Open Office Writer - Level 1

Introduction to WriterWord Processing with OpenOffice.org

Table of ContentsWhat is Writer?........................................................................................................................................ 7The Writer interface.................................................................................................................................7

Status bar............................................................................................................................................. 8

Changing document views.....................................................................................................................9Moving quickly through a document...................................................................................................10Working with documents......................................................................................................................11

Saving as a Microsoft Word file...........................................................................................................11

Working with text...................................................................................................................................12Selecting items that are not consecutive.............................................................................................12

Selecting a vertical block of text..........................................................................................................13

Cutting, copying, and pasting text.......................................................................................................13

Finding and replacing text and formatting...........................................................................................14

Inserting special characters................................................................................................................15

Inserting dashes and non-breaking spaces and hyphens...................................................................15

Setting tab stops and indents..............................................................................................................16

Changing the default tab stop interval.................................................................................................16

Checking spelling and grammar..........................................................................................................17

Using built-in language tools...............................................................................................................17

Using AutoCorrect...............................................................................................................................18

Using word completion........................................................................................................................18

Formatting text......................................................................................................................................19Using styles is recommended.............................................................................................................19

Formatting paragraphs........................................................................................................................19

Formatting characters.........................................................................................................................19

Autoformatting.....................................................................................................................................20

Creating numbered or bulleted lists.....................................................................................................20

Using the Bullets and Numbering toolbar.......................................................................................21

Hyphenating words.............................................................................................................................21

Automatic hyphenation...................................................................................................................21

Manual hyphenation.......................................................................................................................22

Formatting pages..................................................................................................................................23Which layout method to choose?........................................................................................................23

Creating headers and footers..............................................................................................................24

Numbering pages................................................................................................................................25

Including the total number of pages................................................................................................25

Restarting page numbering............................................................................................................25

Changing page margins......................................................................................................................26

2 Introduction to Writer

Creating a table......................................................................................................................................27Inserting a new table...........................................................................................................................27

Creating nested tables........................................................................................................................28

Formatting the table layout...................................................................................................................29Default parameters.............................................................................................................................29

Resizing and positioning the table.......................................................................................................29

Resizing rows and columns................................................................................................................30

Inserting rows and columns................................................................................................................31

Merging and splitting cells...................................................................................................................32

Specifying table borders......................................................................................................................32

Selecting background colors and graphics..........................................................................................33

Displaying or hiding table boundaries.................................................................................................35

Formatting the table text.......................................................................................................................35Specifying text flow.............................................................................................................................36

Vertical alignment................................................................................................................................37

Number formats..................................................................................................................................37

Rotating text in a table cell..................................................................................................................37

Data entry and manipulation in tables.................................................................................................38Moving between cells..........................................................................................................................38

Sorting data in a table.........................................................................................................................38

Automatic formatting of tables.............................................................................................................39

Deleting a table...................................................................................................................................39

Copying a table...................................................................................................................................40

Moving a table.....................................................................................................................................40

Inserting a paragraph before or after a table.......................................................................................40

The Table menu and toolbar.................................................................................................................40Adding images to a document..............................................................................................................42

Inserting an image file.........................................................................................................................42

Drag and drop................................................................................................................................42

Insert Picture dialog........................................................................................................................42

Modifying an image...............................................................................................................................43Using the Picture toolbar.....................................................................................................................43

Graphics mode...............................................................................................................................43

Flip vertically or horizontally ...........................................................................................................44

Filters............................................................................................................................................. 44

Color...............................................................................................................................................44

Transparency..................................................................................................................................45

Using the formatting toolbar and Picture dialog...................................................................................45

3

Cropping images.................................................................................................................................45

Resizing an image..............................................................................................................................46

Rotating a picture................................................................................................................................48

Other settings......................................................................................................................................48

Deleting a picture................................................................................................................................48

Using Writer’s drawing tools................................................................................................................49Creating drawing objects.....................................................................................................................49

Set or change properties for drawing objects......................................................................................50

Resizing a drawing object...................................................................................................................50

Grouping drawing objects...................................................................................................................51

Positioning graphics within the text....................................................................................................51Arranging graphics..............................................................................................................................52

Anchoring graphics.............................................................................................................................52

Aligning graphics.................................................................................................................................53

Wrapping text around graphics...........................................................................................................53

Example 1: page wrapping.............................................................................................................56

Example 2: simple contour wrapping in action................................................................................56

Example 3: Wrap Through and In Background...............................................................................57

Printing from Writer...............................................................................................................................59Quick printing......................................................................................................................................59

Controlling printing..............................................................................................................................59

Selecting print options for a document................................................................................................60

Printing in black and white on a color printer.......................................................................................60

Previewing pages before printing........................................................................................................61

Printing envelopes..............................................................................................................................62

Printing labels.....................................................................................................................................64

What is mail merge?..............................................................................................................................67Creating the data source.......................................................................................................................67Registering a data source.....................................................................................................................68Creating a form letter............................................................................................................................71Printing mailing labels..........................................................................................................................75

Editing a saved file of mailing labels...................................................................................................79

Printing envelopes................................................................................................................................79Setting up envelopes for printing.........................................................................................................79

Merging and printing the envelopes....................................................................................................83

Using the Mail Merge Wizard to create a form letter...........................................................................83Step 1: Select starting document........................................................................................................83

Step 2: Select document type.............................................................................................................84


Step 3: Insert address block................................................................................................................85

Selecting the data source (address list)..........................................................................................85

Selecting the address block............................................................................................................86

Matching the fields.........................................................................................................................87

Step 4: Create salutation.....................................................................................................................88

Step 5: Adjust layout...........................................................................................................................89

Step 6: Edit document and insert extra fields......................................................................................90

Step 7: Personalize documents...........................................................................................................92

Step 8: Save, print or send..................................................................................................................92

What is Writer? 5

What is Writer?Writer is the word processor component of OpenOffice.org (OOo). In addition to the usual features of a word processor (spelling check, thesaurus, hyphenation, autocorrect, find and replace, automatic generation of tables of contents and indexes, mail merge and others), Writer provides these important features:

• Templates and styles (see Chapter 3)• Page layout methods, including frames, columns, and tables• Embedding or linking of graphics, spreadsheets, and other objects• Built-in drawing tools• Master documents—to group a collection of documents into a single document• Change tracking during revisions• Database integration, including a bibliography database• Export to PDF, including bookmarks (see Chapter 10)• And many more

These features are covered in detail in the Writer Guide.

The Writer interfaceThe main Writer workspace is shown in Figure 1. The menus and toolbars are described in Chapter 1 (Introducing OpenOffice.org).

Some other features of the Writer interface are covered in this chapter.

Figure 1: The main Writer workspace in Print Layout view


Status barThe Writer status bar provides information about the document and convenient ways to quickly change some document features.

Figure 2: Left end of status bar

Page numberShows the current page number, the sequence number of the current page (if different), and the total number of pages in the document. For example, if you restarted page numbering at 1 on the third page, its page number is 1 and its sequence number is 3.If any bookmarks have been defined in the document, a right-click on this field pops up a list of bookmarks; click on the required one.To jump to a specific page in the document, double-click on this field. The Navigator opens. Click in the Page Number field and type the sequence number of the required page. After a brief delay, the display jumps to the selected page.

Page styleShows the style of the current page. To change the page style, right-click on this field. A list of page styles pops up; choose a different style by clicking on it.To edit the current page style, double-click on this field. The Page Style dialog opens.

LanguageShows the language for the selected text.

Click to open a menu where you can choose another language for the selected text or for the paragraph where the cursor is located. You can also choose None (Do not check spelling) to exclude the text from a spelling check or choose More... to open the Character dialog.

Insert modeClick to toggle between Insert and Overwrite modes when typing.

Selection modeClick to toggle between STD (Standard), EXT (Extend), ADD (Add) and BLK (Block) selection. EXT is an alternative to Shift+click when selecting text. See “Working with text” on page 11 for more information about ADD and BLK.

Unsaved changesAn asterisk (*) appears here if changes to the document have not been saved.

Figure 3: Right end of status bar

The Writer interface 7

Digital signatureIf the document has been digitally signed, an icon shows here. You can double-click the icon to view the certificate.

Section or object informationWhen the cursor is on a section, heading, or list item, or when an object (such as a picture or table) is selected, information about that item appears in this field. Double-clicking in this area opens a relevant dialog. For details, consult the Help or the Writer Guide.

View layoutClick an icon to change between single page, side-by-side, and book layout views (Figure 4). You can edit the document in any view.

Figure 4: View layouts: single, side-by-side, book.

ZoomTo change the view magnification, drag the Zoom slider, or click on the + and – signs, or right-click on the zoom level percent to pop up a list of magnification values from which to choose. Zoom interacts with the selected view layout to determine how many pages are visible in the document window.

Changing document viewsWriter has several ways to view a document: Print Layout, Web Layout, and Full Screen. To access these and other choices, go to the View menu and click on the required view. (When in Full Screen view, press the Esc key to return to either Print or Web Layout view.)

When in Print Layout, you can use both the Zoom slider and the View Layout icons on the Status bar. In Web Layout, you can use the Zoom slider.

You can also choose View > Zoom from the menu bar to display the Zoom & View Layout dialog (Figure 5), where you can set the same options as on the Status bar. In Web Layout view, most of the choices are not available.


Figure 5: Choosing Zoom and View Layout options.

Moving quickly through a documentIn addition to the navigation features of the Status bar (described above), you can use the main Navigator window and the Navigation toolbar as described in Chapter 1 (Introducing OpenOffice.org).

In Writer, you can also display the Navigation toolbar by clicking on the small Navigation icon near the lower right-hand corner of the window below the vertical scroll bar, as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Navigation icons.

The Navigation toolbar (Figure 7) shows icons for all the object types shown in the Navigator, plus some extras (for example, the results of a Find command).

Figure 7: Navigation toolbarClick an icon to select that object type. Now all the Previous and Next icons (in the Navigator itself, in the Navigation Toolbar, and on the scroll bar) will jump to the next object of the selected type. This is particularly helpful for finding items like index entries, which can be difficult to see in the text. The names of the icons (shown in the tooltips) change to match the selected category; for example, Next Graphic, Next Bookmark, or Continue search forward.

Moving quickly through a document 9

Working with documentsChapter 1 (Introducing OpenOffice.org) includes instructions on starting new documents, opening existing documents, and saving documents. Chapter 3 (Using Styles and Templates) covers how to create a document from a template.

Saving as a Microsoft Word fileIf you need to exchange files with users of Microsoft Word, they may not know how to open and save .odt files. Microsoft Word 2007 with Service Pack 2 (SP2) can do this. Users of Word 2007, 2003, XP, and 2000 can also download and install a free OpenDocument Format (ODF) plugin from Sun Microsystems.

Some users of Microsoft Word may be unwilling or unable to receive *.odt files. (Perhaps their employer won’t allow them to install the plug-in.) In this case, you can save a document as a Microsoft Word file.

1) Important—First save your document in the file format used by OOo Writer (.odt). If you do not, any changes you made since the last time you saved will appear only in the Microsoft Word version of the document.

2) Then choose File > Save As.3) On the Save As dialog (Figure 8), in the File type (or Save as type) drop-down menu, select

the type of Word format you need.4) Choose Save.

From this point on, all changes you make to the document will occur only in the Microsoft Word document. You have changed the name and file type of your document. If you want to go back to working with the .odt version of your document, you must open it again.

TipTo have OOo save documents by default in the Microsoft Word file format, go to Tools > Options > Load/Save. See “Choosing options for loading and saving documents” in Chapter 2 (Setting up OpenOffice.org).

Figure 8. Saving a file in Microsoft Word format


Working with textWorking with text (selecting, copying, pasting, moving) in Writer is similar to working with text in any other program. OOo also has some convenient ways to select items that are not next to each other, select a vertical block of text, and paste unformatted text.

Selecting items that are not consecutiveTo select nonconsecutive items (as shown in Figure 9) using the mouse:

1) Select the first piece of text.2) Hold down the Control key and use the mouse to select the next piece of text.3) Repeat as often as needed.

Now you can work with the selected text (copy it, delete it, change the style, or whatever).

Note Macintosh users: substitute the Command key when instructions in this chapter say to use the Control key.

Figure 9: Selecting items that are not next to each other

To select nonconsecutive items using the keyboard:1) Select the first piece of text. (For more information about keyboard selection of text, see the topic

“Navigating and selecting with the keyboard” in the Help.)2) Press Shift+F8. This puts Writer in “Add” mode. The word ADD appears on the status bar.3) Use the arrow keys to move to the start of the next piece of text to be selected. Hold down the

Shift key and select the next piece of text.4) Repeat as often as needed.

Now you can work with the selected text.

Press Esc to exit from this mode.

Working with text 11

Selecting a vertical block of textYou can select a vertical block or “column” of text that is separated by spaces or tabs (as you might see in text pasted from e-mails, program listings, or other sources), using OOo’s block selection mode. To change to block selection mode, use Edit > Selection Mode > Block Area, or click several times in the status bar on STD until it changes to BLK.

Now highlight the selection, using mouse or keyboard, as shown in Figure 10.

Figure 10: Selecting a vertical block of text

Cutting, copying, and pasting textCutting and copying text in Writer is similar to cutting and copying text in other applications. You can use the mouse or the keyboard for these operations. You can copy or move text within a document, or between documents, by dragging or by using menu selections, icons, or keyboard shortcuts. You can also copy text from other sources such as Web pages and paste it into a Writer document.

To move (cut and paste) selected text using the mouse, drag it to the new location and release it. To copy selected text, hold down the Control key while dragging. The text retains the formatting it had before dragging.

When you paste text, the result depends on the source of the text and how you paste it. If you click on the Paste icon, any formatting the text has (such as bold or italics) is retained. Text pasted from Web sites and other sources may also be placed into frames or tables. If you do not like the results, click the Undo icon or press Control+Z.

To make the pasted text take on the formatting of the surrounding text where it is being pasted,choose either:

• Edit > Paste Special, or• Click the triangle to the right of the Paste icon, or• Click the Paste icon without releasing the left mouse button.

Then select Unformatted text from the resulting menu.

The range of choices on the Paste Special menu varies depending on the origin and formatting of the text (or other object) to be pasted. See (Figure 11) for an example with text on the clipboard.

Figure 11: Paste Special menu


Finding and replacing text and formattingWriter has a Find and Replace feature that automates the process of searching for text inside a document. In addition to finding and replacing words and phrases, you can:

• Use wildcards and regular expressions to fine-tune a search (see the Help for details).• Find and replace specific formatting (see the Writer Guide ).• Find and replace paragraph styles (see the Writer Guide).

To display the Find & Replace dialog (Figure 12), use the keyboard shortcut Control+F or choose Edit > Find & Replace from the menu bar.

1) Type the text you want to find in the Search for box.2) To replace the text with different text, type the new text in the Replace with box.3) You can select various options such as matching the case, matching whole words only, or doing

a search for similar words.4) When you have set up your search, click Find. To replace text, click Replace instead.

Figure 12: Expanded Find & Replace dialog

Tip If you click Find All, OOo selects all instances of the search text in the document. Similarly, if you click Replace All, OOo will replace all matches.

Caution Use Replace All with caution; otherwise, you may end up with some hilarious (and highly embarrassing) mistakes. A mistake with Replace All might require a manual, word-by-word, search to fix.


Inserting special charactersA special character is one not found on a standard English keyboard. For example, © ¾ æ ç ñ ö ø ¢ are all special characters. To insert a special character:

1) Place the cursor where you want the character to appear.2) Choose Insert > Special Character to open the Special Characters dialog (Figure 13).3) Select the characters (from any font or mixture of fonts) you wish to insert, in order, then click

OK. The selected characters are shown in the lower left of the dialog. As you select a character, it is shown on the lower right, along with its numerical code.

Note Different fonts include different special characters. If you do not find a particular special character, try changing the Font selection.

Figure 13: The Special Characters window, where you can insert special characters.

Tip Notice that the characters selected appear in the bottom-left corner of the window.

Inserting dashes and non-breaking spaces and hyphensTo prevent two words from being separated at the end of a line, press Control+spacebar after the first word to insert a non-breaking space.

In cases where you do not want the hyphen to appear at the end of a line, for example in a number such as 123-4567, you can press Shift+Control+minus sign to insert a non-breaking hyphen.

To enter en and em dashes, you can use the Replace dashes option under Tools > AutoCorrect > Options (Figure 21). This option replaces two hyphens, under certain conditions, with the corresponding dash.

– is an en-dash; that is, a dash the width of the letter “n” in the font you are using. Type at least one character, a space, one or two hyphens, another space, and at least one more letter, then a space. The one or two hyphens will be replaced by an en-dash.

— is an em-dash; that is, a dash the width of the letter “m” in the font you are using. Type at least one character, two hyphens, and at least one more character, then a space. The two hyphens will be replaced by an em-dash.


Setting tab stops and indentsThe horizontal ruler shows both the default tab stops and any tab stops that you have defined. Tab settings affect indentation of full paragraphs (using the Increase Indent and Decrease Indent icons on the Formatting toolbar) as well as indentation of parts of a paragraph (by pressing the Tab key on the keyboard).

Using the default tab spacing can cause formatting problems if you share documents with other people. If you use the default tab spacing and then send the document to someone else who has chosen a different default tab spacing, tabbed material will change to use the other person’s settings. This may cause major formatting problems. Instead of using the defaults, define your own tab settings, as described in this section.

To define indents and tab settings for one or more selected paragraphs, double-click on a part of the ruler that is not between the left and right indent icons to open the Indents & Spacing page of the Paragraph dialog. Double-click anywhere between the left and right indent icons on the ruler to open the Tabs page of the Paragraph dialog (Figure 17).

A better strategy is to define tabs for the paragraph style. See Chapters 6 and 7 in the Writer Guide for more information.

Tip Using tabs to space out material on a page is not recommended. Depending on what you are trying to accomplish, a table is usually a better choice.

Changing the default tab stop interval

Note Any changes to the default tab setting will affect the existing default tab stops in any document you open afterward, as well as tab stops you insert after making the change.

To set the measurement unit and the spacing of default tab stop intervals, go to Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer > General.

Figure 14: Selecting a default tab stop interval

You can also set or change the measurement unit for rulers in the current document by right-clicking on the ruler to open a list of units, as shown in Figure 19. Click on one of them to change the ruler to that unit. The selected setting applies only to that ruler.

Figure 15: Ruler showing default tab stops


Checking spelling and grammarWriter provides a spelling checker, which can be used in two ways.

AutoSpellcheck checks each word as it is typed and displays a wavy red line under any misspelled words. When the word is corrected, the line disappears.To perform a separate spelling check on the document (or a text selection) click the Spelling and Grammar button. This checks the document or selection and opens the Spelling and Grammar dialog if any misspelled words are found.

Here are some more features of the spelling checker:• You can right-click on a word with a wavy underline to open a context menu. If you select from

the suggested words on the menu, the selection will replace the misspelled word in your text. Other menu options are discussed below.

• You can change the dictionary language (for example, Spanish, French or German) on the Spelling and Grammar dialog.

• You can add a word to the dictionary. Click Add in the Spelling and Grammar dialog and pick the dictionary to add it to.

• Click the Options button on the Spelling and Grammar dialog to open a dialog similar to the one in Tools > Options > Language Settings > Writing Aids described in Chapter 2. There you can choose whether to check uppercase words and words with numbers, and you can manage custom dictionaries, that is, add or delete dictionaries and add or delete words in a dictionary.

• On the Font tab of the Paragraph Styles dialog, you can set paragraphs to be checked in a specific language (different from the rest of the document). See Chapter 7 (Working with Styles) in the Writer Guide for more information.

Writer does not include a grammar checker, but you can install an extension such as Language Tool and access it from Tools > Spelling and Grammar. (See Chapter 14 for more about installing extensions.)Language Tool adds a new menu item and submenu to the Tools menu, from which you can configure the tool and check or recheck the document.

Using built-in language toolsWriter provides some tools that make your work easier if you mix multiple languages within the same document or if you write documents in various languages.The main advantage of changing the language is that you can then use the correct dictionaries to check spelling and apply the localized versions of Autocorrect replacement tables, thesaurus, and hyphenation rules.You can also set the language for a paragraph or a group of characters as None. This option is especially useful when you insert text such as web addresses or programming language snippets that you do not want to check for spelling.Specifying the language in character and paragraph styles is the preferred method, because styles allow a greater level of control and make changing the language much faster. On the Font tab of the Paragraph Styles dialog, you can specify that certain paragraphs be checked in a language that is different from the language of the rest of the document. See Chapter 7 (Working with Styles) for information on how to manage the language settings of a style.


However, starting with OpenOffice.org 3.0, you can set the language for the whole document, for individual paragraphs, or even for individual words and characters, all from Tools > Language on the menu bar.

Another way to change the language of a whole document is to use Tools > Options > Language Settings > Languages. In the Default languages for documents section of the Options dialog, you can choose a different language for all the text.

The spelling checker works only for those languages in the list that have the symbol next to them. If you do not see the symbol next to your preferred language, you can install the additional dictionary using Tools > Languages > More dictionaries online.

The language used for checking spelling is also shown in the status bar, next to the page style in use.

You can also configure the language for a paragraph or a group of characters as None. This option is particularly useful in the case where you insert in the document text that you do not want to spellcheck, such as web addresses or programming language snippets.

Using AutoCorrectWriter’s AutoCorrect function has a long list of common misspellings and typing errors, which it corrects automatically. For example, “hte” will be changed to “the”.

Choose Tools > AutoCorrect Options to open the AutoCorrect dialog. There you can define which strings of text are corrected and how. In most cases, the defaults are fine.

AutoCorrect is turned on when Writer is installed. To turn it off, uncheck Format > AutoCorrect > While Typing.

To stop Writer replacing a specific spelling, go to the Replace tab, highlight the word pair, and click Delete.

To add a new spelling to the list, type it into the Replace and With boxes on the Replace tab, and click New.

See the different tabs of the dialog for the wide variety of other options available to fine-tune AutoCorrect.

Tip AutoCorrect can be used as a quick way to insert special characters. For example, (c) will be autocorrected to ©. You can add your own special characters.

Using word completionIf Word Completion is enabled, Writer tries to guess which word you are typing and offers to complete the word for you. To accept the suggestion, press Enter. Otherwise continue typing.

To turn off Word Completion, select Tools > AutoCorrect Options > Word Completion and deselect Enable word completion.

You can customize word completion from the Word Completion page of the AutoCorrect dialog:• Add (append) a space automatically after an accepted word.• Show the suggested word as a tip (hovering over the word) rather than completing the text as

you type.• Change the maximum number of words remembered for word completion and the length of the

smallest words to be remembered.• Delete specific entries from the word completion list.


• Change the key that accepts a suggested entry—the options are Right arrow, End key, Return (Enter), and Space bar.

Note Automatic word completion only occurs after you type a word for the second time in a document.

Formatting text

Using styles is recommendedStyles are central to using Writer. Styles enable you to easily format your document consistently, and to change the format with minimal effort. A style is a named set of formatting options. Writer defines several types of styles, for different types of elements: characters, paragraphs, pages, frames, and lists. See Chapter 3 (Using Styles and Templates) in this book and Chapters 6 and 7 in the Writer Guide.

Formatting paragraphsYou can apply many formats to paragraphs using the buttons on the Formatting toolbar. Figure 16 shows the Formatting toolbar as a floating toolbar, customized to show only the buttons for paragraph formatting. The appearance of the icons may vary with your operating system and the selection of icon size and style in Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > View.

1 Open Styles and Formatting Window

5 Align Right 10 Numbering On/Off6 Justified 11 Bullets On/Off

2 Apply Style 7 Line Spacing: 1 12 Decrease Indent3 Align Left 8 Line Spacing: 1.5 13 Increase Indent4 Centered 9 Line Spacing: 2 14 Paragraph format dialog

Figure 16: Formatting toolbar, showing icons for paragraph formatting.

Formatting charactersYou can apply many formats to characters using the buttons on the Formatting toolbar. Figure 17 shows the Formatting toolbar as a floating toolbar, customized to show only the buttons for character formatting.

The appearance of the icons may vary with your operating system and the selection of icon size and style in Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > View.


1 Open Styles and Formatting Window

6 Italic 12 Font Color7 Underline 13 Highlighting

2 Apply Style 8 Superscript 14 Background Color3 Font Name 9 Subscript 15 Open Character Format

Dialog4 Font Size 10 Increase Font5 Bold 11 Reduce Font

Figure 17: Formatting toolbar, showing icons for character formatting

Tip To remove manual formatting, select the text and choose Format > Default Formatting, or right-click and choose Default Formatting.

AutoformattingYou can set Writer to automatically format parts of a document according to the choices made on the Options page of the AutoCorrect dialog (Tools > AutoCorrect Options).

Tip If you notice unexpected formatting changes occurring in your document, this is the first place to look for the cause.

Some common unwanted or unexpected formatting changes include:

• Horizontal lines. If you type three or more hyphens (---), underscores (___) or equal signs (===) on a line and then press Enter, the paragraph is replaced by a horizontal line as wide as the page. The line is actually the lower border of the preceding paragraph.

• Bulleted and numbered lists. A bulleted list is created when you type a hyphen (-), star (*), or plus sign (+), followed by a space or tab at the beginning of a paragraph. A numbered list is created when you type a number followed by a period (.), followed by a space or tab at the beginning of a paragraph. Automatic numbering is only applied to paragraphs formatted with the Default, Text body or Text body indent paragraph styles.

To turn autoformatting on or off, choose Format > AutoFormat and select or deselect the items on the list.

Creating numbered or bulleted listsThere are several ways to create numbered or bulleted lists:

• Use autoformatting, as described above.• Use list (numbering) styles, as described in Chapters 6 (Introduction to Styles) and 7 (Working

with Styles) in the Writer Guide.• Use the Numbering and Bullets icons on the paragraph formatting toolbar (see Figure 16). This

method is described here.

To produce a numbered or bulleted list, select the paragraphs in the list, and then click the appropriate icon on the toolbar.

Formatting text 19

Note It is a matter of personal preference whether you type your information first, then apply Numbering/Bullets, or apply them as you type.

Using the Bullets and Numbering toolbarYou can create nested lists (where one or more list items has a sublist under it, as in an outline) by using the buttons on the Bullets and Numbering toolbar (Figure 18). You can move items up or down the list, or create subpoints, and even change the style of bullets. Use View > Toolbars > Bullets and Numbering to see the toolbar.

The appearance of the icons may vary with your operating system and the selection of icon size and style in Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > View.

1 Bullets On/Off 6 Move Up (One Level) with Sub-points

10 Move Down2 Numbering On/Off 11 Move Up in Sub-points3 Numbering Off 7 Move Down (One Level) with

Sub-points12 Move Down in Sub-points

4 Up One Level 8 Insert Unnumbered Entry 13 Restart Numbering5 Down One Level 9 Move Up 14 Bullets and Numbering

Figure 18: Bullets and Numbering toolbar

Hyphenating wordsYou have several choices regarding hyphenation: let Writer do it automatically (using its hyphenation dictionaries), insert conditional hyphens manually where necessary, or don’t hyphenate at all.

Automatic hyphenationTo turn automatic hyphenation of words on or off:

1) Press F11 to open the Styles and Formatting window (Figure 19).

Figure 19: Modifying a style


2) On the Paragraph Styles page of the Styles and Formatting window, right-click on Default in the list and select Modify.

3) On the Paragraph Style dialog, go to the Text Flow page (see Figure 20).

Figure 20: Turning on automatic hyphenation

4) Under Hyphenation, select or deselect the Automatically option. Click OK to save.

NoteTurning on hyphenation for the Default paragraph style affects all other paragraph styles that are based on Default. You can individually change other styles so that hyphenation is not active; for example, you might not want headings to be hyphenated. Any styles that are not based on Default are not affected.

You can also set hyphenation choices through Tools > Options > Language Settings > Writing Aids. In Options, near the bottom of the dialog, scroll down to the find the hyphenation settings (Figure 21).

Figure 21: Setting hyphenation options

To change the minimal number of characters for hyphenation, the minimum number of characters before a line break, or the minimum number of characters after a line break, select the item, and then click the Edit button in the Options section.

Hyphenation options set on the Writing Aids dialog are effective only if hyphenation is turned on through paragraph styles.

Manual hyphenationTo manually hyphenate words, do not use a normal hyphen, which will remain visible even if the word is no longer at the end of a line when you add or delete text or change margins or font size. Instead, use a conditional hyphen, which is visible only when required.

To insert a conditional hyphen inside a word, click where you want the hyphen to appear and press Control+hyphen. The word will be hyphenated at this position when it is at the end of the line, even if automatic hyphenation for this paragraph is switched off.

Formatting text 21

Formatting pagesWriter provides several ways for you to control page layouts: page styles, columns, frames, tables, and sections. For more information, see Chapter 4 (Formatting Pages) in the Writer Guide.

TipPage layout is usually easier if you show text, object, table, and section boundaries in Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Appearance, and paragraph ends, tabs, breaks, and other items in Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer > Formatting Aids.

Which layout method to choose?The best layout method varies depending on what the final document should look like and what sort of information will be in the document. Here are some examples.

For a book similar to this user guide, with one column of text, some figures without text beside them, and some other figures with descriptive text, use page styles for basic layout, and tables to place figures beside descriptive text when necessary.

For an index or other document with two columns of text, where the text continues from the left-hand column to the right-hand column and then to the next page, all in sequence (also known as “snaking columns” of text), use page styles (with two columns). If the title of the document (on the first page) is full-page width, put it in a single-column section.


For a newsletter with complex layout, two or three columns on the page, and some articles that continue from one page to some place several pages later, use page styles for basic layout. Place articles in linked frames and anchor graphics to fixed positions on the page if necessary.

For a document with terms and translations to appear side-by-side in what appear to be columns, use a table to keep items lined up, and so you can type in both “columns”.

Creating headers and footersA header is an area that appears at the top of a page. A footer appears at the bottom of the page. Information, such as page numbers inserted into a header or footer, displays on every page of the document with that page style.

To insert a header, choose Insert > Header > Default (or the page style, if not Default).

Other information such as document titles and chapter titles is often put into the header or footer. These items are best added as fields. That way, if something changes, the headers and footers are updated automatically. Here is one common example.

To insert the document title into the header:1) Choose File > Properties > Description and type a title for your document.2) Add a header (Insert > Header > Default).3) Place the cursor in the header part of the page.4) Choose Insert > Fields > Title. The title should appear on a gray background (which does

not show when printed and can be turned off).5) To change the title for the whole document, go back to File > Properties > Description.

Fields are covered in detail in Chapter 14 (Working with Fields) in the Writer Guide.

Formatting pages 23

Numbering pagesTo automatically number pages:

1) Insert a header or footer, as described in “Creating headers and footers” on page 23.2) Place the cursor in the header or footer where you want the page number to appear and choose

Insert > Fields > Page Number.

Including the total number of pagesTo include the total number of pages (as in “page 1 of 12”):

1) Type the word “page” and a space, then insert the page number as above.2) Press the spacebar once, type the word “of” and a space, then choose Insert > Fields >

Page Count.

NoteThe Page Count field inserts the total number of pages in the document, as shown on the Statistics tab of the document’s Properties window (File > Properties). If you restart page numbering anywhere in the document, then the total page count may not be what you want. See Chapter 4 (Formatting Pages) in the Writer Guide for more information.

Restarting page numberingOften you will want to restart the page numbering at 1, for example on the page following a title page or a table of contents. In addition, many documents have the “front matter” (such as the table of contents) numbered with Roman numerals and the main body of the document numbered in Arabic numerals, starting with 1.

You can restart page numbering in two ways.

Method 1:1) Place the cursor in the first paragraph of the new page.2) Choose Format > Paragraph.3) On the Text Flow tab of the Paragraph dialog (Figure 20 on page 21), select Breaks.4) Select Insert and then With Page Style and specify the page style to use.5) Specify the page number to start from, and then click OK.

TipMethod 1 is also useful for numbering the first page of a document with a page number greater than 1. For example, you may be writing a book, with each chapter in a separate file. Chapter 1 may start with page 1, but Chapter 2 could begin with page 25 and Chapter 3 with page 51.

Method 2:1) Insert > Manual break.2) By default, Page break is selected on the Insert Break dialog (Figure 22).3) Choose the required page Style.4) Select Change page number.5) Specify the page number to start from, and then click OK.


Figure 22: Restarting page numbering after a manual page break

Changing page marginsYou can change page margins in two ways:

• Using the page rulers—quick and easy, but does not have fine control.• Using the Page Style dialog—can specify margins to two decimal places.

NoteIf you change the margins using the rulers, the new margins affect the page style and will be shown in the Page Style dialog the next time you open it.Because the page style is affected, the changed margins apply to all pages using that style.

To change margins using the rulers:1) The gray sections of the rulers are the margins (see Figure 23). Put the mouse cursor over the

line between the gray and white sections. The pointer turns into a double-headed arrow.2) Hold down the left mouse button and drag the mouse to move the margin.

Figure 23: Moving the margins

TipThe small arrows on the ruler are used for indenting paragraphs. They are often in the same place as the page margins, so you need to be careful to move the margin marker, not the arrows. Place the mouse pointer between the arrows and, when the pointer turns into a double-headed arrow, you can move the margin (the indent arrows will move with it).

Formatting pages 25

To change margins using the Page Style dialog:1) Right-click anywhere on the page and select Page from the pop-up menu.2) On the Page tab of the dialog, type the required distances in the Margins boxes.

Choose Tools > Options > User Data to configure the name you want to appear in the Author field of the note, or to change it.

If more than one person edits the document, each author is automatically allocated a different background color.

Right-clicking on a comment pops up a menu where you can delete the current comment, all the comments from the same author, or all the comments in the document. From this menu, you can also apply some basic formatting to the text of the comment. You can also change the font type, size, and alignment from the main menu.

To navigate from one comment to another, open the Navigator (F5), expand the Comments section, and click on the comment text to move the cursor to the anchor point of the comment in the document. Right-click on the comment to quickly edit or delete it.

You can also navigate the comments using the keyboard. Use Ctrl+Alt+Page Down to move to the next comment and Ctrl+Alt+Page Up to move to the previous comment.

Creating a tableBefore you insert a table into a document, it helps to have an idea of the visual result you want to obtain as well as an estimate of the number of rows and columns required. Every parameter can be changed at a later stage; however, thinking ahead can save a large amount of time as changes to fully formatted tables often require a significant effort.

Inserting a new tableTo insert a new table, position the cursor where you want the table to appear, then use any of the following methods to open the Insert Table dialog box (shown in Figure 24):

• From the main menu, choose Table > Insert > Table.• Press Control+F12.

• From the Standard toolbar, click the Table icon

Figure 24: Inserting a new table using the Insert Table dialog box


Here you can specify the properties for the new table.

Under Name, you can enter a different name than the OOo-generated default for the table. This might come in handy when using the Navigator to quickly jump to a table.

Under Size, specify the initial number of columns and rows for the new table. You can change the size of the table later, if necessary.

Under Options, set up the initial table characteristics. Selecting the options in this section of the dialog produces the following results:

• Heading — Defines the first row(s) in the table as headings. The default Table Heading paragraph style is applied to the heading rows and thus makes the text centered, bold, and italic. You can edit the OOo-predefined Table Heading paragraph style in the Styles and Formatting window to change these default settings. When splitting a table into two tables, the Heading row(s) are copied in the second table.

• Repeat heading — Repeats the heading row(s) of the table at the top of subsequent pages if the table spans more than one page.The first ... rows —Specifies the number of rows to be repeated. Default is 1.

• Don’t split table — Prevents the table from spanning more than one page. This can be useful if the table starts near the end of a page, and would look better if it were completely located on the following page. If the table becomes longer than would fit on one page, you will need to either deselect this option or manually split the table.

• Border — Surrounds each cell of the table with a border. This border can be modified or deleted later.

The AutoFormat button opens a dialog box from which you can select one of the many predefined table layouts. See “Automatic formatting of tables” on page 38 for more information.

After making your choices, click OK. Writer creates a table as wide as the text area (from the left page margin to the right page margin), with all columns the same width and all rows the same height. You can then adjust the columns and rows later to suit your needs.

TipTo directly insert a table with the default properties, click on the little arrow next to the Table icon on the Standard toolbar. A graphic appears where you can choose the table’s size (rows and columns). To create the table, click on the cell that you want to be on the last row of the last column. Holding down the mouse button over the Table icon will also display the graphic.

Creating nested tablesYou can create tables within tables, nested to a depth only limited by imagination and practicality. Figure25 demonstrates a simple, two-level example.

To achieve this, simply click in a cell of an existing table and use any of the methods mentioned in “Inserting a new table” above.

Figure 25: Nested table example. The shaded table is nested in a cell of the larger table.

Creating a table 27

Formatting the table layoutFormatting a table is, generally speaking, a two-step process: formatting of the table layout (the subject of this section) and formatting of the table text (the subject of the next section).

Formatting the layout normally involves one or more of the following operations: adjusting the size of the table and its position on the page, adding or removing rows or columns, merging and splitting individual cells, changing borders and background.

Default parametersIf you create a table using the Insert Table dialog box or the Table icon on the Standard toolbar and activate the Heading option, the following defaults are set:

• The cells in the heading row (or rows) use the Table Heading paragraph style. In the default template, the text is centered and set with a bold and italic font.

• The remaining cells use the Table Contents paragraph style, which, in the default template, is identical to the Default paragraph style.

• The default table occupies all the space from margin to margin (text area).• The default table has thin black borders around each cell (grid).

Resizing and positioning the tableUsing the default settings, any newly created table will occupy the entire width of the text area. This is sometimes what you want, or you may prefer a smaller table. To quickly resize a table, first move the mouse to either the left or right edge. When the cursor changes shape into a double arrow, drag the border to the new position. This operation only changes the size of the first or last column; it does not change the alignment of the table on the page.

If you need more precise control over the size and position of the table on the page, open the Table Format dialog box by choosing Table > Table Properties or by right-clicking anywhere in the table and choosing Table from the pop-up menu. Select the first page of the dialog box (Table).

Figure 26: The Table page of the Table Format dialog box

On this page you can set the alignment of the table, choosing among the following options:• Automatic: the default setting for a table.


• Left: aligns the table with the left margin.• Right: aligns the table with the right margin.• From Left: lets you specify under Spacing exactly how far from the left margin the table is

placed.• Center: aligns the table in the middle between the left and right margins. If the table width is

greater than the margin, the table will extend outside of the margins.• Manual: lets you specify the distances from both left and right margins under Spacing.

Selecting an alignment option other than Automatic activates the Width field in the Properties section, where you can enter the desired size of the table. Select Relative to see the width as percentage of the text area.

In the Spacing section, use the Above and the Below boxes to modify the separation between the text and the table. When the size of the table is less than the size of the text area, OOo will insert some values in the Left and Right boxes. You can only change both values if you select Manual alignment and you can change the Left box value only when you select the From Left alignment. Note that the sum of the table width, and the values in the Left and Right boxes, needs to equal the width of the text area.

Resizing rows and columnsYou can adjust the height of rows and the width of columns in a table in several ways.

• Move the mouse next to the edge of the cell and when a double-headed arrow appears, click and hold the left mouse button, drag the border to the desired position, and release the mouse button.

• On the horizontal ruler, column dividers are marked by a pair of thin gray lines; the vertical ruler indicates row dividers in the same way. You can resize a row or column by holding the mouse button down on the appropriate divider and dragging it to the desired location.

• Use the keyboard as described below.

Selecting Table > Autofit from the main menu also offers some resizing options:• The Optimal Column Width or Optimal Row Height options make the selected

columns or rows as narrow as possible while still fitting their contents.• Selected columns and rows can be distributed evenly to quickly bring them back to

all being the same width or height.For greater control over the width of each column, use the Columns page of the Table Format dialog box.

Figure 27: Table Format dialog box: Columns page

Formatting the table layout 29

Right-click on the table and choose Table from the pop-up menu or choose Table > Table Properties from the menu bar. On the Table Format dialog box, select the Columns tab.

• Adapt table width: If a table already stretches to the page margins, it cannot stretch any wider and the Adapt table width option is not available. If the table is narrower, increasing the width of a column will increase the width of the whole table. If the table width already extends pasts the margins with the Adapt table width option checked, attempting to change a column width will automatically decrease that column’s size so that the table will now shrink to the page margins while keeping any other column sizes intact.

• Adjust columns proportionally results in all columns changing their widths by the same percentage when one is changed. For example, if you reduce by half the size of a column, all the other columns sizes will be halved.

• Remaining space shows how much further the table can expand before hitting the limit of the margins. This value cannot be edited and will not be negative in the event that the table width is already larger than the space between the left and right margins.

• Under Column width, each individual column can be adjusted. If you have more than six columns, use the arrows at the right and left to view them all.

Rather than start from the Table Format dialog box, it is often more efficient to make rough adjustments to a new table using the mouse, and then fine tune the layout using the Columns page in conjunction with the Table page of the Table Format dialog box.

It is also possible to resize a table using only the keyboard. This is on occasions easier than using the mouse.

1) Place the cursor on the cell whose size you want to change. 2) Press and hold the Alt key while using the arrow keys to change the size.

To adjust the resizing parameters and behavior for keyboard handling, choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer > Table.Use the Row and Column values in the Move cells section to determine the amount of change produced by a single keystroke while resizing. In the Behavior of rows/columns section you can choose one of the following three strategies when resizing:

• Fixed: select this if you want the resizing to only affect the adjacent cell, and not the entire table. The width of the table does not change when resizing its cells.

• Fixed, proportional: when resizing a cell with this option selected, all the other cells are also resized proportionally, Also in this case the width of the table remains constant.

• Variable: this is the default value. Resizing a cell affects the table size. For example, when you widen a cell, the width of the table increases.

Inserting rows and columnsTo insert any number of rows or columns:

1) Place the cursor in the row or column where you want to add new rows or columns and right-click.

2) On the pop-up menu, choose Row > Insert or Column > Insert. This will display a dialog box where you can select the number of rows or columns to add, and whether they appear before or after the selected one.

3) Set Amount to the number of rows or columns to insert, and Position to Before or After.

4) Click OK to close the dialog box.


NoteClicking on the Insert Row icon on the Table toolbar inserts one row below the selected one. Clicking on the Insert Column icon on the Table toolbar inserts a column after (to the right of) the selected one.Regardless of how they are inserted, new rows or columns have the same formatting as the row or column where the cursor was when the insert command was issued.

You can also quickly insert a row or a column using only the keyboard:1) Place the cursor in the row or column next to the row or column you want to insert.2) Press Alt+Insert to activate keyboard handling.3) Use the arrow keys as desired to add a row or column:

Left to insert a new column to the left of the cell where the cursor is located.Right to insert a new column to the right of the cell where the cursor is.Down to insert a new row below the cell where the cursor is.Up to insert a new row above the cell where the cursor is.

The above keyboard technique can also be used to delete rows or columns by substituting the Alt+Insert keystroke combination in Step 2 with Alt+Delete.

Merging and splitting cellsTo merge a group of cells into one cell:

1) Select the cells to merge.2) Right-click and choose Cell > Merge on the pop-up menu, or choose Table > Merge

Cells from the menu bar.

To split a cell into multiple cells:1) Position the cursor inside the cell.2) Right-click and choose Cell > Split on the pop-up menu, or choose Table > Split

Cells from the menu bar.3) Select how to split the cell. A cell can be split either horizontally (create more rows)

or vertically (create more columns), and you can specify the total number of cells to create.

It is generally a good rule to merge and split cells after completing other layout formatting. This is because some operations such as deleting a column or a row may produce a result difficult to predict when applied to a table with merged or split cells.

Specifying table bordersOn the Table Format dialog box, select the Borders tab.

Here you can set borders for a whole table or groups of cells within a table. In addition, a shadow can be set for the whole table.

Borders have three components: where they go, what they look like, and how much space is left around them.

• Line arrangement specifies where the borders go. If a group of cells is selected, the border will be applied only to those cells. You can specify individually the style of the border for the outside edges of the selected cells as well as for the the cell divisions. Writer provides five default arrangements but you can just as easily click on the line you want to customize in the User-defined area to get exactly what you want. When multiple cells are selected, the User-defined area allows you to select the edges of the selection as well as the cell dividers. By clicking at the


intersection of the lines, you can modify multiple borders simultaneously. For example, in Figure28 the right edge and horizontal separators are modified with a single operation.

NoteWhen the selected cells have different styles of border the User-defined area shows the border as a gray line. You can click on the gray line to choose a new border style (first click), leave the border as it is (second click) or delete the border (third click).

Figure 28: Table Format dialog box: Borders page

• Line specifies what the border looks like: the style and color. There are a number of different styles and colors to choose from. The Line Style and Color will apply to those borders highlighted by a pair of black arrows in the User-defined map on the left hand side of the dialog box.

• Spacing to contents specifies how much space to leave between the border and the cell contents. Spaces can be specified to the left, right, above, and below. Check Synchronize to have the same spacing for all four sides. This spacing is like a padding and it is not factored in when calculating the text measurements.

• Shadow style properties always apply to the whole table. A shadow has three components: where it is, how far from the table it is cast, and what color it is.

• If Merge adjacent line styles is checked, two cells sharing a common border will have their borders merged, rather than being side by side.

TipTo reset everything if you are having problems with borders, right-click in the table and choose Table or choose Table > Table Properties from the menu bar. On the Borders tab, select the Set No Borders icon under Line arrangement: Default (the box on the left).

Selecting background colors and graphicsA table background can greatly improve the readability of the data, visually highlight important parts of the table (such as the heading or a specific cell), or just make the table more appealing. You can choose between two types of background when formatting the table: solid color or graphic. The background can


be applied to the whole table, to a single cell, or to a row. The background selected for a cell will be in front of the row background which in turn will hide the table background.

The row background option is quite handy when you want to create alternate color rows or assign a different background to the heading of the table. The tables in this guide adopt this technique.

To set the background for a cell, row, or table:1) Place the cursor anywhere inside the cell, row or table you want to work with. If you want to apply

a background to a group of cells, select the group.2) Right-click and choose Table from the pop-up menu, or choose Table > Table

Properties from the main menu.3) In the Table Format dialog box, select the Background tab.4) In the For section, chose whether to apply the settings to cell, row, or table.

• If you choose Cell, changes apply only to the selected cells, or the cell where the cursor currently resides. Even when selecting a group of cells, the background settings are applied to each cell individually.

• If you choose Row, changes affect the entire row where the cursor resides.• If you choose Table, changes will set the background for the entire table,

regardless of the cursor position or selected cells.

Figure 29: Table Format dialog: inserting a graphic background

5) In the As section, choose whether the background is a color or a graphic.To apply a color, select the color and click OK. Remember that you can add custom colors by choosing Tools > Options > Colors.To apply a graphic:a) First select the graphic from your computer’s file system with the Browse

button. (Writer supports a large number of graphics formats.)


b) You can use the Link option to link the graphic file. If it is linked, changes to the graphic (for example, if you edit it in a different software package) are reflected in your document. However, you also need to keep the linked graphic file with the document file. If, for example, you email the document without the graphic file, the graphic will no longer be visible.

c) Under Type, select the type of placement for the graphic.• If you choose Position, you can select in the position map where the

graphic will be displayed in the selected area.• If you choose Area, the graphic is stretched to fill the whole area.• If Tile, the graphic is tiled (repeated horizontally and vertically) to fill the

area.d) If the Preview option is checked, the graphic displays in the pane on the right.e) To apply the graphic, click OK.

Figure 30 shows an example of a table set with a background image, and the first row background colored. As you can see, the row background covers the table background.

Figure 30: Example of table with different row and table backgrounds

Displaying or hiding table boundariesA table boundary is a set of pale (usually gray) lines around the cells when viewed on-screen in OOo. These boundaries are not printed; their only function is to help you see where the table cells are.

To display the table the same way on the screen as on the printed page, with no boundary lines, right-click on the table and choose Table Boundaries from the pop-up menu. Repeat this to have the boundaries appear again.

Note Turning boundaries off does not hide the borders that the table may have.

TipYou can also turn table boundaries on and off through Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Appearance. On that page, you can display or hide boundaries around text, pages headers and footers, figures, and other parts of a document.

Formatting the table textOnce the table layout is satisfactory, you can move on to formatting the text in the individual cells. You can apply manual formatting as with any other paragraph in the text, but it is highly recommended, for


the sake of consistency and ease of maintenance, that you define your own paragraph and character styles.

Besides the paragraph and character styles, there are other aspects to consider when placing text in a table cell; such as text flow, alignment and orientation.

You can format each cell independently of other cells, or you can simultaneously format a group of cells by selecting them before applying the desired formatting.

Specifying text flowOn the Text Flow page of the Table Format dialog box (Figure 31), you can:

• Insert a page or column break either before or after the table. Use the Text Flow: Break option, combined with the Page or Column and the Before or After buttons.If you insert a page break before the table (that is, start the table on a new page), you can also change the page style that will go with it by checking the With Page Style box and selecting a new page style. As with any page break, you can also reset the page numbers using the Page number box.

• Keep a table on one page by deselecting the Allow table to split across pages and columns option. If this item is deselected, the next item is not active.

• Keep each row on one page by deselecting the Allow row to break across pages and columns option.

• Use the Keep with next paragraph option to keep the table and an immediately following paragraph together if you insert a page break.

• Use the Repeat heading option, and its associated numbers box, to select the number of table heading rows that will be repeated on each page. A complicated table may need two or three heading rows to be easily read and understood.

• Use the Text direction list to select the direction for the text in the cells. The most common setting is Left to right for Western languages.

Note The phrase Use superordinate object settings means “use the formatting settings from the paragraph before the table”.

Figure 31: Table Format dialog box: Text Flow page

Formatting the table text 35

• Select the vertical alignment of the text in the table or the selected cells; the choices are to align with the top of the cell, the center of the cell, or the bottom of the cell. This alignment is in addition to the Left-Right alignment options available on the Table page of the Table Format dialog box.

NoteA table heading row can not span two pages, but any other row can. A one-row table (often used for page layout purposes), if set up with the default of including a heading, will not break across pages. The cure is to make sure the table is defined without a heading row.

Vertical alignmentBy default, text entered into a table is aligned to the top-left of the cell. You can change the default for the entire table, as described above, or for individually selected cells.

To vertically align the text in specific cells:

• Place the cursor in the cell you wish to change, or click and drag to select multiple cells.• Right-click in the selected area and choose Cell > Center, Top, or Bottom in the pop-up

menu to vertically align the text as desired.

Number formatsThe number format can be set for a whole table or group of cells. For example, cells can be set to display in a particular currency, to four decimal places, or in a particular date format.

Number recognition specifies that numbers in a text table are recognized and formatted as numbers. If number recognition is selected, numbers are automatically bottom-right aligned. Number recognition option can be enabled under Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer > Table.

Select the cells to format, then right-click and choose Number Format from the pop-up menu. The Number Format dialog box opens for you to set options for various categories of numerical data.

• In the Category list, select the category you want, such as currency, date, or text.• In the Format list, choose a format for the category you just selected.• For some categories, such as date, you may wish to change the language using the Language

list while for other numerical categories the Options section of the dialog box allows you to customize the appearance.

TipYou will notice that OOo displays the formatting code for the category and format selected in Format Code section at the bottom of the dialog box. For example, if you select a date format such as 31 Dec 1999 the corresponding code is D MMM YYYY. Advanced users can easily customize this formatting code as well as create new user-defined codes.

Rotating text in a table cellYou can rotate text in a table cell by 90 or 270 degrees. Text rotation is useful when you have long headings for narrow columns.

• Select the text to be rotated and then choose Format > Character.• On the Position page, in the Rotation / scaling section, choose the rotation angle and click

OK.Figure 32 shows a sample table with rotated headings.


Figure 32: A table with rotated headings

Note Text rotation within table cells can also be achieved with the use of paragraph styles, discussed in greater detail in Chapter 7 (Working with Styles).

Data entry and manipulation in tables

Moving between cellsWithin a table, you can use the mouse, the cursor keys, or the Tab key to move between cells.

The cursor keys move to the next cell only if there is no text in the way. For example, pressing the right cursor key will move the cursor to the right within the text in the current cell, then to the next cell.

The Tab key moves directly to the next cell and, if the cursor is in the last cell in the table, creates a new row. Pressing Shift+Tab moves the cursor back a cell.

Tip To enter a Tab character as part of the text of the cell, press the Control and Tab keys at the same time.

Sorting data in a tableJust as in a spreadsheet, Writer allows data in a table to be sorted. Up to three levels of sorting can be specified (for example, sort first by age numerically, then alphabetically by name within each age).

To sort data in a table:• Select the table (or part of the table) to be sorted.• From the menu bar, choose Table > Sort. In the Sort dialog box:

– Decide whether you want to sort in the direction of rows or columns. The default sorting direction is by rows, which results in sorting the data in a column.

– Select up to three keys to sort on, in the correct order.– For each key, select which column or row to sort on, whether the sort is

Numeric or Alphanumeric and whether it is Ascending or Descending.

Data entry and manipulation in tables 37

– Click OK to perform the sort.

Automatic formatting of tablesUsing AutoFormat, you can apply an elaborate format to your table with just a few clicks. AutoFormat is somewhat similar to paragraph styles and will enable you to obtain consistent looking tables across your document. You can also create your own table formats and save them as another AutoFormat option.

To apply an AutoFormat, place the cursor anywhere in the table and choose Table > AutoFormat. This opens the dialog box shown in Figure 33.

Select from the list on the left the Format most suitable for your table and click OK to apply it. Clicking the More button opens another section of the dialog box where you can rename the selected table format scheme as well as decide which parts of the predefined formatting you want to apply to your table. You can selectively apply the number format, the font, the alignment, the border, or the pattern.

Figure 33: The table AutoFormat dialog

To create your own AutoFormat, proceed as follows:1) Create a table and manually format it as you wish, including borders, spacing of text from the top

and bottom borders, fonts to be used in the table heading and data cells, and background colors.2) Position the cursor anywhere in the table and then click Table > AutoFormat.3) On the AutoFormat dialog box, click Add and give the table format a name in the Add

AutoFormat dialog box and click OK.4) The newly named AutoFormat now appears as an available format. Click OK to close the

AutoFormat dialog box.

TipThis technique does not include table and column widths in the table format. To insert a table with predefined full formatting, save it as AutoText. See “Using AutoText” in Chapter 3 (Working with Text) for instructions.

Deleting a tableTo delete a table:

1) Click anywhere in the table.


2) Choose Table > Delete > Table from the main menu.

Copying a tableTo copy a table from one part of the document and paste it into another part:

1) Click anywhere in the table.2) From the main menu choose Table > Select > Table.3) Press Control+C or click the Copy icon on the Standard toolbar.4) Move the cursor to the target position and click on it to fix the insertion point.5) Press Control+V or click the Paste icon in the Standard toolbar.

Moving a tableTo move a table from one part of a document to another part:

1) Click anywhere in the table.2) From the main menu, choose Table > Select > Table.3) Press Control+X or click the Cut icon in the Standard toolbar. (This step removes the contents

of the cells but leaves the empty cells, which must be removed in step 6.)4) Move the cursor to the target position and click on it to fix the insertion point.5) Press Control+V or click the Paste icon in the Standard toolbar. (This pastes the cells and

their contents and formatting.)6) Return to the original table, click somewhere in it and then choose Table > Delete > Table

from the main menu.

Inserting a paragraph before or after a tableTo insert a paragraph before a table, position the cursor before any text or other contents in the first (upper left-hand) cell and press Alt+Enter. To insert a paragraph after a table, position the cursor after any text in the last (lower right-hand) cell and press Alt+Enter.

The Table menu and toolbarAll of the table commands described in this chapter are conveniently located in the main menu under the Table item and on the Table toolbar, shown in Figure 34.

Table 1 describes the effects of using these icons. When you create a table or select an existing table, the Table toolbar may be displayed automatically, or you can manually display it by clicking View > Toolbars > Table. The toolbar can float over the main Writer window (as shown in Figure 34), or it can be docked along any edge of the main window. See Chapter 1 (Introducing Writer) for more about docking and floating toolbars, and how to hide and display specific tools on a toolbar.

The Table menu and toolbar 39

1 Table 9 Top 17 Select Column2 Line Style 10 Center (vertical) 18 Select Row3 Line Color (border) 11 Bottom 19 AutoFormat4 Borders 12 Insert Row 20 Table Properties5 Background Color 13 Insert Column 21 Sort6 Merge Cells 14 Delete Row 22 Sum7 Split Cells 15 Delete Column8 Optimize 16 Select Table

Figure 34: Table toolbar

Table 1: Functions of the icons on the Table toolbar

Name DescriptionTable Opens the Insert Table dialog box where you can set up and insert a table into the document,

name the table for use with the Navigator, and set some other options. If you press the small black triangle pointing down next to the icon, you can use the mouse to drag to select the number of rows and columns to include in the table.

Line Style Opens the Border Style window where you can modify the border line style.

Line Color (border)

Opens the Border Color window where you can modify the border color.

Borders Opens the Borders window where you can select which sides of the table or of the selected cells will have a border.

Background Color Opens the Background toolbar where you can select the background color of the table or of the selected cells.

Merge Cells Combines the selected cells into a single cell. Refer to Merging and splitting cells on page 31 for an example of using this button.

Split Cells Opens the Split Cell dialog box where you can define how to split a cell. Refer to Merging andsplitting cells on page 31 for an example of using this button.

Optimize Opens the a drop down menu with four options you can use to let OOo optimize the distribution of the columns or rows or optimize the row height or column width.

Top Press this button to align the contents of the selected cells to the top of the cell.

Center (vertical) Press this button to align the contents of the selected cells to the vertical center of the cell.

Bottom Press this button to align the contents of the selected cells to the bottom of the cell.

Insert Row Inserts a row below the selected row.


Name DescriptionInsert Column Inserts a column after the selected column.

Delete Row Deletes the selected row(s) from the table.

Delete Column Deletes the selected column(s) from the table.

Select Table Selects the entire table.

Select Column Selects the column in which the cursor is positioned.

Select Row Selects the row in which the cursor is positioned.

AutoFormat Opens the AutoFormat dialog box where you can select among several predefined formatting sets. Each set is characterized by its own fonts, shading, and borders styles. You can also select AutoFormat from the Insert Table dialog box.

Table Properties Opens the Table Format dialog box where you can control all the properties of the table, for example name, alignment, spacing, column width, borders, and background.

Sort Opens the Sort dialog box where you can specify the sort criteria for the selected cells.

Sum Activates the Sum function. Refer to “Error: Reference source not found” on page Error:Reference source not found for an example of using this function.

Adding images to a documentImages can be added to a document in several ways: by inserting an image file, directly from a graphics program or a scanner, or from the OOo Gallery.

Inserting an image fileWhen the image is in a file stored on the computer, you can insert it into an OOo document using either of the following methods.

Drag and drop1) Open a file browser window and locate the image you want to insert.2) Drag the image into the Writer document and drop it where you want it to appear. A faint vertical

line marks where the image will be dropped.

This method embeds (saves a copy of) the image file in the Writer document. To link the file instead of embedding it, hold down the Control+Shift keys while dragging the image.

Insert Picture dialog1) Click in the OOo document where you want the image to appear.2) Choose Insert > Picture > From File from the menu bar.3) On the Insert Picture dialog, navigate to the file to be inserted, select it, and click Open.

At the bottom of the dialog are two options, Preview and Link. Select Preview to view a thumbnail of the selected image on the right, so you can verify that you have the correct file. See below for the use of Link.

Adding images to a document 41

Figure 35. Insert picture dialog

Modifying an imageWhen you insert a new image, you may need to modify it to suit the document. The placement of the picture relative to the text is discussed in “Positioning graphics within the text” on page 50. This section describes the use of the Picture toolbar, resizing, cropping, and a workaround to rotate a picture.

Writer provides many tools for working with images. These tools are sufficient for most people’s everyday requirements. However, for professional results it is generally better to use an image manipulation program such as GIMP to modify images (for example, to crop, resize, rotate, and change color values) and then insert the result into OOo.

Using the Picture toolbarWhen you insert an image or select one already present in the document, the Picture toolbar appears. You can set it to always be present (View > Toolbars > Picture). Picture control buttons from the Picture toolbar can also be added to the Standard Toolbar. See Chapter 17 (Customizing Writer) for more information.

This toolbar can be either floating or docked. Figure 36 shows what the Picture toolbar looks like when it is floating.

Two other toolbars can be opened from this one: the Graphic Filter toolbar, which can be torn off and placed elsewhere on the window, and the Color toolbar, which opens as a separate floating toolbar.

From these three toolbars, you can apply small corrections to the graphic or obtain special effects.

Graphics modeYou can change color images to grayscale by selecting the image and then selecting Grayscale from the

Graphics mode list .


Flip vertically or horizontally

To flip an image vertically or horizontally, select the image, and then click the relevant icon .

FiltersTable 2provides a short description of the available filters, however the best way to understand them is to see them in action. Feel free to experiment with the different filters and filters settings, remembering that you can undo all the changes by pressing Ctrl+Z or Alt+Backspace or by selecting Edit > Undo.

Note: Graphics mode (3) can be Default, Grayscale, Black/White, or Watermark.

Figure 36. Picture toolbar plus tear-off Graphic Filter toolbar and floating Color toolbar

1 From File2 Filter3 Graphics mode4 Color5 Transparency6 Flip Horizontally7 Flip Vertically8 Graphics Properties9 Invert

10 Smooth11 Solarization12 Aging13 Charcoal Sketch14 Relief15 Mosaic16 Posterize17 Pop Art18 Sharpen19 Remove Noise20 Red21 Green22 Blue23 Brightness24 Contrast25 Gamma

ColorUse this toolbar to modify the individual RGB color components of the image (red, green, blue) as well as the brightness, contrast, and gamma of the image. If the result is not satisfactory, you can press Control+Z to restore the default values.

Table 2: Graphic filters and their effects

Icon Name Effect

Invert Inverts the color values of a color image or the brightness values of a grayscale image.

Smooth Softens the contrast of an image.

Sharpen Increases the contrast of an image.

Modifying an image 43

1 43 52 6 7 8

9

10

11

12

13 14 15 16

17

18

1920

21

22

23

24

25

Icon Name EffectRemove noise Removes single pixels from an image.

Solarization Mimics the effects of too much light in a picture. A further dialog box opens to adjust the parameters.

Aging Simulates the effects of time on a picture. Can be applied several times. A further dialog box opens to adjust the aging level.

Posterize Makes a picture appear like a painting by reducing the number of colors used.

Pop Art Modifies the picture dramatically.

Charcoal Displays the image as a charcoal sketch.

Relief A dialog box is displayed to adjust the light source that will create the shadow and, hence, the relief effect.

Mosaic Joins groups of pixels into a single area of one color.

TransparencyModify the percentage value in the Transparency box on the Picture toolbar to make the image more transparent. This is particularly useful when creating a watermark or when wrapping the image in the background.

Using the formatting toolbar and Picture dialogWhen an image is selected, you can customize some aspects of its appearance using the tools available on the Formatting toolbar (shown in Figure 41) as well as in the dialog that is shown by right-clicking on the image and selecting Picture. You can, for example, create a border around the image, selecting style and color; or you can (in the Borders page of the Picture dialog) add a shadow to the image.

Cropping imagesWhen you are only interested in a section of the image for the purpose of your document, you may wish to crop (cut off) parts of it. The user interface offered in Writer for cropping an image is not very friendly, so it may be a better choice to use a graphics package.

Note If you crop an image in Writer, the picture itself is not changed. If you export the document to HTML, the original image is exported, not the cropped image.

To start cropping the image, right-click on it and select Picture from the pop-up menu. In the Picture dialog box, select the Crop page.


Figure 37: The options available when cropping a picture

In the Crop page, you can control the following parameters:

Keep scale / Keep image sizeWhen Keep scale is selected (default), cropping the image does not change the scale of the picture. When Keep image size is selected, cropping produces enlargement (for positive cropping values), shrinking (for negative cropping values), or distortion of the image so that the image size remains constant.

Left, Right, Top, and BottomThe image is cropped by the amount entered in these boxes. For example, a value of 3cm in the Left box cuts 3 cm from the left side of the picture.• When Keep scale is selected, the size of the image also changes, so in this example the width

will be reduced by 3 cm. • When Keep image size is selected, the remaining part of the image is enlarged (when you

enter positive values for cropping) or shrunk (when you enter negative values for cropping) so that the width and height of the image remains unchanged.

Width and HeightThe Width and Height fields under either Scale or Image size change as you enter values in the Left, Right, Top, and Bottom fields. Use the thumbnail next to these fields to determine the correct amount by which to crop.

Resizing an imageThe inserted image might not fit perfectly into the document if it is too big or too small. In these cases you can use Writer to resize the image.

1) Click the picture, if necessary, to show the green resizing handles.2) Position the pointer over one of the green resizing handles. The pointer changes shape giving a

graphical representation of the direction of the resizing.3) Click and drag to resize the picture.4) Release the mouse button when satisfied with the new size.


The corner handles resize both the width and the height of the graphic object simultaneously, while the other four handles only resize one dimension at a time.

TipTo retain the original proportions of the graphic, Shift+click one of the corner handles, then drag. Be sure to release the mouse button before releasing the Shift key.

Be aware that re-sizing a bit-mapped (raster) image will adversely affect the resolution, causing some degree of blurring. It is better to externally size your picture correctly before insertion into your presentation, if possible.Figure 38 shows three examples of an image inserted into a document and resized.

Figure 38. Three examples of resized images, plus the original image

For more accurate resizing, use either the Crop page of the Picture dialog box (Figure 37) or, for images, the Type page of the Picture dialog box. On the Crop page you can either adjust the following settings or use the settings in the Crop section as described on page 45.

• Scale Width and Height: specify in percentages the scaling of the picture. The size of the image changes accordingly. For a scaled resizing, both values should be identical.

• Image size: specify the size of the image in your preferred unit of measurement. The image enlarges or shrinks accordingly.

• Original size button: when clicked, restores the image to its original size.

In the Type page of the Picture dialog box, select the Relative option to toggle between percentage and actual dimension. For a scaled resizing, select the Keep ratio option. As for the Crop page, clicking on the Original Size button restores the original image size.


Rotating a pictureWriter does not provide a tool for rotating a picture; however, there is a simple workaround:

1) Open a new Draw or Impress document (File > New > Drawing or File > New > Presentation).

2) Insert the image you want to rotate. You can use any of the mechanisms described in “Addingimages to a document” on page 41, although there are some slight variations in the position of the menu entries and icons.

3) Select the image, then in the Drawing toolbar (shown by default at the bottom of the window in

Impress and Draw), select the Rotate icon from the Effects tear-off toolbar .4) Rotate the image as desired. Use the red handles at the corners of the picture and move the

mouse in the direction you wish to rotate. By default the picture rotates around its center (indicated by a black crosshair), but you can change the pivot point by moving the black crosshair to the desired rotation center.

Tip To restrict the rotation angle to multiples of 15 degrees keep the Shift key pressed while rotating the image.

5) Select the rotated picture by pressing Ctrl+A, then copy the image to the clipboard with Ctrl+C.

6) Finish by going back to the location of the Writer document where the image is to be inserted and pressing Ctrl+V.

Other settingsThe Picture dialog box (Figure 37) consists of eight pages. The Crop page was described on page 45, while the use of the Type and the Wrap pages is explained in “Positioning graphics within the text” on page 50. The other pages serve the following purposes:

• Options: use this page to give the picture a descriptive name (as you want it to appear in the Navigator), display alternative text when the mouse hovers over the picture, and protect some of the picture settings from accidental changes. You can also prevent the picture from being printed by deselecting the corresponding option.

• Borders: use this page to create borders around the picture. The Borders dialog box is the same as the one used for defining table or paragraph borders. You can also add a shadow to the image if so desired.

• Background: use this page to change the background color of the picture. This setting produces the desired results only for images with a transparent color.

• Hyperlink: use this page to associate a hyperlink to the picture. you can also create an image map so that only certain areas of the picture respond to a mouse click by opening the associated URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) in the default browser. More information on image maps can be found in the Impress Guide.

• Picture: use this page to flip the picture as well as to display the original location of the file in case the image is linked rather than embedded.

• Macro: allows you to associate a macro to the picture. You can choose among the predefined macros or write your own.

Deleting a pictureTo delete a picture:

1) Click on the picture, to show the green resizing handles.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_Identifier

2) Press Delete.

Using Writer’s drawing toolsYou can use Writer’s drawing tools to create graphics, such as simple diagrams using rectangles, circles, lines, text, and other predefined shapes. You can also group several drawing objects to make sure they maintain their relative position and proportion.

You can place the drawing objects directly on a page in your document, or you can insert them into a frame.

You can also use the drawing tools to annotate photographs, screen captures, or other illustrations produced by other programs, but this is not recommended because:

• You cannot include images in a group with drawing objects, so they may get out of alignment in your document.

• If you convert a Writer document to another format, such as HTML, the drawing objects and the graphics will not remain associated; they are saved separately.

In general, if you need to create complex drawings, it is recommended to use OpenOffice.org Draw, which includes many more features such as layers, styles, and so on.

Creating drawing objectsTo begin using the drawing tools, display the Drawing toolbar (Figure 39), by clicking View > Toolbars > Drawing.

If you are planning to use the drawing tools repeatedly, you can tear off this toolbar and move it to a convenient place on the window.

1 Select 5 Freeform Line 9 Symbol Shapes 13 Stars2 Line 6 Text 10 Block arrows 14 Points3 Rectangle 7 Callouts 11 Flowcharts 15 Fontwork Gallery4 Ellipse 8 Basic Shapes 12 Callouts 16 From File

17 Extrusion On/OffFigure 39. The Drawing toolbar

To use a drawing tool:1) Click in the document where you want the drawing to be anchored. You can change the anchor

later, if necessary.2) Select the tool from the Drawing toolbar (Figure 39). The mouse pointer changes to a drawing-

functions pointer .3) Move the cross-hair pointer to the place in the document where you want the graphic to appear

and then click-and-drag to create the drawing object. Release the mouse button. The selected drawing function remains active, so you can draw another object of the same type.

4) To cancel the selected drawing function, press the Esc key or click on the Select icon (the arrow) on the Drawing toolbar.


5) You can now change the properties (fill color, line type and weight, anchoring, and others) of the drawing object using either the Drawing Object Properties toolbar (Figure 40) or the choices and dialog boxes reached by right-clicking on the drawing object.

Set or change properties for drawing objectsTo set the properties for a drawing object before you draw it:

1) On the Drawing toolbar (Figure 39), click the Select tool.2) On the Drawing Object Properties toolbar (Figure 40), click on the icon for each property and

select the value you want for that property.3) For more control, or to define new attributes, you can click on the Area or Line icons on the

toolbar to display detailed dialog boxes.

The default you set applies to the current document and session. It is not retained when you close the document or close Writer, and it does not apply to any other document you open. The defaults apply to all the drawing objects except text objects.

1 Line 5 Line Color 9 To Foreground 13 Alignment2 Arrow Style 6 Area 10 To Background 14 Change Anchor3 Line Style 7 Area Style / Filling 11 Bring to Front 15 Ungroup4 Line Width 8 Rotate 12 Send to Back 16 Group

Figure 40. Drawing Object Properties toolbar

To change the properties for an existing drawing object:1) Select the object.2) Continue as described above.

You can also specify the position and size, rotation, and slant and corner radius properties of the drawing object:

1) Right-click on the drawing object and then click Position and Size from the pop-up menu. The Position and Size dialog box is displayed.

2) Choose any properties, as required.

Resizing a drawing objectThe same considerations for resizing an image apply also to resizing an object. Select the object, click on one of the eight handles around it and drag it to its new position. For a scaled resizing, select one of the corner handles and keep the Shift key pressed while dragging the handle to its new position.

For more sophisticated control of the size of the object, select Format > Object > Position and Size from the menu bar. Use the Position and Size dialog box to set the width and height independently. If the Keep ratio option is selected, then the two dimensions change so that the proportion is maintained, allowing for a scaled resizing.

Using Writer’s drawing tools 49

Grouping drawing objectsTo group drawing objects:

1) Select one object, then hold down the Shift key and select the others you want to include in the group. The bounding box expands to include all the selected objects.

2) With the objects selected, hover the mouse pointer over one of the objects and choose Format > Group > Group from the menu bar or right-click and choose Group > Group from the pop-up menu.

Note You cannot include an embedded or linked graphic in a group with drawing objects.

Positioning graphics within the textWhen you add a graphic to a text document, you need to choose how to position it with respect to the text and other graphics. The positioning of graphics is often rather time-consuming and may be very frustrating for both inexperienced and experienced users. As Writer is a word processor rather than a desktop publishing program, there are some limitations to the flexibility in positioning images and it takes time to get things exactly as you would like them.

Positioning of a graphic is controlled by four settings:• Arrangement refers to the placement of a graphic on an imaginary vertical axis. Arrangement

controls how graphics are stacked upon each other or relative to the text.• Alignment refers to the vertical or horizontal placement of a graphic in relation to the chosen

anchor point.• Anchoring refers to the reference point for the graphics. This point could be the page, or frame

where the object is, a paragraph, or even a character. An image always has an anchor point.• Text wrapping refers to the relation of graphics to the surrounding text, which may wrap around

the graphic on one or both sides, be overprinted behind or in front of the graphic, or treat the graphic as a separate paragraph or character.

The settings can be accessed in a number of ways, depending on the nature of the graphics:1) From the Format menu, where you can find Alignment, Arrange, Wrap, and Anchor

(both for images and drawing objects).2) From the pop-up menu displayed when you right-click on the graphic.3) From the Object toolbar shown in Figure 41.4) For images, from the Type and Wrapping pages of the Picture dialog box. Note that you cannot

control the arrangement using the dialog box. To open the Picture dialog box, click on the image to select it and then choose Format > Picture or right-click on the graphic and choose Picture on the pop-up menu.

5) For drawing objects, from the Position and Size page of the Position and Size dialog box. To open the Position and Size dialog box, click on the drawing object to select it and then choose Format > Object > Position and Size or right-click on the graphic and choose Position and Size on the pop-up menu. Note that you can only control the alignment and anchoring.


1 Apply Style 6 Center Horizontal 11 Borders 16 Bring to Front2 Wrap Off 7 Align Right 12 Line Style 17 Send to Back3 Page Wrap 8 Top 13 Line Color (of the

border)18 Change Anchor

4 Wrap Through 9 Center 14 Background Color 19 Link Frames5 Align Left 10 Bottom 15 Frame Properties 20 Unlink Frames

Figure 41. Object toolbar (graphical control of positioning for images)

Arranging graphicsArranging a graphic object means to determine its vertical position relative to other graphic objects or text. Arranging is only relevant when objects are overlapping. You can choose between four settings, plus a special setting for drawing objects:

Bring to FrontPlaces the graphic on top of any other graphics or text.

Bring ForwardBrings the graphic one level up in the stack (z-axis). Depending on the number of overlapping objects, you may need to apply this option several times to obtain the desired result.

Send BackwardThe opposite of Bring Forward; sends the selected graphic one level down in the object stack.

Send to BackSends the selected graphic to the bottom of the stack, so that other graphics and text cover it.

To Background / To ForegroundOnly available for drawing objects; moves the drawing object behind or in front of the text respectively.

Anchoring graphicsYou can anchor graphics as a character or to a page, paragraph, or character. You can also place graphics in a frame and anchor the frame to a page, paragraph, or character. Which method you choose depends on what you are trying to achieve.

Here are the ways you can anchor graphics or drawing objects:

To PageThe graphic keeps the same position in relation to the page margins. It does not move as you add or delete text or other graphics. This method is useful when the graphic does not need to be visually associated with a particular piece of text. It is often used when producing newsletters or other documents that are very layout intensive, or for placing logos in letterheads.

Caution If you plan to use a document within a master document, do not anchor graphics To Page because the graphics will disappear from the master document. See Chapter 13 (Working with Master Documents) for more information.

Positioning graphics within the text 51

To ParagraphThe graphic is associated with a paragraph and moves with the paragraph. It may be placed in the margin or another location. This method is useful as an alternative to a table for placing icons beside paragraphs.

To CharacterThe graphic is associated with a character but is not in the text sequence. It moves with the paragraph but may be placed in the margin or another location. This method is similar to anchoring to a paragraph but cannot be used with drawing objects.

As CharacterThe graphic is placed in the document like any other character and, therefore, affects the height of the text line and the line break. The graphic moves with the paragraph as you add or delete text before the paragraph. This method is useful for keeping screenshots in sequence in a procedure (by anchoring them as a character in a blank paragraph) or for adding a small (inline) icon in sequence in a sentence.

To FrameIf the graphic has been placed in a frame, you can anchor the graphic in a fixed position inside the frame. The frame can then be anchored to the page, a paragraph, or a character, as required.

Aligning graphicsOnce you have established the anchor point of the graphic, you can decide the position of the graphic relative to this anchor: this is called aligning the graphics. Choose from six options: three for aligning the graphic horizontally (left, center, right) and three for aligning the graphic vertically (top, center, bottom). Horizontal alignment is not available for images anchored as character.For finer control of the alignment, use the Position options on the Type page of the Picture dialog box, shown in Figure 42.

Figure 42: Fine tuning the alignment

For both the horizontal and vertical position, start by picking the reference point in the right hand side drop down menu, then select in the first drop down menu among Left, Right or Center. If you select the value From left (or From top for the vertical positioning) you can specify the amount in your selected unit of measurement. In the example in Figure 42, the upper-left corner of the image will be placed at 3 cm from the left margin of the page horizontally and on the top margin vertically.

Wrapping text around graphicsThe Wrap setting determines the relation between the text and the graphic. Several possibilities are provided:

No WrapWith this option the text is placed above and below the image but not around it. This is the wrapping type used for most of the figures in this guide.


Page Wrap or Optimal Page WrapThe text flows around the image. Moving the image around the page causes the text to be rearranged to fill the space to the left and right of it. Optimal Page Wrap prevents text from being placed to the side of the image if the spacing between the image and the margin is less than 2 cm.

Wrap ThroughSuperimposes the image on the text. That is, the image is above the text. This option must be used in conjunction with the image-transparency setting in order to make the text under the picture visible.

In BackgroundSimilar to Wrap Through, but the image is placed below the text so there may be no need to change the transparency to make the text visible.

Note The No Wrap option found in the pop-up menu of a picture is equivalent to the Wrap Off menu item in the Format > Wrap menu.

The wrap format is normally selected after the anchoring and the alignment of the picture have been decided. To set the position of an image to the the desired wrap format, follow these steps:

1) Select a graphic by clicking on it.2) Right-click to display the pop-up menu and move the mouse pointer to Wrap to display the

available wrap formats. Alternatively you can select Format > Wrap from the main menu.3) Select the desired wrap format.

Note When anchoring a graphic as character, you can only adjust the distance between the image and the text, but no wrapping option is displayed.

To fine tune the wrapping options, open the Picture dialog box and select the Wrap page shown in Figure43. For images you can open this dialog box by selecting Format > Picture from the main menu or right-click and select Picture from the pop-up menu. For drawing objects, you can access the Wrap page by selecting Format > Wrap > Edit in the main menu or right-click and select Wrap > Edit from the pop-up menu.

Figure 43: The advanced wrap format options


This page is divided into three sections. In the top part you can select among the wrap types mentioned above, plus two additional wrap formats that prevent the text from filling the area to the left (After) or to the right (Before) of the picture. Use the Spacing section of the page to adjust the spacing between the image and the text. The contents of the Options section of the page may change depending on the selected wrap format.

First paragraphCheck this box if you want OOo to start a new paragraph after the image even if it could still wrap around the image.

In backgroundThis option becomes available if Through Wrap is selected; it moves the image in the background.

ContourWraps the text around a custom contour rather than around the edge of the picture. This option is only available for Page or Optimal Page Wrap.

Outside onlyForces the text to wrap on the outside of the image, even if the contour contains open areas within the shape.

Figure 44: The Contour Editor in action


Example 1: page wrappingFigure 45 shows an example of page wrapping in action.

Figure 45: Example of image with Page Wrap formatting

The process to obtain this is the following:1) Insert the image into the document, then anchor it to the first paragraph. To move the anchor,

select the image and move it until the anchor symbol is at the beginning of the paragraph. Do not worry about the position as that will be fixed in the next step.

2) Align the image so that the left margin of the image is in line with the paragraph indentation. This can be done with the mouse or using the advanced settings. In the example, the image is placed 1 cm from the left margin.

3) Change the wrap to Page Wrap. It starts out OK; however, there is still too little space between the image and the text. To correct it, access the Wrap page of the Picture dialog box and set the gap between the image and text to 0.2 cm in the Right and Bottom boxes.

4) The last touch is to change the position so that the image is below the first line of the paragraph. Again, you can use the mouse to drag the image or use the advanced settings, which require a bit of trial and error. The line height used in this guide—0.75 cm from the top margin of the paragraph—is a good value.

Example 2: simple contour wrapping in actionIn this example we again apply page wrapping as in example 1, enabling this time the contour option. We will work on an image and on a drawing object as the contour option works slightly differently in the two cases.

The example of Figure 46 has been built following the steps below, which you can use to practice.1) Create some text (a very quick way to do that is to use the dummy text AutoText. That is, type DT

and then press the F3 key).2) Insert an image of your choice and anchor it to the first paragraph. Adjust the alignment as

desired then change the wrap type to Page Wrap.


Margin to image distance

Spacing image to textImage anchor

3) Right-click on the picture to select the option Wrap > Contour, then right-click again and select Wrap > Edit Contour from the pop-up menu.

4) Use the technique discussed in “Error: Reference source not found” on page Error: Referencesource not found to create a custom contour and click Apply. If needed, adjust the spacing between the edge of the image and the text.

5) Insert an AutoShape of your choice (a rotated triangle in the example) and proceed as in step 2 above.

6) Enable the contour wrap by selecting Format > Wrap > Contour from the main menu. As discussed previously, OOo automatically generates the contour. You may need to adjust the distance between the drawing object and the text.

Figure 46: Image and drawing object with contour wrapping

Example 3: Wrap Through and In BackgroundThis example shows how to use an image as a watermark by wrapping it through the text and adjusting the transparency. This is not the best way to create watermarks and it is presented here only for its illustration purposes. If you need to create a watermark, it is best to use a Fontworks object wrapped in the background.

The Wrap Through option inserts an image overlapping the text which as a result will be hidden. To make the text appear, change the transparency of the picture; although the words under the image become visible, they may be difficult to read and will appear lighter than the rest of the text.

To reproduce the example of Figure 47 create some dummy text, then insert the image of your choice. Anchor the image (to the page in the example) and select the wrap through option from the Format > Wrap menu or right-clicking on the image and selecting Wrap > Wrap Through from the pop-up menu. Move the image into the desired position. The Picture toolbar should be displayed when the image is selected. Change the transparency to a suitable value (in the example this is 40%) so that the text can be read. In the example, a shadow effect is applied to the text (Format > Character then select Shadow in the Font Effects page).


Figure 47: Transparent image added over the text

You can obtain a better result if you set a graphic’s wrap to In Background. In this case all the text will be clearly readable, with characters that have the same intensity as long as the background is not too dark. Also in this case you may want to adjust the transparency of the image.

Illustration 1. An exampleFigure 48. An example of a graphic and its caption contained in a frame. The outer box shows the edge of the frame; this border is normally set to be invisible.


Printing from WriterWriter provides a range of choices when printing.

Quick printingClick the Print File Directly icon to send the entire document to the default printer defined for your computer.

NoteYou can change the action of the Print File Directly icon to send the document to the printer defined for the document instead of the default printer for the computer. Go to Tools > Options > Load/Save > General and select the Load printer settings with the document option.

Controlling printingFor more control over printing, use File > Print to display the Print dialog (Figure 49).

Figure 49. The Print dialog

On the Print dialog, you can choose:

• Which printer to use (if more than one are installed on your system) and the properties of the printer—for example, orientation (portrait or landscape), which paper tray to use, and what paper size to print on. The properties available depend on the selected printer; consult the printer’s documentation for details.

• What pages to print, how many copies to print, and in what order to print them. Use dashes to specify page ranges and commas or semicolons to separate ranges; for example: 1, 5, 11–14, 34–40. Selection is the highlighted part of a page or pages.

• What items to print. Click the Options button to display the Printer Options dialog (Figure 50).


Figure 50. Printer Options dialog for Writer

Selecting print options for a documentSelections on the Printer Options dialog apply to this printing of this document only.

To specify default printing options, you need to use two pages in Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org – Print and Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer – Print (which looks very similar to the Printer Options dialog). (See Chapter 2.)

Some items of interest on the Printer Options dialog include:

• In the Contents section, you might choose not to print graphics or page background in drafts, for example (to save toner or ink).

• In the Pages section, you can choose:– Print only left (even-numbered) pages or only right (odd-numbered) pages. These settings

are useful when you want to print on both sides of the page, but do not have a printer that handles this automatically.

– Print in reversed page order.– Brochure—the results of this selection are discussed in “Error: Reference source not

found” on page Error: Reference source not found.

• In the Comments section, you can choose whether to print any comments that have been added to your document (using Insert > Comment), and where to print the comments.

Printing in black and white on a color printerYou may wish to print documents in black and white on a color printer, to save expensive color ink or toner. Common uses are for drafts or documents to be photocopied in black and white. Several choices are available.

To print the current document in black and white or grayscale:

1) Choose File > Print to open the Print dialog.2) Click Properties to open the properties dialog for the printer. The available choices vary from

one printer to another, but you should find an option for Color. See your printer’s help or user manual for more information.

Printing from Writer 59

3) The choices for color may include black and white or grayscale. Choose one of these. Grayscale is best if you have any graphics in the document. Click OK to confirm your choice and return to the Print dialog, then click OK again to print the document.

To set up OOo to print all color text and graphics as grayscale:

1) Choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Print.2) Select the Convert colors to grayscale option. Click OK to save the change.

To set up OOo Writer to print all color text as black, and all graphics as grayscale:

1) Choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer > Print.2) Under Contents, select the Print black option. Click OK to save the change.

Previewing pages before printingThe normal page view in Writer shows you what each page will look like when printed, but it shows only one page at a time. If you are designing a document to be printed double-sided, you may want to see what facing pages look like. OOo provides two ways to do this:

• View Layout (editable view) —see “View layout” on page 8.• Page Preview (read-only view) —from which you can print multiple pages onto one sheet of

paper.

To use Page Preview:

1) Choose File > Page Preview, or click the Page Preview button .The Writer window changes to display the current page and the following page, and shows the Page Preview toolbar in place of the Formatting toolbar.

Figure 51. Page Preview toolbar

2) Click the Book Preview icon to display left and right pages in their correct orientation.

3) To print the document from this page view, click the Print page view icon to open the Print dialog. Choose your options and click OK to print as usual.

4) To choose margins and other options for the printout, click the Print options page view icon

to display the Print Options dialog.


Figure 52. Print Options dialog

Printing envelopesPrinting envelopes involves two steps: setup and printing.

To set up an envelope to be printed by itself or with your document:

1) Choose Insert > Envelope from the menu bar.2) In the Envelope dialog, start with the Envelope tab (Figure 53). Verify, add, or edit the

information in the Addressee and Sender boxes (the “from” on the envelope).You can type information directly into the Addressee and Sender boxes, or use the right-hand drop-down lists to select the database or table from which you can draw the envelope information, if desired. See Chapter 11 (Using Mail Merge) in the Writer Guide for details on how to print envelopes from a database.

3) On the Format page (Figure 54), verify or edit the positioning of the addressee and the sender information. The preview area on the lower right shows the effect of your positioning choices.To format the text of these blocks, click the Edit buttons to the right. In the drop-down list you have two choices: Character and Paragraph.• In Character, you can choose Fonts (Sizes...), Fonts Effects (Underlining, Color...), Position

(Rotating/scaling...), Hyperlink, Background and more.• In Paragraph, you can choose Indents & Spacing, Alignment, Text Flow, Tabs, Drop Caps,

Borders and Backgrounds.


Figure 53. Choosing addressee and sender information

Figure 54. Choosing positioning and size of elements

4) In the lower left of this page, choose the envelope format from the drop-down list. The width and height of the selected envelope then show in the boxes below the selected format. If you chose a pre-existing format, just verify these sizes. If you chose User defined in the Format list, then you can edit the sizes.

5) After formatting, go to the Printer page (Figure 55) to choose printer options such as envelope orientation and shifting. You may need to experiment a bit to see what works best for your printer.You can also choose a different printer or alter printer setup (for example, specify the tray that holds envelopes) for this print job.


Figure 55. Choosing printer options for an envelope

6) When you have finished formatting and are ready to print, click either the New Doc or Insert button to finish. New Doc makes only an envelope or starts a new document with the envelope. Insert inserts the envelope into an existing document as page 1.To not proceed with this envelope, click Cancel or press the Esc key. You can also click Reset to remove your changes and return to the original settings when the dialog opened.

7) When the Envelope dialog closes, you are returned to your document, which now has the envelope in the same file as the document. Save this file before you do anything else.

To print the envelope:

1) Choose File > Print from the menu bar.2) On the Print dialog, under Print range, choose Pages and type 1 in the box. Click OK to print.

Printing labelsLabels are commonly used for printing address lists (where each label shows a different address), but they can also be used for making multiple copies of one label only, for example return-address stickers.

To print labels:

1) Choose File > New > Labels on the menu bar. The Labels dialog opens.2) On the Labels page, fill in your own label text in the Inscription box, or use the Database

and Table drop-down lists to choose the required information, as described in Chapter 11 (Using Mail Merge) in the Writer Guide.


Figure 56. Labels dialog, Labels page

3) Select the label stock in the Brand drop-down list. The types for that brand then appear in the Type drop-down list. Select the size and type of labels required. You can also select User in the Type drop-down list and then make specific selections on the Format page.

4) On the Format page (Figure 57), choose the pitch, sizes, margins, columns and rows for user-defined labels, or just verify with a brand of label stock you have loaded into the printer.

Figure 57. Labels dialog, Format page

5) Click Save to save your new format.6) When you have finished formatting, click New Document to make your sheet of labels or click

Cancel (or press the Esc key). You can also click Reset to remove your changes and return to the original settings when the dialog opened. On the Options page, choose to print the entire page of labels or one single label, then select which one by the column and row. You can also change printer setup.


7) You can print right away using the Print File Directly icon on the toolbar or by choosing File > Print from the menu bar, or you can save the file to print later.

Figure 58. Labels dialog, Options page


What is mail merge?OpenOffice.org (OOo) Writer provides very useful features to create and print:

• Multiple copies of a document to send to a list of different recipients (form letters)• Mailing labels• Envelopes

All these facilities, though different in application, are based around the concept of a registered “data source”, from which is derived the variable address information necessary to their function.

This chapter describes the entire process. The steps include:1) How to create and register a data source.2) How to create and print form letters, mailing labels, and envelopes.3) Optionally, how to save the output in an editable file instead of printing it directly.

Creating the data sourceA data source is a database containing the name and address records (and optionally other information) from which a mailing list may be derived. Although you can create and print mailing labels and envelopes without using a data source, in most cases using one is the best approach. This chapter assumes that you are using a data source.

OOo can access a wide variety of data sources, including spreadsheets, text files and databases such as MySQL, Adabas, and ODBC. If the information to be used in the mail merge is currently in a format that OOo cannot access directly, you need to convert it, for example by exporting it to a comma-separated values (CSV) file.

For the following example we use a spreadsheet with the following column (field) headers: Title, First name, Last name, Address, State/County, Country, Post Code, Sex, Points. A sample data source is shown in Figure 59.

Figure 59: Spreadsheet data source


Registering a data sourceFor a data source to be directly accessible from within a Writer document, it must first be registered as described below. You only need to do this once; after that, the data source is available to all documents in OpenOffice.org.

1) From within any Openoffice.org document, or from the OpenOffice.org Welcome screen, choose File > Wizards > Address Data Source.

Figure 60: Starting the Address Data Source wizard

2) The choices on the first page of the wizard vary with your operating system. Select the appropriate type of external address book. In this example, it is Other external data source. Click Next.

Registering a data source 67

Figure 61: Select type of external address book

3) On the next page of the Wizard, click the Settings button.

Figure 62: Starting the Settings part of the Wizard

4) In the Data Source Properties page, select the Database type. In our example, it is Spreadsheet. Click Next.

Figure 63: Selecting the database type


5) In the next dialog box, click Browse and navigate to the spreadsheet that contains the address information. Select the spreadsheet and click Open to return to this dialog box. At this time you may wish to test that the connection has been correctly established by clicking on the Test Connection button (not shown in illustration).

Figure 64: Selecting the spreadsheet document

6) Click Finish.7) On the following page, click Next. Because this is a spreadsheet, do not click Field

Assignment.

Figure 65: Because this is a spreadsheet, do not click Field Assignment.

8) Name the file in the Location field. The default is ...\Addresses.odb; but you may replace Addresses with another name if you wish. You may also change the name in the “Address book name” field. In our example, the name “Points” was used for both.

Registering a data source 69

Figure 66: Name the .odb file and the address book.

9) Click Finish. The data source is now registered.

Creating a form letter

Example: Sending a letter to your customer baseA mail order company organized a campaign to assign credit points to their customers according to the quantity of goods they buy during one year.

At the end of the year, they want to send a letter to each customer to show the total of credit points collected.

You can create a form letter manually, which is the simplest and most comprehensive method and is described here, or you can use the Mail Merge wizard as described in “Using the Mail Merge Wizard tocreate a form letter” starting on page 82. If you elect to use the wizard, pay close attention to its current limitations, as identified within its description.

1) Create a new text document: File > New > Text Document, or open a pre-existing form letter with File > Open.

2) Display the registered data sources: View > Data sources (or press F4).3) Find the data source that you wish to use for the form letter, in this case Points. Expand the

Points and Tables folders, and select Sheet1. The address data file is displayed.


Figure 67: Selecting the data source.

4) Now create or modify the form letter by typing in the text, punctuation, line breaks, and so on that will be present in all of the letters. To add the mail-merge fields where needed (such as names and addresses), click in the field heading and drag it to the appropriate point in the letter. (See Figure 68).Note that address lines should be in individual paragraphs, not separated by line breaks as might seem preferable. The reason for this will be made clear in the next step.

Figure 68: Dragging fields to the body of the form letter.

5) Continue until you have composed the entire document. (See Figure 69 for an example.) At this time you may wish to consider suppressing any blank lines that may appear in the resulting letters. If not, skip ahead to Step 7.

Creating a form letter 71

Figure 69: The completed form letter.

6) To suppress blank lines:f) Click at the end of the first paragraph to be suppressed and then choose

Insert > Fields > Other.g) Select the Functions tab and then click on Hidden Paragraph in the Type column.h) Now click in the Condition box and enter the details of the condition that defines a blank

address field. It has the general form of:![Database.Table.Database field]where the ‘!’ (NOT) character indicates the negative case and the square brackets indicate the condition.For example, in our Points database the condition to test if the Company field is empty would be:![Points.Sheet1.Company] as illustrated in Figure 70.


Figure 70: Hidden paragraph insertion

To test for multiple conditions use the operators AND and/or OR between the conditional statements, for example:![Points.Sheet1.Title]AND![Points.Sheet1.Last Name]

i) Click Insert, but do not close the dialog box until you have amended all the lines that should be suppressed.

The document is now ready to be printed.

1) Choose File > Print and respond with Yes in the message box.

Figure 71: Confirmation message for merging database fields

2) In the Mail Merge dialog box, you can choose to print all records or selected records. To select records to be printed, use Ctrl+click to select individual records. To select a block of records, select the first record in the block, scroll to the last record in the block, and Shift+click on the last record.

Creating a form letter 73

Figure 72: The Mail Merge dialog box

3) Click OK to send the letters directly to the printer.If you prefer to save the letters to a file, perhaps to allow proofreading or some later formatting, select File in the output section of the Mail Merge dialog box, instead of using the default Printer selection. This changes the dialog box to display the Save merged document section, where Save as single document is pre-selected. You can choose to save each letter as a single, individual document, if preferred.In this case, clicking OK brings up the Save as dialog box. Enter a file name for the saved letters. They will be saved consecutively in the single document, or numbered consecutively in individual files if saved as single documents.

4) If you have not saved the original, prototype form letter document (template) previously, then you should do so now. Having a form letter template could greatly simplify the creation of other form letters in the future and is highly recommended.

Printing mailing labelsBefore beginning this process, note the brand and type of labels you intend to use.

To print mailing labels:1) Choose File > New > Labels.2) On the Options tab, ensure that the Synchronise contents checkbox is selected.3) On the Labels tab (Figure 73), select the Database and Table. Select the Brand of labels to

be used, and then select the Type of label.

TipIf the type of label you wish to use is not on the list, use the Format tab to define a new Brand and Type. This is beyond the scope of this document, but is relatively simple to implement, if you know the dimensions of the label.


Figure 73: Select Database, Table, label Brand, and label Type.

4) Click the dropdown arrow under Database field. Select the first field to be used in the label (in this example, Title). Click the left arrow button to move this field to the Label text area, as shown in Figure 74.

Figure 74: Move fields from Database field list to Label text area.

5) Continue adding fields and inserting desired punctuation, spaces, and line breaks until the label is composed. Figure 75 shows the completed label.

Printing mailing labels 75

Figure 75: The completed label.

6) Click New Document. You now have a new, single-page document containing a series of frames, one for each label of the selected type and filled with the data source address fields that you selected. Quite often some of the fields in your address data source will be unused, leading to blank lines in your labels. If this is not important, you can skip the next few paragraphs and go straight to Step 7, otherwise continue as described here.a) First ensure that the label frames are showing the field contents (data source headings),

rather than their underlying field names. If this is not the case, then either press Ctrl+F9 or choose View > Field Names to toggle the view.

b) Next, ensure that you can see non-printing characters, such as paragraph marks, line breaks and so on. If these are not already visible, choose View > Nonprinting Characters from the menu bar, or press Ctrl+F10, or click on the paragraph icon in the Standard toolbar.You will now see that address field separation is created by line breaks , rather than paragraphs . As the suppression of blank address fields depends on hiding paragraphs, not lines, you need to replace line breaks with paragraphs as follows.

c) Click in the first label, at the end of the last data source address field in the first line of the label. Press Delete to remove the new line character and then press Return (or the Enter key) to insert a paragraph marker. Repeat this action for each line in the address.If the line spacing in the first label is not satisfactory, you may wish to correct this before proceeding, by modifying the paragraph style associated with the address. Unless you have changed it, the address uses the Default style.

Caution The objective of step c) is to replace all line breaks at the end of data source address fields with paragraphs. Sometimes the address data field may be longer than the width of the label and will wrap to the next physical line: make sure that you are not misled by this into deleting and replacing anything other than line break characters.


d) Click again at the end of the first paragraph to be conditionally suppressed and then choose Insert > Fields > Other. Select the Functions tab and then click on Hidden Paragraph in the Type column. Now click in the Condition box and enter the details of the condition that defines a blank address field. It has the general form of:![Database.Table.Database field]where the ‘!’ (NOT) character indicates the negative case and the square brackets indicate the condition.For example, in our Points database the condition to test if the Company field is empty would be ![Points.Sheet1.Company] as illustrated in Figure 70.To test for multiple conditions, use the operators AND and/or OR between the conditional statements, for example:![Points.Sheet1.Title]AND![Points.Sheet1.Last Name]Click Insert, but do not close the dialog box until all lines have been amended.

e) Repeat for each paragraph to be conditionally suppressed, remembering to advance the cursor to the end of the line in question before changing the last element of the condition and Inserting the result.

CautionThe last paragraph of the label address block ends with a special field, Next record:Database.Table (Next record:Points.Sheet1 in our example), and the Hidden paragraph field MUST be inserted before this field. This can generally be accomplished by clicking at the end of the paragraph and then using the Left Arrow key once to skip back over it.A clue that you omitted this action is the observation that some records have been skipped and are missing from the final output.

f) Remembering that we selected Synchronise contents earlier, you should now be able to see a small window containing a button labelled Synchronise Labels. Click on this button and the hidden paragraph fields are propagated to all the labels in your document.You now have a template suitable for future use with the same data source and type of label. If you wish to save it, use either File > Templates > Save as, or save it as an Open Document Text Template (.ott) into the private template directory (folder) that you have previously defined in Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Paths > Templates.

The labels are now ready to be printed.

1) Choose File > Print. The message shown in Figure 71 appears. Click Yes.2) In the Mail Merge dialog box (Figure 72), you can choose to print all records or selected records.

To select records to be printed, use Ctrl+click to select individual records. To select a block of records, select the first record in the block, scroll to the last record in the block, and Shift+click on the last record.

3) Click OK to send the labels directly to the printer.If you prefer to save the labels to a file, perhaps to allow some later editing such as changing the typeface or paragraph format, then you should select File in the output section of the Mail Merge dialog box, rather than using the default Printer selection. This changes the dialog box to highlight the Save merged document section, where Save as single document is pre-selected.In this case, clicking OK brings up the Save as dialog box, where a file name can be entered for the saved labels.If you did not save the prototype label fields document (template) in step 6f, then you are prompted to do so now by another Save as dialog box.

Printing mailing labels 77

In either case, whether printing or saving to file, despite there apparently being only one page of labels, the printed or saved output will be expanded to include all of the selected records from the data source.

Editing a saved file of mailing labelsTo edit a saved file of mailing labels, open the saved label file in the normal way. You will be prompted as to whether you wish to update all links. Choose No for the following reason: The first label on the page is termed the “Master Label” and all other labels are linked to it. If you update the links, then all labels will end up containing the same data, which may not be what you want.

You can edit individual records in the normal way, by highlighting and changing the font name, for example.

However, you cannot edit all labels globally (for example, to change the font name for all records) by the technique of selecting the entire document. To achieve this result you have to edit the paragraph style associated with the label records as follows:

1) Right-click any correctly spelled word in a label record. Select Edit Paragraph Style from the pop-up menu. (Note: If you click on a misspelled word, a different menu appears.)

2) Then from the Paragraph Style dialog box, you can make changes to the font name, the font size, the indents, and other attributes.

Printing envelopesInstead of printing mailing labels, you may wish to print directly onto envelopes. There are two basic ways to create envelopes, one where the envelope is embedded within a letter, generally as the first page (Insert in the Envelope dialog box), and another where the envelope is an independent document (New Doc. in the dialog box). In each case the addressing data may be manually entered, for example by copying and pasting from the letter with which it is associated, or it may originate within an address data source.

This section assumes the use of an address data source and, for convenience, a free-standing envelope.

The production of envelopes involves two steps, setup and printing, as described in this section.

Setting up envelopes for printing1) Choose Insert > Envelope from the menu bar.2) In the Envelope dialog box, select the Format tab (Figure 76), where you can select the

envelope format to use. You can then arrange the layout of the envelope to suit your requirements, together with the character and paragraph attributes to be used in the Sender and Addressee areas. These attributes are accessed using the Edit buttons to the right of the dialog box, next to the word Format.

TipAt this stage it is not possible to vary the dimensions of the frames that will hold the Sender and Addressee information, but once the envelope has been created this will become possible and you may wish to make some cosmetic adjustments.


Figure 76: Envelope formatting dialog box

3) The next step is to select the Printer tab (Figure 77), from where you may choose the printer you intend to use, its setup—for example, specification of the tray holding envelopes—and other printer-related options such as envelope orientation and shifting. You may need to experiment with these settings to achieve the best results with your printer.

4) You now have the choice of creating the Addressee fields by dragging and dropping from the data source headings (as described in “Creating a form letter” on page 70, and in particular in Figure 68) or using the facilities of the Envelope tab.If you prefer dragging and dropping, than click New Doc., drag your data source headings into the Addressee area on your new envelope and skip to step 7), otherwise continue with steps 5 and 6.

Printing envelopes 79

Figure 77: Choosing printer options for an envelope

5) Select the Envelope tab (Figure 78). Verify, add, or edit the information in the Addressee and Sender boxes (Sender is the “from” on the envelope). You can use the right-hand dropdown lists to select the database and table from which you can access the Addressee information, in a similar fashion to that described for “Printing mailing labels”, paragraphs 3, 4 and 5 on page 74. The similarity of the method with Figure 74 and Figure 75 will be clear.

6) When you have finished formatting, click either the New Doc. or Insert button to finish. As might be expected, New Doc creates only the envelope template in a new document, whereas Insert inserts the envelope into your current document as page 1.If you don’t want to proceed with this envelope, click Cancel or press the Esc key. You can also click Reset to remove your changes and return to the original settings extant when the dialog box opened.


Figure 78: Choosing addressee and sender information for envelopes

7) Quite often some of the fields in your address data source will be unused, leading to blank lines in your envelope Addressee area. If this is not important, you can skip the next few paragraphs and go straight to “Merging and printing the envelopes” on page 82, otherwise continue as described here.

Tip The following procedure is very similar to that used for a similar purpose in the section on printing mailing labels. It is reproduced here for purposes of clarity.

a) First ensure that the envelope is showing the field contents (data source headings), rather than their underlying field names. If this is not the case, then either press Ctrl+F9 or choose View > Field Names to toggle the view.

b) Next, ensure that you can see non-printing characters, such as paragraph marks, line breaks and so on. If these are not already visible, choose View > Nonprinting Characters from the menu bar, or press Ctrl+F10, or click on the large paragraph icon in the Standard toolbar.You will now see that address field separation is created by line breaks , rather than paragraphs . As the suppression of blank address fields depends on hiding paragraphs, not lines, you need to replace line breaks with paragraphs as follows.

c) Click at the end of the last data source address field in the first line of the label. Press Delete to remove the new line and then press Return (or the Enter key) to insert a paragraph. Repeat this action for each line of the label.If the line spacing in the Addressee area is not satisfactory, you may wish to correct this before proceeding, by modifying the paragraph style associated with the address. Unless you have changed it, the address uses the Default style.

d) Click again at the end of the first paragraph to be conditionally suppressed and then choose Insert > Fields > Other. Select the Functions tab and then click on Hidden Paragraph in the Type column. Now click in the Condition box and enter the details of the condition that defines a blank address field. It has the general form of:![Database.Table.Database field]

Printing envelopes 81

where the ‘!’ (NOT) character indicates the negative case and the square brackets indicate the condition.For example, in our Points database the condition to test if the Company field is empty would be: ![Points.Sheet1.Company] as illustrated in Figure 70.To test for multiple conditions, use the operators AND and/or OR between the conditional statements, for example:![Points.Sheet1.Title]AND![Points.Sheet1.Last Name]Click Insert, but do not close the dialog box until all lines have been amended.

e) Repeat for each paragraph to be conditionally suppressed, remembering to advance the cursor to the end of the line in question before changing the last element of the condition and Inserting the result.

Merging and printing the envelopesTo merge addresses and print the envelopes:

1) Choose File > Print. A message box (Figure 71) appears. Click Yes.2) The Mail Merge dialog box (Figure 72) appears. As with form letters and mailing labels, you can

choose to print envelopes for one, several or all address records in the database.3) Make your selections and then click OK to print direct to the printer. If you wish to check the

envelopes before printing them, see Step 9 of “Creating a form letter” on page 70 for instructions.

Using the Mail Merge Wizard to create a form letterThe manual method of creating a form letter described in “Creating a form letter” on page 70 provides the most control over the result and is therefore recommended. If you prefer to use the Mail Merge wizard, the technique is described below.

Before starting you should note the following limitations, current in OOo 3:• In Step 4 creating the salutation only allows the sex-related Mr. and Mrs. It makes no allowance

for Miss or Ms, nor does it permit sexless addressing such as Dr.• Again in Step 4, the General salutation is not editable and the default values are somewhat

limited.• In Step 5 the layout is idiosyncratic, with paragraph marks all over the place so as to space the

address block frame and salutation. Creating a professional looking document requires significant editing.

If the above limitations are not a hindrance to you, then open a new document with File > New > Text Document and start the Mail Merge wizard using Tools > Mail Merge Wizard. The wizard opens, as shown in Figure 79.

Step 1: Select starting documentThe wizard gives various options to select your starting document:

• Use the current document.• Create a new document.• Use a template.• Use an existing document.


For the purposes of this description we assume that you opened a new text document. This will ensure that all the steps in the wizard are fully explored, although with experience you may find it more practical to use a draft you prepared earlier, which will allow skipping some steps.

Select Use the current document and click Next.

Figure 79: Select starting document

Step 2: Select document typeThe wizard can produce letters or, if a Java Mail connection exists, email messages. You can see these options in Figure 80. In this example, we are producing a letter. Select Letter and click Next.

Figure 80: Choose document type

Using the Mail Merge Wizard to create a form letter 83

Step 3: Insert address blockThis is the most complex step in the wizard. In this step (Figure 81) you will do three things:

1) Tell the wizard which data source to use. The data source must be an existing file; in this example it is the “Points” spreadsheet created earlier.

2) Select the address block to use in the document. This means choosing which fields appear (for example, whether the country is included) and how they look.

3) Make sure that the fields all match correctly. This is very important. For example, the wizard has a field called <Last Name>. If your spreadsheet has a column called “Surname”, you need to tell the wizard that <Last Name> and “Surname” are equivalent. This is described in “Matching thefields” on page 86.

Figure 81: Insert address block

Selecting the data source (address list)1) If the current address list, identified beneath the Select Different Address List button in

section 1, is not the one you wish to use, click the button to open the Select Address List dialog box (Figure 82) for choosing a data source.

2) If you have not already created the address list, you may click Create to do so now. This step will allow you to create a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file with a new list of address records.If you already have an address list, as we have in the “Points” spreadsheet example, but which is not the one you wish to use, click Add and select the file in which it resides.In each of the above cases a new data source will be created and registered.


Figure 82: Select address list dialog box

3) Select the address list and click OK to return to step 3 of the wizard. For this example, the preceding steps are all you need to do. The wizard can also exclude certain records; click Filter to choose them.

Selecting the address block1) In step 3 of the wizard (shown in Figure 81), look at section 2. This is where you select the

address block to appear on the letter, and define its appearance and the fields it contains. The main page gives two examples. If neither of those is exactly what you want, click More to see more choices, in the Select Address Block dialog box (shown in Figure 83).

2) The Select Address Block dialog box offers six choices for the format of the address block (scroll down to see the last two choices). You can also optionally include or exclude the country (for example, only include the country if it is not England). The six formats provided are relatively common, but they might not exactly match your preference. If this is the case, select the address block that is closest to what you want and click Edit, which opens the New Address Block dialog box.


Figure 83: Select address block

3) In the New Address Block dialog box (Figure 84), you can add or delete address elements using the arrow buttons on the left. To move elements around, use the arrow buttons on the right. For example, to add an extra space between first and last names in Figure 84, click <Last Name> and then click the right arrow button.

Figure 84: New address block

Matching the fieldsFinally, it is time to match the wizard’s fields with the spreadsheet fields, so that items like <Last Name> and “Surname” match correctly.

1) Look at section 3 of step 3 of the wizard (shown in Figure 81 on page 84). The box at the bottom displays one record at a time, using the address block format you selected. Use the right and left arrow buttons below that address box to step through the addresses, checking that they display correctly. Do not assume that all the records display correctly, just because one or two do. Check them all if you can, or at least a good proportion.


2) If the addresses do not display correctly (and they probably will not right away), click Match Fields.

Figure 85: Match fields dialog box

The Match Fields dialog box has three columns:• Address Elements are the terms the wizard uses for each field, such as <First Name>

and <Last Name>.• Use the Matches to Field column to select, for each address element, the field from your

data source that matches it.• The Preview column shows what will be shown for this field from the selected address

block, so you can double-check that the match is correct.

3) When you have matched all the fields, click OK to return to step 3 of the wizard. Now, when you use the arrow buttons to look at all the addresses, they should all look correct. If not, go back and change anything you’re not happy with, before clicking Next to move to step 4.Note that you will not be able to continue until you have correctly matched all the fields in your chosen address block. If you see <not available> in a field position it indicates that the field in question is not correctly matched.

4) Notice the option for Suppress lines with empty fields. Using the Wizard, you do not have to create your own conditional suppression fields.

Step 4: Create salutationThe salutation is the initial greeting, for example, Dear Mr Jones. In step 4, select the salutation that will appear in the letter.


Figure 86: Create a salutation

You can use a different greeting for men and women. To do this, Writer must have some way of knowing whether a person is male or female. In our spreadsheet we had a column called Sex. In the section Address list field indicating a female recipient, set the field name to Sex and the field value to F. The male salutation is then printed for all men and the female salutation for all women.

Note You do not need to tell OOo who is a male, because it assumes that all non-female records are males.

If you do not select Insert Personalized Salutation, you can use a more general salutation without referring to the recipient directly, such as “To whom it may concern”.

As in step 3, step 4 of the wizard has a preview pane at the bottom. You should check more than one record to ensure that other records look the way you expect.

Step 5: Adjust layoutIn step 5, you can adjust the position of the address block and salutation on the page. You can place the address block anywhere on the page. The salutation is always on the left, but you can move it up and down the page. Use the buttons shown in Figure 87 to move the elements.


Figure 87: Adjust layout

Step 6: Edit document and insert extra fieldsIn step 6 you have another opportunity to exclude particular recipients from the mail merge, as shown in Figure 88.

Figure 88: Edit document

You can also edit the body of the document. If you started with a blank document, you can write the whole letter in this step. Click Edit Document to shrink the wizard to a small window (Figure 89) so you can easily edit the letter.


Figure 89: Minimized mail merge wizard

You need to perform another important task in this step. The wizard only inserts information from the name and address fields, but you may wish to add additional data. In our example, we want to tell each person how many points they had accumulated during the year; that information is in the spreadsheet. To do this:

1) Click Edit Document in step 6 of the wizard.2) Choose Insert > Fields > Other. The Fields dialog box opens.

Figure 90: Insert mail merge fields dialog box

3) Click the Database tab.4) On the left hand side, select Mail merge fields.5) Under Database selection find your data source (in this example, it is a spreadsheet). Expand it

to see the fields.6) Click the field you want to insert, then click Insert to insert the field.

You can insert any number of fields any number of times into your mail merge document.7) Click Close when you are done.

Note The Database selection lists the data source you selected in step 3. All the information you need for the letter must be contained in that data source.


Step 7: Personalize documentsIn step 7, OOo creates all your letters, one per recipient.

Clicking the Edit individual Document button here is similar to step 6. The difference is that you now edit a long file containing all of the letters, so you can make changes to a particular letter to one person. In this step of the Mail Merge wizard (Figure 91), click Find to open a dialog box that allows searches within the document, perhaps for an individual addressee.

Figure 91: Personalize document

As with step 6, when editing the document, the wizard shrinks to a small window (Figure 89). Click on this window to expand the wizard to its full size.

Step 8: Save, print or sendYou have now completed the mail merge process. The last step is to do something with it. In step 8, you can save the original sample letter, save the merged document, print the letters right away or, if you created email messages, send them.

You probably want to save the starting (prototype) document and the merged document. To do this, select Save starting document to reveal the Save starting document section containing the Save starting document button. This button will be active only if the document has not already been saved. Clicking on this button brings up the standard Save as dialog box. Once you have named and saved the document you return to the Step 8 dialog box as shown in Figure 93.


Figure 92: Step 8: Save, print or send

The merged document can now be saved by selection of Save merged document. This will reveal the Save merged document settings section, from which you can select to save either as one large file containing all the individual, generated letters or as a separate file for each letter.

When you have saved the merged document, you can print the final letters now or later; and you can still manually check and edit the letters if necessary. If you elect to print at this stage, the dialog box shown in Figure 94 appears; it should be self-explanatory.

Figure 93: Saving a merged document


Figure 94: Printing the merged document


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