The first instance (from where the cursor was) of the thing you're looking for will be highlighted.

Click Replace to do the replacing.

And so on. Keep going until you're done. Use Replace All only when you're absolutely positive you'll get the results you want.

---

---

---

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.

---

---

An equivalent of the Word's Outline View, with the OpenOffice.org Writer Navigator

[Digg it]

Who hasn't had one of these experiences?

• You're writing your guide to gardening, you're looking at the headings for your garden-preparation chapter, and you realize you have made instructions for the compost pile a level-3 small section when it should really be a chapter of its own.
  
• You think, re-reading the first draft of your novel, "No, the dream sequence should come first to grab people, and I'll put the conversation between Grimelda and her guru in chapter five after the chariot race."
• You are tired of scrolling through your document and you want to just go directly to the section on shoe-making so you can add the cool new stuff about suede. Or you've put in a table, or a graphic, and you want to go directly to it to make some changes.
• You're writing a 680-page document and you just want to read through the main heading titles and make sure that they're in a good order, that you're using parallel grammatical structure, that you're capitalizing correctly, etc.

In Word you might use the Outline view. In OpenOffice Writer, you use the Navigator.

Press F5 and you'll see the Navigator window.

First: What you need to do in your document to make sure the Navigator works for you

You must either use the Heading1 through Heading10 styles on the text that is used as your document headings. Or you can apply other styles to your headings and set them up at the right levels; choose Tools > Outline Numbering. (See this entry for more on outline numbering.)

Applying the heading styles

This picture shows how to apply the Heading1-Heading10 styles in a simpler  example, a document about bread.

Modifying how the heading styles look

If you don't like how the Heading1-Heading10 styles look, right-click on any text with the style you don't like applied to it, and choose Edit Paragraph Style. Make your changes in the formatting window that appears and click OK.

Then: What you can do with the Navigator

You can:

• View all the headings in your document: just the top levels, just the top and second levels, and on down
• Jump from one section to another just by double-clicking
• Jump to other items in the navigator such as tables, bookmarks, or charts, just by double-clicking
• Turn chapters into sections by demoting and vice versa
• Easily drag sections to different places in your document to re-order the document: not just chapters but any section that starts with a Heading1-Heading10 style, or with whatever styles you set up under Outline Numbering.

Viewing the Headings

In the Navigator, press F5. You'll see all the headings. The icon labeled Heading Levels Shown lets you see only Heading1s, only Heading1s and Heading2s, etc.

Click as shown to view the number of heading levels you want.

Jumping from one section to another

I'm currently at the top of the document.

I double-click the Breweries and Wineries sub-section and bam, that's what's displayed in the document itself.

Jump to other objects in the document: tables, bookmarks, etc.

I double-click the Table1 item (I don't name my tables but you can when you choose Insert > Table) and immediately it's displayed.

Change chapters to sections and vice versa by promoting and demoting heading levels

Let's say I want the Romance section to be less important, a heading level or two down. It's currently assigned the Heading2 style so it's at level 2.

I can just click on it, then click the Demote Level icon as many times as needed to move the section to where I want it. I clicked it once so now Romance is at level 3. (And Jazz and other sections below it were moved down, as well.)

Ditto for making sections more important; click the Promote Level icon.

Re-order sections in the document

Let's say I want the chapter Getting Here and Getting Around to be earlier in the document, not last. It's a Heading1 and I don't want to change that, but it's now starting on page 22 (look in the bottom left corner) and I want it earlier in the document.

I click Promote Chapter and it's now earlier in the document. It's at the same level, as you can see by the applied style, but it's now on page 16 as you can see in the lower left corner.

I can do the same thing with lower-level sections. I can take the By Train subsection here, currently before By Car

click Demote Icon, and now it's the last section in the document, not second to last. It's after the By Car section.

[Digg it]

---

---

Four Table Tips for OpenOffice Writer: Blank line above a table, splitting tables, automatic optimal column width, and joining tables

Tables generally behave as you might expect. They're fairly straightforward and not too troublesome.

But sometimes the features aren't that obvious. So here's a blog on useful stuff you can't easily see, as well as one feature Word users might expect that isn't there, but for which there is a decent alternate route.

Getting a blank line / carriage return at the top of a document when the table is at the top already
Here's your table. Let's say it's, oh, top performers for Amway from each state, or the exciting new political movers and shakers from each state. And it's right at the top of the page, but you want to write an intro paragraph like "Let's welcome the new political movers and shakers from the Midwest!"

Just click in the top left cell

and press Return.

Splitting a Table
This is relatively straightforward, but there are four ways to split it. Here's your table. Note that the first line is bold and centered. The Table Heading paragraph style is applied to that row in the table.

First, click at the left of the column that you want to have as the first line of the new table.

Choose Table > Split Table.

Now you have options.

Copy Heading is just what you would expect. The results look like this.

Custom Heading Apply Style is useful only if the line you're splitting on is going to be used as a heading. Here, it's pretty silly. It applies the paragraph style from the heading of the table to the top row of the new table. Also the first row is a heading, i.e. it will repeat at the top of the next page if the table goes far enough to continue to the next page.

Custom Heading is the same except that it doesn't apply any paragraph style. But the first row of the new table will still repeat on the next page if the table goes long enough, since it's a heading.

No Heading is the simplest approach -- it splits the table and does absolutely nothing else to it.

Automatically adjusting spacing to fit the text

Let's say you've got this table. You probably want to give the far right column a little more width, definitely, and maybe adjust some of the other columns to suit how much content they have.

Select the entire table. The Table toolbar will appear. The icon you want is the Optimize icon. (The icons shown here are for Ubuntu, use your tooltips if necessary on your version of OpenOffice.org.)

Click and hold down the arrow for the Optimize icon. All of these are useful but you want the far right icon, Optimal Column Width.

And here's the result.

Joining Two Tables

Sorry, there's no quick way to do this. Tables are just normal tables in Writer, and so part of the normal text flow. You can't just join text chunks. However, it's not too much work to copy and paste.

You have a table. You then have a blank line or three, then another table. You want them to be one table.

- Copy the second table (leave out the heading rows).
- Create a blank row at the end of the first table.
- Click in the first cell of that blank row.
- Paste
- Delete the second table now that you've pasted it into the end of the first table

---

---

Printing two-sided brochures in OpenOffice.org Writer: easy as pie, if you know a couple tricks about how to make pie

An email conversation with Don revived my interest in brochures.

I've got a template here for a tri-fold brochure. It uses connected frames.  Right-click on the link and choose to save it to your computer if you'd like to look at it.
 

However, what if you want something more normal, just something like this? You want to rotate a letter or A4 piece of paper 90 degrees, and fold it in half.

This means some juggling with the page printing order. For the folding to come out right, you need an eight-page brochure to print like this. Half are on one side of the paper and half are on the other.

You could do this through mental gyrations.  Or you can do it with the OpenOffice.org Writer brochure setting under print options.

You just need to do a few things to make it work well.

Step 1: Set up your page normally (portrait) but....

For whatever reason, the brochure printing prints a little short of filling the eight vertical inches appropriately. So for printing on letter size paper sideways, I recommend an 8 1/2 by 13 page size. Choose Format > Page, Page tab and set the size there. I also recommend mirrored setup and a nice big inner margin as shown.

Step 2: Make your content and heading fonts a little bigger  

The whole document will be shrunk when it's turned and printed so I recommend increasing all font sizes about 2 points, possibly more for extra readability.

Step 3: Print using the brochure options and print Landscape (additional details vary depending on your printer)

Choose File > Print. Click Options. Select the Brochure option. Click OK.

 

In the OpenOffice.org print window, just click Properties and find the option to print Landscape.

 

If your printer also lets you print double-sided, select that option too. And you're done.

If your printer doesn't do double-sided, you'll need to do this instead.

Print the brochure in two passes:

A) Choose File > Print and click Options. Set these options to print only half the pages:

B) In the print window, click Properties and set up the printer to print  landscape. Print.

C) Then put the pages that you've printed into the printer again, choose File > Print again, and choose these options instead to print the other half of the pages AND to reverse order.

And of course print Landscape this time too.

Here's a template if you'd like to download it and fiddle with it. Right-click on the link and choose to save it to your computer.

Download the template, with screenshots and directions.

Download the template without screenshots or directions.

---

---

You want this extension for yourself and everyone you know who uses OpenOffice Writer: the easy "no page number on first page" option and much, much more.

Charles Brunet, thank you. The people who created the extension capability for OpenOffice.org, thank you.

I've been longing, for years, for a simple "no page number on first page" checkbox.  This is great. I'm only sorry I didn't see it til today.

Everybody, now, click here to get the extension. IT folks, get this extension now for all your users.

1. Download the extension.

2. In OpenOffice.org, choose Tools > Extension Manager, select My Extensions.

3. Click Add.

4. Find the downloaded extension file.

5. Restart OpenOffice.org.

6. In any Writer document, choose Insert Page Number.

7. You'll get this window with its many clear, useful options. The headers and footers are inserted automatically if you choose them, and you can choose the page number style. And, of course, there's the wonderful "no page number on first page" option.

---

---

Putting borders around pieces of text without frames, and making your own automatically incrementing captions

Let's say you want something that looks like this. (I found the Java examples here.) You want a border around the code example and you want a caption with a number that increments automatically.

You can go ahead and put the code in a frame. Just Insert > Frame, click OK, stretch it to the right size, paste the code inside. Then click in the frame and choose Insert > Caption, and bam, you're good.

Now, I'm embarrassed to say that I don't quite remember why frames aren't always a good solution. I was working with someone who wanted boxes around code and frames weren't quite working for him. (We needed to put frames inside frames because of some formatting goals.)

However, frames can be just a little annoying to deal with because sometimes when you click on the frame you can't type in it, you have to click outside the frame and then inside it again, etc.

And why use a graphic element when there's a paragraph attribute that lets you just put a border around any paragraph? Plus, then you can save all that paragraph formatting as a style, so you can type or paste in the code example text, select it all, and just apply your CodeExample style. It's more Elegant somehow. Plus it's easier to update. (You can do frame styles but the updating process isn't nearly as cooperative as the paragraph styles.) And the automatically numbering caption that you insert with this approach is very nearly as easy to do as when you skip styles.

Here's how.

1. Get your code example in. You can copy and paste from your actual code that you've got running, or choose Insert > File to just bring it straight in without copying and pasting.

2. Format it the way you want it. Courier font, font size, indented a half inch, whatever.

3. Then select it all and choose Format > Paragraph, Border tab. Select the border icon on the left for all four sides, in the middle set border formatting options, and on the right, maybe increase the distance from the content to the border.  Click OK.

4. The code example will have a border.

5. With your mouse still selecting the code example, choose Format > Styles and Formatting. Click and hold down on the far right icon and choose New Style From Selection.

6. Give the new style a name and click OK.

You have your paragraph style for code examples now (in this document only) and can modify and reapply it easily.

7. Now to insert a caption for just some plain text, click below it and type whatever you want the caption to be, like Code Example: arrays or whatever.

8. Click where you want the code example number to appear, like between "example" and the colon.

9. Choose Insert > Fields > Other and click the Variables tab.

10. Select Number Range on the left. Now choose one of the numbering range systems set up already. Just select Drawing, Illustration, whatever you want. The word "Drawing" won't appear, they're just named differently to indicate that they're separate and increment independently. After you do, type whatever you chose, like Drawing or Illustration, followed by +1, at the bottom of the window in the Value field. Then select the numbering type on the right like Arabic, ABC, etc.

Then click Insert. The number appears. The gray indicates that the number automatically increments.

11. To make more captions, either copy and paste the results of the first one, and modify the text, or repeat those steps. The number will automatically increment. However, it won't be affected by other numbering like page or other number ranges you set up for tables or illustrations.

12. To apply the formatting to more code examples, just get the text in, select the whole piece of code, and choose Format > Styles and Formatting. Double-click the style  you created.

---

---

How do you insert an em dash in OpenOffice Writer? and other shortcuts to make life easier

An em dash is the nice long one that you insert between thoughts.

Methods for creating them vary from one word processor to another. To create them in OpenOffice.org Writer, I recommend that you use the Autocorrect window. Choose Tools > AutoCorrect, Options tab. Select both checkboxes next to Replace Dashes. (Aside from the first option in the window, this is pretty much the only selection in the Options tab that I recommend.)

How does it work? It takes two regular hyphens that you type using the keyboard and turns'em into an em dash.

So you type this, using the - key that for me is to the right of the zero and left of the = and +.

and then you type the next word (still no change, it's still two hyphens from the keyboard)

but then when you press the spacebar, the substitution happens.

At this point you can copy and paste the em dash anywhere you want, or just keep using the -- approach.

Now, if you want to type something else, like any of these things

you'll want to use the Replacement tab of the same window. I cover that info as well as another approach to longer-text shortcuts here, but here's the basic set of steps.

NOTE: If you want to insert the Em dash using the Special Characters window, with or without the corresponding shortcut, you can find it in the General Punctuation section of the Special Characters window.

 

1. Choose Insert > Special Characters and find the symbol you want. This can take a while since there are a zillion but scroll around, change the selections in the dropdown lists at the top, and you'll find what you want. Select it in the window and click OK.

2. The symbol will appear in your Writer document. Select it and copy it.

3. Choose Tools > AutoCorrect and click the Replace tab.

4. In the left field type one or more letters that are NOT a word (i.e. you won't be typing them on their own to appear as is) and in the right field paste the symbol.

5. Click New. (The New button will then change to display the word "Replace".)  The substitution will appear in the list.

6. Click OK.

7. Now in your document when you  want the symbol, type the shortcut that you specified

followed by a space. When you type the space, the substitution will happen.

If it doesn't happen, choose Tools > AutoCorrect, Options tab and be sure that the Use Replacement Table option at the top of the list is marked, with both checkboxes. If it's not, mark both checkboxes and click OK. Then type your shortcut again and a space, and the substitution will work.

---

---

Good information on the OpenOffice.org documentation wiki about regular expressions in Calc and Writer

Calc 
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/How_Tos/Regular_Expressions_in_Calc

Writer
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/How_Tos/Regular_Expressions_in_Writer

---

---

Two videos: how to use two or more page styles, with different page numbering, in an OpenOffice.org Writer document

One of the things in OpenOffice.org and StarOffice that's a little harder than it should be is having different page numbering in the same document.

For example:

- Having no page number on the first page but numbers on the second page and thereafter
- Having no page number on the first page, roman numerals on the second and third pages, and arabic numbering on the fourth page. Also having the page numbering restart at 1 on the fourth page.

I've blogged about it but a video is worth a thousand words.

How to use the built-in First Page and Default page styles to have no page number on the first page and a page number on the second and subsequent pages

How to create your own page styles, and switch from one to another, to do pretty much anything you want with page layout

Note: If you're saving in Microsoft Word .doc format, any styles you create will be renamed convert1, convert2, and so on when you save, close, and reopen the document. So follow the instructions for the second video but it's probably best to modify page styles that already exist rather than creating the new styles.  (Right-click on the page style name and choose Modify, rather than right-clicking in the white area and choosing Create).

---

---

OpenOffice Calc and Writer Chart Users -- This Is for You

This looks pretty fantastic. New features for charting coming in OpenOffice.org 2.4.

http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/new_chart_features_in_openoffice

and more here: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Chart2/Features2.4

To try it out, click here for the announcement and download info.

Here's just one of the new features, quoting from this post.

Equation and Value of R² for Trend Lines

Now, it is possible to display the equation for a trend line (regression curve) next to it. The formula object can be moved around, formatted with a number format, font and graphical formatting.

Alternatively, or in addition, the correlation coefficient R² can be displayed in the formula object.

---

---

A Plea for the New Year: Don't Use Default Tabs

What Are Default Tabs?

The default tabs are the ones that you use if you simply press the Tab key. They are marked on the ruler as small upside down Ts. Whenever you press the Tab key and your cursor is in your text, you move along the cursor as far as one more of the default tabs. The default tabs in the following illustration are every half inch on the ruler.

 

The tab key indicators in the text look like arrows when you choose View > Nonprinting Characters, as shown below.  See that there are tab markers on the ruler to show where pressing Tab takes you, and tab key indicators in the text to show where you have actually pressed Tab. You can delete them if you want to get rid of them.

Before we continue, note that the info for Rachel and Bob above starts at the 2" mark.

It’s MUCH better to specify tabs yourself, though.

Why It’s Better to Create Your Own Tabs

This is better for several reasons. One is that you can position the tab exactly where you want it, and you only have to press Tab once.

You can also easily change the position of the tabbed text just by selecting all the tabbed text, then dragging the tab mark to another location. In the illustration below, the tab has been dragged  from approximately 1 7/8 to 1 5/8, or whatever. Note where the cursor is on the ruler. (I also deleted all the extra tab indicators from the text, because I only need one.)

 

 

 

A primary reason for creating your own tabs, relating to document conversion, is that default tab settings are specific not just to the application, but to the user. Each application, like Word or Writer, might have the default tabs set to different increments, and you can set yours differently than your co-workers. If the default tabs are .25 inches apart in Word, but .5 inches apart in Writer, then your document will look a lot different when you open it in Writer.  Your document using default tabs also might look quite differently to you than to your boss. And even switching between Writer and Writer might cause problems if you've set your default tabs differently.

You can change the default tab settings in Writer under Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer > General. However, it’s best to set the tabs where you want them in the original document. Then when you open the document in the other text-editing application, there are no tab-related corrections to make.

Creating Your Own Tabs

Select at least part of EVERY line that should have that tab. Then click on the ruler, in Writer, and drag the tab mark that appears to wherever you want it. The tabs you create are slightly larger, as shown.

Then when you press Tab once, your cursor will go all the way to that mark, disregarding any default tabs to the left of it.

To change the tab position, again select ALL the text (at least part of every line) that has that tab marker, then click and hold down on the tab marker on the ruler, and drag it. The text will follow.

You can also define tabs by selecting the paragraph(s) that need tabs and choosing Format > Paragraph, Tabs tab.

 

---

---

Bullets not to use in Microsoft Word

I've been doing some work with converting documents between Word and Writer, and have found that this bullet format doesn't go well between the two. The text ends up in the middle of the document, and there's no space between the bullet and the text. Steer clear of this bullet format in Word and you'll have a better conversion experience.

---

---

Grammar checker addon for OpenOffice Writer

There isn't a built-in grammar checker. If you want to add one, here's a grammar checker extension, one of the many on the extensions page for OpenOffice.org.

Once you download it, choose Tools > Extension Manager to install it.

---

---

Note on the font color icons in OpenOffice Writer

To apply color to text in OpenOffice.org Writer, you select the text, then click and hold down on a text color icon, find the color  you want, and click the color. (Note that right now before the color is applied, the color under the A of the font color icon is white.)

That color is applied to the text, of course. Note that now the line under the A font color icon is red, the most recently applied color. Even though no red text is selected.

Now if I select some more text and just click the font color icon, rather than having to bring up the palette and pick the color again, like before, I get the most recently applied font color (the one shown in the line under the font color icon).

Ditto with the highlighting icon and the fill icon.

That is the way it works in Word, I understand, and that's how it now works in Writer 2.3. It does NOT work this way in Calc or Impress/Draw, though I would have to assume that's coming.

I wanted to point that out because I've heard complaints about how the text color icon (or text highlight icon) used to show the color of the currently selected text, not the color that you most recently applied. One could make an argument either way, but apparently the OpenOffice PTB (powers that be) decided to switch it to match Word. I must admit that I like it the new way, myself.

So -- two things here. One, that the OpenOffice folks listened to input from users, and two, that the font colors work this way in 2.3.

---

---

Video tutorial for creating cross-references

Video tutorial, take 2. Smaller display area. It takes a while to load, but should run fine once it gets going. (Optimization is one of the things I'm working on as I create more of these.)

It's about how to create cross-references in Writer, and what they are.

Note: The video uses the Navigator (press F5) to get around more easily to various headings being referenced. The Navigator shows you the structure of your document and the objects in it. By "structure" I mean that it shows all the text to which you have applied the paragraph styles Heading1, Heading2, and so on. More specifically, it shows whatever you have set up as the paragraph styles defining your documentBy structure under Tools > Outline Numbering. That's a whole nother topic, though a very useful one. To learn more about outline numbering and the Navigator, see these blog entries.

http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2006/10/in_praise_of_ou.html

http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2007/06/using_the_navig.html
http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2007/06/going_to_a_spec.html
http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2007/06/leaving_a_trail.html

---

---