2007/4/15, James Knott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
Johnny Andersson wrote: > One thing that I miss now and then (actually almost every time I want > to do > something else than just typing plain text), is the possibility to set > columns in Paragraph styles. I can do that with page styles and frame > styles, but often it feels like if I could do it with paragraph styles, > things would be much easier to achieve. > > In this very case, I want to create a few boxes with text in them, > which I > will print out and then cut to a specific size. > > The obvious way to do this, if you don't know how OpenOffice.org Writer > works, is to create a rectangle of that specific size, then write the > text > in it. That is, however, impossible, since I can not select anything > in the > Styles window when text in a rectangle is selected. I just can't stop > wondering why. Have you tried tables? Create a single row table, with as many columns as you want and put the text in the cells as desired.
I didn't try tables since I didn't think it would be a smooth solution. Let's say I have two columns and 5 rows. Every "cell" is one line high, but the third cell needs two lines. The cell then gets higher so the two lines will fit. Then the table is no longer 50 mm high and the third row of the other column is also two lines high, and maybe I want it to be only one line high, which I don't know before I enter ther text into it. So of course I can use two table rows for that third row, but I don't find that very smooth either. Maybe I want to rephrase that line. That means that I have to take care of line breaks manually. What I want to do is to just input the text, once the formatting has been done. Numbering, line breaks, hyphenation and such things should be taken care of automatically. Of course I can make it look as exactly what I want, it's just a matter of time, but I want to do things with the right (and hopefully the best) tools, as smoothly as possible. Either I do the formatting first and then enter the text or I do it the other way around, that doesn't matter much, however both ways should be possible. Right now I just solve the problem "the ugly way", but maybe I don't want to do that every time in the future. So I just realized that I could use the possibility to set columns in a paragraph style, if the option was there, but it is not. I also tried to insert a frame in a rectangle (typing some text in the rectangle, then Insert → Frame), but unfortunately that wasn't possible either. Johnny Andersson
