Transition to OpenOffice Writer
To Whom It May Concern: I have been adjusting to OpenOffice Writer for a few weeks after losing my Microsoft Word application, and I hope you can imagine how frustrated and confused I am with this new software. As Microsoft Word is what I know, I naturally approached Writer like I would Word. However, there are stark and considerable differences between Writer and Word that I have inevitably encountered. For example, there is apparently no vertical paragraph alignment option in Writer, but there is in Word. As a writer, there are many essential tools and options that I need from my word processor that I am not finding or having trouble finding. I do refer to OpenOffice Wiki and the Help Tool, however, there are many things the Wiki and the Help Tool do not explain. For example, they do not explain how to apply a certain page-style. I only stumbled across the fact that a page-style can only be applied by inserting a manual page break. I am struggling with how to format my documents to display various page-numbers. I am a novelist and any guides I discover only pertain their information to technical and business-style document formats. For example, the guides on headers always go into great detail about customizing your header and skip over the essential simple how-to-make a normal, average everyday header that is not going to be viewed by a company CEO or graded by a business education instructor. I am simply a writer writing a novel, and I need my word processor to apply to me specifically. Here is what I need to know how to do: 1. Format different page numbers- Title Page (no number)- Dedication Page (no number)- Table of Contents (roman numerals)- Preface (roman numerals)- Prologue through all chapters ( starting at page 1)- Acknowledgments (continuing page numbers)- Appendices/Index (continuing page numbers)2. Create a traditional Table of Contents (like in any other novel, no business topics or sections and complete with a leader)3. Design headers to display book name on one page, chapter title on the next, continuously4. Vertically align a paragraph Any information regarding these issues would be most certainly appreciated and duly acknowledged. I am new to OpenOffice Writer, but I know I will be just fine with it once I get my bearings. I also have another question concerning file format and extensions. As a writer, I will have to eventually electronically submit part or all of my manuscript to a Literary Agent and or Publisher at some point and so the file extension will need to be in a format usable by these organizations' software (most likely Word). Is the ODT file format compatible with Word or do I need to save my documents under a different format? This, above all else, is perhaps the most important question because the others are useless without the file being able to proceed. I thank you very much for your time, consideration, all manners of things and especially for the development and availability of this software to simple people like myself. Thank you. Sincerely, Joel S. Ikenberry
RE: Transition to OpenOffice Writer
Yes I too am interested in this topic. Headers and footers are a major OpenOffice weakness. I gave up and subscribed to the Microsoft Office online service for Word but I'm willing to learn new OpenOffice tricks too. Doug Hovelson From: joel_ikenbe...@live.com To: users@openoffice.apache.org Subject: Transition to OpenOffice Writer Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2013 06:50:16 -0600 To Whom It May Concern: I have been adjusting to OpenOffice Writer for a few weeks after losing my Microsoft Word application, and I hope you can imagine how frustrated and confused I am with this new software. As Microsoft Word is what I know, I naturally approached Writer like I would Word. However, there are stark and considerable differences between Writer and Word that I have inevitably encountered. For example, there is apparently no vertical paragraph alignment option in Writer, but there is in Word. As a writer, there are many essential tools and options that I need from my word processor that I am not finding or having trouble finding. I do refer to OpenOffice Wiki and the Help Tool, however, there are many things the Wiki and the Help Tool do not explain. For example, they do not explain how to apply a certain page-style. I only stumbled across the fact that a page-style can only be applied by inserting a manual page break. I am struggling with how to format my documents to display various page-numbers. I am a novelist and any guides I discover only pertain their information to technical and business-style document formats. For example, the guides on headers always go into great detail about customizing your header and skip over the essential simple how-to-make a normal, average everyday header that is not going to be viewed by a company CEO or graded by a business education instructor. I am simply a writer writing a novel, and I need my word processor to apply to me specifically. Here is what I need to know how to do: 1. Format different page numbers- Title Page (no number)- Dedication Page (no number)- Table of Contents (roman numerals)- Preface (roman numerals)- Prologue through all chapters ( starting at page 1)- Acknowledgments (continuing page numbers)- Appendices/Index (continuing page numbers)2. Create a traditional Table of Contents (like in any other novel, no business topics or sections and complete with a leader)3. Design headers to display book name on one page, chapter title on the next, continuously4. Vertically align a paragraph Any information regarding these issues would be most certainly appreciated and duly acknowledged. I am new to OpenOffice Writer, but I know I will be just fine with it once I get my bearings. I also have another question concerning file format and extensions. As a writer, I will have to eventually electronically submit part or all of my manuscript to a Literary Agent and or Publisher at some point and so the file extension will need to be in a format usable by these organizations' software (most likely Word). Is the ODT file format compatible with Word or do I need to save my documents under a different format? This, above all else, is perhaps the most important question because the others are useless without the file being able to proceed. I thank you very much for your time, consideration, all manners of things and especially for the development and availability of this software to simple people like myself. Thank you. Sincerely, Joel S. Ikenberry
Re: Transition to OpenOffice Writer
On 02/06/2013 07:50 AM, Joel Ikenberry wrote: To Whom It May Concern: I have been adjusting to OpenOffice Writer for a few weeks after losing my Microsoft Word application, and I hope you can imagine how frustrated and confused I am with this new software. As Microsoft Word is what I know, I naturally approached Writer like I would Word. However, there are stark and considerable differences between Writer and Word that I have inevitably encountered. For example, there is apparently no vertical paragraph alignment option in Writer, but there is in Word. As a writer, there are many essential tools and options that I need from my word processor that I am not finding or having trouble finding. I do refer to OpenOffice Wiki and the Help Tool, however, there are many things the Wiki and the Help Tool do not explain. For example, they do not explain how to apply a certain page-style. I only stumbled across the fact that a page-style can only be applied by inserting a manual page break. I am struggling with how to format my documents to display various page-numbers. I am a novelist and any guides I discover only pertain their information to technical and business-style document formats. For example, the guides on headers always go into great detail about customizing your header and skip over the essential simple how-to-make a normal, average everyday header that is not going to be viewed by a company CEO or graded by a business education instructor. I am simply a writer writing a novel, and I need my word processor to apply to me specifically. Here is what I need to know how to do: 1. Format different page numbers- Title Page (no number)- Dedication Page (no number)- Table of Contents (roman numerals)- Preface (roman numerals)- Prologue through all chapters ( starting at page 1)- Acknowledgments (continuing page numbers)- Appendices/Index (continuing page numbers)2. Create a traditional Table of Contents (like in any other novel, no business topics or sections and complete with a leader)3. Design headers to display book name on one page, chapter title on the next, continuously4. Vertically align a paragraph Any information regarding these issues would be most certainly appreciated and duly acknowledged. I am new to OpenOffice Writer, but I know I will be just fine with it once I get my bearings. I also have another question concerning file format and extensions. As a writer, I will have to eventually electronically submit part or all of my manuscript to a Literary Agent and or Publisher at some point and so the file extension will need to be in a format usable by these organizations' software (most likely Word). Is the ODT file format compatible with Word or do I need to save my documents under a different format? This, above all else, is perhaps the most important question because the others are useless without the file being able to proceed. I thank you very much for your time, consideration, all manners of things and especially for the development and availability of this software to simple people like myself. Thank you. Sincerely, Joel S. Ikenberry http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/OOo3_User_Guides/OOo3.3_User_Guide_Chapters This is a link to the User Guides for Apache OpenOffice. From here you can download individual chapters or the entire guide. From the Getting Started Guide, I recommend downloading chapters 2 and 3. I also recommend downloading the entire Writer Guide (Full Book choice) given for what you are now using Apache Office. The two chapters on styles in the Writer Guide are very important. Vertical alignment of text is a property of the paragraph styles. Changing page styles is discussed in detail. This includes telling you when you need a page break to change page styles and when you don't. --Dan - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Transition to OpenOffice Writer
At 06:50 06/02/2013 -0600, Joel Ikenberry wrote: ... there are stark and considerable differences between Writer and Word that I have inevitably encountered. For example, there is apparently no vertical paragraph alignment option in Writer, but there is in Word. o Put your paragraph into a frame. o Anchor the frame to the page. o On the Type tab of the Frame dialogue, under Position, for Vertical select Center and then to Entire page or Page text area as preferred. ... there are many things the Wiki and the Help Tool do not explain. For example, they do not explain how to apply a certain page-style. I only stumbled across the fact that a page-style can only be applied by inserting a manual page break. You can apply a page style in various ways. You can change page styles within a document at a manual page break, but this is not the only way. You can set a Next Style on the Organizer tab of a page style; this will cause a page style change when text flows naturally to the following page. I am struggling with how to format my documents to display various page-numbers. [...] Here is what I need to know how to do: 1. Format different page numbers- Title Page (no number)- Dedication Page (no number)- Table of Contents (roman numerals)- Preface (roman numerals)- Prologue through all chapters ( starting at page 1)- Acknowledgments (continuing page numbers)- Appendices/Index (continuing page numbers) Proper page numbering is a property of headers or footers. These are a property of page styles, so you will need to use separate page styles for each separately numbered section. You can use built-in styles or create your own. In this case, you will want to change page styles at manual page breaks, as you suggest. You will notice that there is a facility to reset the page counter when inserting manual page breaks; you will want to do this so that your table of contents and main body start at i and 1 respectively, not at their true page numbers. 2. Create a traditional Table of Contents (like in any other novel, no business topics or sections and complete with a leader) Go to Insert | Indexes and Tables | Indexes and Tables... and choose Table of Contents. 3. Design headers to display book name on one page, chapter title on the next, continuously I think you will need separate page styles for rectos and versos. The built-in Left Page and Right Page page styles may suffice, but with each set to have the other as Next Page. (There may be other ways of doing this.) You can use fields to insert such information as chapter titles, much as you would page numbers. 4. Vertically align a paragraph Either use Spacing on the Indents Spacing tab of the paragraph or paragraph style dialogue, or use a frame, as above. I also have another question concerning file format and extensions. As a writer, I will have to eventually electronically submit part or all of my manuscript to a Literary Agent and or Publisher at some point and so the file extension will need to be in a format usable by these organizations' software (most likely Word). Is the ODT file format compatible with Word or do I need to save my documents under a different format? The first answer to that question is to keep your text documents in OpenOffice's native .odt format and go back to those when you need to edit further. Convert to other formats only when you need to send a copy to others. I'll leave others to answer the main part of this question, though the answer may be simply to ask the literary agent or publisher what they need. The literary agent will likely be able to advise you what a publisher would need. I trust this helps. Brian Barker - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
Re: Transition to OpenOffice Writer
On Wednesday, 6 February 2013, at 13:30:50, Joel Ikenberry joel_ikenbe...@live.com wrote: Here is what I need to know how to do: 1. Format different page numbers- Title Page (no number)- Dedication Page (no number)- Table of Contents (roman numerals)- Preface (roman numerals)- Prologue through all chapters ( starting at page 1)- Acknowledgments (continuing page numbers)- Appendices/Index (continuing page numbers) 2. Create a traditional Table of Contents (like in any other novel, no business topics or sections and complete with a leader) 3. Design headers to display book name on one page, chapter title on the next, continuously 4. Vertically align a paragraph the attached file is an example of handling points 1--3 (i really hope the attachment would reach at least the poster himself, if not the list). every paragraph, except placeholders in parentheses, has been assigned a custom style (see 'format/styles and formatting' and choose 'custom styles' from the drop-down list), and so have been the pages. SampleBook.odt Description: application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@openoffice.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@openoffice.apache.org
