Navigation made easy

Here are some tips about navigating your Writer text documents.

How to scroll exactly one page down or up

If you read a long text document, you might want to scroll down page by page.

But if you press the PageDown key or click in the empty space below the slider on the vertical scrollbar, the resulting view will not please you. You look at the bottom of one page and the top of the next page, instead of reading whole pages. The is quite a problem when you set the view to show two pages side by side, as in a book.

Look at the bottom right of the Writer document window. There are three icons which are designed to help you scrolling pages. By default the two icons with arrows scroll one page up or down. The tip help for these two icons is "Previous page" and "Next page". And this is just what you need to do: click the Next page (ArrowDown) icon to scroll by one page.

The Navigation window

In the middle between both arrow icons, you see a third icon that is called Navigation. Click this icon to open the Navigation window.

Initially the fifth icon from the left is enabled. It is the Page icon, and Page is also shown at the bottom of the Navigation window. This means that by clicking the ArrowUp and ArrowDown icons, you move the view to the previous or next page. Note that ArrowUp and ArrowDown icons are also available in the Navigation window. They work exactly like the two icons at the bottom of the right scrollbar. If you have set the Writer window to show multiple pages in a row, the two Arrow icons move the view by whole rows.

Click any other icon in the Navigation window. For example, if you have several tables in your text document, you can click the top left Table icon. Now you can click the Next table (ArrowDown) icon to position the text cursor into the next table. The view gets scrolled automatically to show the position of the text cursor.

Setting and jumping to Reminders

Reminders are a kind of unnamed bookmarks or cursor positions within the text. They are not saved with the document. In every text document you can set up to five reminders. Set a reminder at the current cursor position by clicking the Set Reminder icon in the Navigator. There is no feedback, it just works!

If you click the Reminder icon in the Navigation window - it shows a paper clip - you can jump to the next or previous reminder.

Moving the cursor or moving the view

You can edit, insert, or delete characters only at the cursor position. Click somewhere in the text to set the position of the cursor. Press the PageUp or PageDown key or the Arrow keys on your keyboard to move the cursor to another position. The view always follows the cursor, so that you can see where the next text that you type will be inserted.

Now use the scrollbar at the right border of the text window, or turn the mouse wheel, or click the Next page or Previous page buttons next to the Navigation window, and this moves the view only. The text cursor stays where it is.

These different ways of moving allow to see an overview of the contents of other pages while leaving the cursor where it is, so you can continue writing where you left the cursor.

From time to time you may want to publish a document, like meeting minutes, in read-only mode, so that the document is protected against any accidential changes. With OpenOffice.org you have several different special options to publish your document.

Set the "Open this document in read-only mode" option

This option protects the document against accidential changes by the reader. It is easy for anyone to remove the protection and change the contents.

1. Choose Tools - Options - OpenOffice.org - Security.

2. Enable Open this document in read-only mode.

3. Click OK.

4. Save the document.

This option is saved as an internal flag in the document file. When you or another user opens the document with the OpenOffice.org software, the document is in read-only mode. The text (read-only) is appended to the document name in the title bar. This also applies to copies of the document that you create by your system's file manager.

The user cannot edit the document, but the user can click the Edit File icon on the Standard toolbar. This resets the document into normal mode with full editing features. If the user saves the document, overwriting the original file, then the read-only flag is gone and the original contents might be changed.

Save the document as a template

This option protects the document against accidential changes by the reader. On normal opening the "protection" gets removed automatically and the user can change the contents, but only in a copy of the original template document. It is not easily possible to change the original file by accident.

1. Choose File - Save as when you are ready to save the document as a template.

2. Open the File type drop-down list and select ODF Text Document Template (.ott).

3. Enter a name for the template file and click Save.

The text document template gets an extension of .ott. When a user opens the file in OpenOffice.org Writer, a copy of the document is created automatically with the name "Untitled N", where N is a number. The user can edit the contents and save the document as a normal text document with an extension of .odt. The template file remains unchanged on the disk.

Only when the user chooses to save as a template and to overwrite the original template file using the original name, then the original gets changed. This will not happen accidentially.

Set file permissions

This option can protect the document file against overwriting by all users or by users who do not belong to your group. It can even prohibit reading by users. The operating system cares for what is allowed and what is not.

1. Save the document as a normal file.

2. Open the file manager of your operating system, or a terminal or shell window, and set the file permissions.

A user with the right permissions can open the file for reading and/or writing. If the user can only read the file, the document shows (read-only) behind its name in the OpenOffice.org Writer title bar.

The user can click the Edit File icon. A dialog tells the user that the original file cannot be changed and offers to open a copy with the name "Untitled N" for editing. It is not possible for a user without write permissions to overwrite, delete or rename the original file. I haven't tested what happens after copying the file to other folders or other operating systems though.

Publish as PDF

This option creates a file that normally will open in a read-only software without editing capability. You can also publish your Writer document as HTML, and a web browser would open the document. But the PDF normally preserves the original layout better than an HTML file. A user needs special software to edit the PDF document's contents.

• Export the document to PDF. Do any of the following:

• Click the Export Directly as PDF icon on the Standard toolbar, or

• Choose File - Export as PDF. This opens a dialog with more options.

The reader of your document does not need a version of OpenOffice.org to read the contents.

What I like with PDF or HTML documents: I can browse through pages using the spacebar. This should really be possible in Writer, too, when the document is in read-only mode. May be some day in the future OOo gets a browse mode?

Signing a document

There is only one way to guarantee that the document's contents are still original and not changed by any other person. The author must digitally sign the document. This adds some additional information to the document file.

When OpenOffice.org opens a signed original document, it displays a green Signed icon on the Status bar. The user can edit the document, however, but any editing action would invalidate the signature. The green icon turns red immediately.

It might be possible to set a document to open in read-only mode and then to sign it. This would make it less likely that the reader accidentially invalidates the signature.

1. Get a certificate for signing documents. The OpenOffice.org Help has all the necessary information: search for "certifications" or "signing documents".

2. Choose File - Save to save your document as a file.

3. Choose File - Digital Signatures and add your signature.

Save with a password

While "Publish as PDF" is well suited for a document to be published, the "Save with password" option is best to protect against publishing the document contents. OpenOffice.org uses a very strong password protection method, so a user will definitely need the correct password to open the document. If the password is chosen well (long enough, not a word from any dictionary of the world, etc), then it is almost impossible to see the contents without knowing the password.

You can save a document with a password. Check the option in the File-Save dialog. Then publish the document on your web space or hand out copies of the document to your audience. Give the password that is needed to open the document only to those users who are allowed to open the document. They can read and edit the document, and they can also choose to save the document with or without a password. And they can publish the password - so better choose a new password each time.

A password protection does not protect against deleting, renaming or copying the document using a system file manager. Copies will be protected by the same password as the original file.

Cnyptognaphic Methods

Thank you for reading so much text. Want some fun? Copy the text to OpenOffice.org Writer, then replace all letters "l" by the letter "n", for example. Read loud to your family or friends. The first one laughing must stand up on one leg and spell the word "cnyptognaphic".

Most screen displays show more pixels horizontally than vertically. Some are widescreen displays in landscape mode.

So, if you plan to publish some information to be read on screen, it might be a good idea to use a landscape page format.

And you can apply some appealing colors and other effects to the fonts and to the background. For sure, this depends on the topic and audience of your document. At least it won't cost you more money to publish a colorful PDF than a black and white file.

We can publish Draw documents in PDF format as easy as Writer documents. However, most of us OpenOffice.org users are feeling comfortable using Writer to create our documents.

So, let's start with a new Writer doc.

1. In Writer, choose Format - Page to open the Page Style dialog.

2. On the Page tab page, define a not too large landscape format, and reset all margins to zero. OpenOffice.org warns you that your printer might not be able to print without margins, but we can safely ignore the warning for an on screen PDF file.

   
   

3. On the Background tab page, select a background color. The Chart colors at the end of the list offer a well balanced set of matching colors.

   
   

4. In step 2, we did reset the margins to zero, for a borderless background color. Now we want to claim some text margins back, so that the text stays away from the edges. This can be done by setting a border around the page and then defining a text-to-border spacing. Click the Borders tab.

   
   

5. On the Borders tab page, click the second icon from the left at "Line arrangement - Default". This draws four borders around the page. Then select the same border color that you did set for the background. Finally, add some "spacing to contents".

6. Now you can type some text on your page. To apply the same font effects and color to all paragraphs, you can right-click the text and choose Edit Paragraph Style. Use the Font Effects tab page to define some effects, like Outline and Shadow. Drop Caps might look nice, too.

7. Don't forget to insert some pictures. If you right-click the picture, you can change the anchor and the wrapping of text around the picture, among others. If you set the anchor to Page, it is easy to drag a picture to span two pages.

8. Save the document and click the Export Directly to PDF icon.

Have fun creating your on screen PDF files with OpenOffice.org!

Exploring hidden features of OpenOffice.org, part III.

Using OpenOffice.org you can print large line art on a quilt-like set of pages, as we found out last week in http://blogs.sun.com/oootnt/entry/drawing_large_posters. We just did set the desired output size, and OpenOffice.org automatically took care of the hard work how to distribute everything on the sheets of paper.

Now let's try to print many pages of a document on just one sheet of paper. This is really easy, and again OpenOffice.org cares for most of the work. You just design the layout of how many columns and rows of pages you want to be printed on one page of paper.

This blog covers how to print a Writer doc.

1. Load your Writer document.

2. Choose File - Page Preview.

3. Click the Page Preview: Multiple Pages icon on the Page Preview toolbar. Setup the columns and rows to show on screen. This step is optional, just to show the arrangement of pages.

4. Click the Print options page view icon. Setup the columns and rows to print on one page of paper.

5. Click the Print page view icon.

Ready. Your printer outputs a nice overview of four pages next to each other.

In OOo Writer, you can define spacing above and below paragraphs, and you can set a line spacing between the lines of a paragraph. As with other formatting attributes, you can apply them to the selected paragraphs as direct formatting, or you can change the Paragraph Styles.

Look at the default paragraphs in the following image:

Line spacing

If you want a 1.5 line spacing for the second paragraph, you can right-click somewhere inside the second paragraph to open the context menu. Then choose the formatting attribute of your choice from the menu. See the following image, where the new 1.5 line spacing is already applied:

As you can see, the 1.5 line spacing is created by adding 50 percent more interline lead than normal, below every line of the paragraph, including the last line.

The command in the context menu applied a direct formatting. The same is true for the optional toolbar icons on the Formatting toolbar, and for the Indents & Spacing dialog box from the Format - Paragraph menu. All direct formattings can be reset by the Default Formatting command, as the following image shows:

Here a right-click in the second paragraph opened the context menu, and the Default Formatting command did reset the direct formatting of that paragraph.

Further down in the context menu, you can find the Edit Paragraph Style command. If you change the Paragraph Style to apply formats, you can change many paragraphs at the same time, in the same manner. All paragraphs in our example text document have the same Paragraph Style named Default. You can see the name Default near the left edge of the Status Bar below the document. When you change attributes of the Paragraph Style, all paragraphs in our document will show the changes.

Choose Edit Paragraph Style from the context menu and go to the Indents & Spacing tab page. See the following image:

Here you can change the formatting attributes for the Default style (see the dialog's title bar). Select a double line spacing and click OK. As you can see, there are some more choices for different line spacing options in the dialog box. The OOo Help tells you about the meaning of the other options.

When you now try to reset the formatting to the default, using the Default Formatting command from the context menu, you will not see any difference. That is because the Default Formatting command resets the formatting to those values that are defined by the current Paragraph Style. And you just changed that style.

To reset all changes that you made to the Default style, click the Standard button in the Paragraph Style: Default dialog box as shown in the above image.

Spacing between Paragraphs

You can also set the spacing above and below paragraphs. You either change that formatting for all currently selected paragraphs directly (use Format - Paragraph menu), or you change the Paragraph Style as in the above image.

If you sometimes still have to work with proprietary documents, for example Microsoft doc files, you may notice some differences how paragraph spacing is done in OOo versus Microsoft Word.

For example, the spacing above a paragraph is not applied in Microsoft Word for a paragraph on top of a page. In Writer, that paragraph keeps its spacing above.

When paragraphs have a spacing above and a spacing below assigned, you will see another difference. OOo Writer adds both spacings together, while Microsoft Word just applies the bigger one of both spacings.

Two different worlds with different history. For compatibility reasons, you can choose how Writer applies those spacings. Open a Writer document, then choose Tools - Options - OpenOffice.org Writer - Compatibility. You see the dialog box as in the following image:

By default, all options are set to ensure the best compatibility within the OpenOffice.org text document formats, past and present. If you open a Microsoft Word document and the paragraph spacings look odd, you might want to change some options for the current document.

OpenOffice.org does the best it can to bridge the gap between the different types of text documents, you can open and save the proprietary Microsoft documents, and you can fine-tune a lot of compatibility and formatting options.

You can write text in columns using any one of the following options:

• Set the page format to columns

• Insert a section with columns

  • Text fills all columns to the same height

  • Text fills first column, then flows into next column

• Use a multi-column table

• Use text frames or linked text frames

Each option has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Set the page format to columns

This looks like the most obvious choice if you need columns on several pages.

To apply columns to the current page style:

• Choose Format – Page – Columns.

This however changes the current page style, which most often will be the "Default" page style. If you want some other pages without columns, you must know or learn how to apply different page styles in the same document.

To define a new page style with columns:

1. Choose Format – Styles and Formatting to open the Styles and Formatting window.

2. Click the Page Styles button in the Styles and Formatting window.

3. Right-click the Default entry to open the context menu.

4. Choose New...

   
   

5. In the Page Style dialog, type the name of your new page style, for example, Two Columns.

6. In the Next Style list box, select the Two Columns style, or the Default style.

   Choosing the same style as next style will continue this page style for the following pages.

   Choosing another style as next style will define the current page style to span one page only.

7. On the Columns tab, select the columns options. Click OK.

8. Now you can apply the new Two Columns style to the current page range by double-clicking the Two Columns name in the Styles and Formatting window.

   For a definition of page ranges, see "The scope of page ranges" in the blog entry http://blogs.sun.com/oootnt/entry/changing_page_orientation

You see, the obvious and simple way to apply columns is simple only if you want to apply columns to the whole document. Otherwise it turns out to become a difficult multi step instruction. Fortunately, there are other ways to get columns that are much simpler to apply.

Insert a section with columns

To apply columns to a part of a page:

1. Choose Insert – Section.

2. Click the Columns tab page and set the options. Click Insert.

The checkbox "Evenly distribute contents to all columns" is enabled by default. The text will flow into the columns so that they all are filled to the same height. The whole section changes its height accordingly.

If you disable the checkbox, text flows into the first column of the section. The section grows down until it reaches the lower page margin. Only then the text will flow into the next column.

You can press the column break key, Ctrl+Shift+Return, to manually jump to the next column. This does the same for columns that the page break key, Ctrl+Return, does for pages.

Use a multi-column table

For some applications you may prefer to insert a multi-column table and enter your text into the cells.

The table offers some formatting features that you may prefer. For example, it is easy to drag-and-drop the cell and table borders to resize the columns. Different backgrounds to the cells are possible, and other options.

Use text frames or linked text frames

This is another option that can be helpful for newsletters, for example. You can read about linked frames in this blog entry: http://blogs.sun.com/oootnt/entry/text_boxes_in_writer_documents and of course the installed application Help has some helpful advice, too.

Tip: before you decide which method to use for your columns in a long document, you may want to test the results of all output options first. Some methods for columns will export to PDF or to HTML better than others.

OpenOffice.org contains many useful features designed to simplify your office tasks. One of those features is the quick and easy drawing of text tables.

Imagine you write a text and need a table with three columns, the first column narrow, the other two wide. You can start drawing that table without the need to reach for the mouse, search that icon, or drag the borders between the columns. Just enter a line like this:

+------+-----------------------+-------------------------+

The very moment that you press Enter at the end of this line, it gets converted into a table, where the plus characters are turned into vertical borders.

(Note that the html format has its own mind where the column borders should be. In Writer they are where you placed the plus characters.)

If that conversion doesn't happen, you might have disabled this feature in the past. Enable "Create table" in Tools - AutoCorrect - Options. Check that Format - AutoFormat - While Typing is enabled, too.

Start the initial line with some space characters to create a table that begins at some distance from the page margin.

While you are in the Tools - AutoCorrect - Options dialog, click the Help button to see what else is available that can automatically change your text.

All page properties for Writer text documents, for example the page orientation, are defined by page styles. By default, a new Writer text document uses the Default page style for all pages. If you open an existing text document, different page styles may have been applied to the different pages.

It is important to know that changes that you apply to a page property will only affect the pages that use the current page style. The current page style is listed in the Status Bar at the lower window border.

To change the page orientation for all pages

If your text document consists only of pages with the same page style, you can change the page properties directly:

1. Choose Format - Page.

2. Click the Page tab.

3. Under Paper format, select Portrait or Landscape.

4. Click OK.

To change the page orientation only for some pages

OpenOffice.org uses page styles to specify the orientation of the pages in a document. Page styles define more page properties, as for example header and footer or page margins. You can either change the Default page style for the current document, or you can define own page styles and apply those page styles to any parts of your text.

At the end of this help page, we'll discuss the scope of page styles in detail. If you are unsure about the page style concept, please read the section at the end of this page.

Note: Unlike character styles or paragraph styles, the page styles don't know a hierarchy. You can create a new page style based on the properties of an existing page style, but when you later change the source style, the new page style does not automatically inherit the changes.

To change the page orientation for all pages that share the same page style, you first need a page style, then apply that style:

1. Choose Format - Styles and Formatting.

2. Click the Page Styles icon.

3. Right-click a page style and choose New. The new page style initially gets all properties of the selected page style.

4. On the Organizer tab page, type a name for the page style in the Name box, for example "My Landscape".

5. In the Next Style box, select the page style that you want to apply to the next page that follows a page with the new style. See the section about the scope of page styles at the end of this help page.

6. Click the Page tab.

7. Under Paper format, select Portrait or Landscape.

8. Click OK.

Now you have defined a proper page style with the name "My Landscape". To apply the new style, double-click the "My Landscape" page style in the Styles and Formatting window. All pages in the current scope of page styles will be changed. If you defined the "next style" to be a different style, only the first page of the current scope of page styles will be changed.

The scope of page styles

You should be aware of the scope of page styles in OpenOffice.org. Which pages of your text document get affected by editing a page style?

One page long styles

A page style can be defined to span one page only. The First Page style is an example. You set this property by defining another page style to be the "next style", on the Format - Page - Organizer tab page.

A one page long style starts from the lower border of the current page style range up to the next page break. The next page break appears automatically when the text flows to the next page, which is sometimes called a "soft page break". Alternatively, you can insert a manual page break.

• To insert a manual page break at the cursor position, press Ctrl+Enter or choose Insert - Manual Break and just click OK.

Manually defined range of a page style

The Default page style does not set a different "next style" on the Format - Page - Organizer tab page. Instead, the "next style" is set also to be Default. All page styles that are followed by the same page style can span multiple pages. The lower and upper borders of the page style range are defined by "page breaks with style". All the pages between any two "page breaks with style" use the same page style.

You can insert a "page break with style" directly at the cursor position. Alternatively, you can apply the "page break with style" property to a paragraph or to a paragraph style.

Perform any one of the following commands:

• To insert a "page break with style" at the cursor position, choose Insert - Manual Break, select a Style name from the listbox, and click OK.

• To apply the "page break with style" property to the current paragraph, choose Format - Paragraph - Text Flow. In the Breaks area, activate Enable and With Page Style. Select a page style name from the listbox.

• To apply the "page break with style" property to the current paragraph style, right-click the current paragraph. Choose Edit Paragraph Style from the context menu. Click the Text Flow tab. In the Breaks area, activate Enable and With Page Style. Select a page style name from the listbox.

• To apply the "page break with style" property to an arbitrary paragraph style, choose Format - Styles and Formatting. Click the Paragraph Styles icon. Right-click the name of the paragraph style you want to modify and choose Modify. Click the Text Flow tab. In the Breaks area, activate Enable and With Page Style. Select a page style name from the listbox.

Sometimes you want to place some text in your Writer document at a position out of normal margins and text lines. In Writer, you use either a graphical text box from the Drawing toolbar, or you use a text frame.

Text box

1. Click the Show Draw Functions icon on the Standard toolbar. This opens the Drawing toolbar at the bottom of the Writer window.

2. Click the T (Text box) icon.

3. Drag open a rectangle where you want the text box.

4. Start to enter your text.

Your text in the text box can be formatted like normal text. Pictures are not allowed inside a text box.

Text frame

1. Choose Insert - Frame. On the dialog, click OK.

2. You see a small standard frame centered between the left and right margins. While it shows the eight green handles, you can move and resize this frame. And you can set the properties for the frame as an object.

3. Click outside the frame to leave the selected object, then click inside the frame to enter text or insert pictures.

 Alternatively, first select the text that you want to see inside a frame, then choose Insert - Frame.

Linked frames

When you create a newsletter, you may want to use linked frames for your story. On page 1 of the newsletter, the text starts with a header and a first chapter, and on page 2 or 3 there is another frame with the remaining text.

1. Create the frames in your document.

2. Click the border of the first frame to select this frame. You see the Frames toolbar.

3. Click the Link frames icon.

4. Now click the next frame to connect the two frames.

Text will flow from the first frame to the second as needed. Only the last frame of a chain of linked frames resizes with the text, all other frames keep their size.

Text boxes and text frames can have borders or no borders, as you like. Open the object's context menu and set the properties. All these text boxes and frames export very well to PDF. When you save your document as html format, you may want to fine-tune the result. And first save the document in OpenDocument ODF format, because you will always lose some formatting when you save to other formats.

Using OpenOffice.org to write your MediaWiki articles

Did you know that there is an export filter for OpenOffice that you can use to convert your Writer documents to MediaWiki text?

The filter is an XSLT that converts your document from ODT to plain text with MediaWiki markup. It works best if you use styles properly throughout your document.

1. Download and save this file (right-click and Save As):

   http://www.openoffice.org/nonav/issues/showattachment.cgi/45498/odt2wiki.xslt

2. Start OpenOffice.org

3. Select Tools > XML Filter Settings

4. Click the New button and in the General tab, fill in the form as shown:

5. Click the Transformation tab.

6. Click the Browse button for the XSLT for export .

7. Browse to where you saved the XSLT in step 1. Click Open . You should see something similar to this:

8. Click OK , and then Close the XML Filter Settings window.

Now you can use the export filter to save your ODF files as MediaWiki formatted text. To export, all you need to do is:

• Open your Writer document (or create a new one)

• Click File > Export , and select ODT2Wiki from the File format drop down box.

• Give it a filename (and a location) and click Export .

The output will be a plain text file with MediaWiki markup. You can simply paste the text direct into the MediaWiki edit box.

There are a few things that you should be aware of.

• Images do not convert. You will have to add them to the Wiki page separately.

• Long documents (for example documents over 25 pages) do not convert well. Although, depending on your computer, you may have some success with longer documents, I recommend converting long documents in smaller chunks.

• Documents with complicated layouts may not convert perfectly, especially if you have complex tables or complex lists. Make sure you double check the results in the Wiki.

This XSLT filter is also documented on the OpenOffice Wiki at: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Odt2Wiki

Background

Conditional text can be very useful when working on documents that are to be published to multiple audiences.

For example, you could create a letter template that contains different text depending on the language or recipient country.
In OpenOffice.org, you can relate the visibility of sections to certain conditions.

Example

You are running WorldWide Conditions Inc, a small but exquisite start-up that has just opened an office in Germany to expand to the old European market. You would like to use one template for both countries letters, but the US and German offices use different letter heads.

This example neglects the fact that the US and Germany use different paper formats, too. These cannot be conditionally set on a document. Well actually, they could with a little macro logic, but this is beyond the scope of this posting and may be a topic for a later one.

You can create a template that contains both versions and switch the versions by specifying the language of the letter being either EN (for English) or DE (for Deutsch). Here is how:

Note: This is my first attempt with wink and flash animations. It's far from being as nice and nifty as the stuff our media design gurus are able to produce. So bear with me.

You can customize the OOo user interface in many ways. In today's tip you see how to add a word count icon to the main Writer toolbar.

1. Click the Down Arrow icon at the far right of the Formatting toolbar.

2. In the icon's menu, choose Customize Toolbar.

3. Click Add.

   You see the Add Commands dialog.

4. In the left list click Options, then in the right list scroll down and click Word Count.

5. Click Add, then click Close.

   Now you already see the new command as a text entry on the toolbar. You can select the new command and click the Up and Down buttons to change the position on the toolbar.

To assign an icon to the new command, select the new command, then click Modify and choose Change Icon.

Writing vertical text

Choose from several options to write your Writer text in vertical direction:

1. using a (graphical) text box and rotating the text box by 90 degrees

2. using a vertical text box (available when Asian language support is enabled)

3. using Fontwork

4. using a frame with vertical text direction (Asian language support enabled)

5. using a very narrow text box

Comments:

1 - to get a text box, click Show Draw Functions on the Standard toolbar. This enables the Drawing toolbar at the bottom of your window. Click the "T" icon for a text box, then drag in the document and start writing your text. When ready, click outside the text box, then click the text again. Now you see the normal green object handles. Right-click the object, choose Position and Size command, tab page Rotation.

2 - If you often need text rotated by 270 degrees, you can enable Asian language support. Use the command Tools - Options - Language Settings - Languages. Now you find a rotated "T" icon on the Drawing toolbar. Use this and you don't need to rotate the text manually.

3 - Fontwork is available by an icon on the Drawing toolbar. The main trick of using Fontwork is this: Double-click a shape to insert the "Fontwork" text art. Double-click that, then delete the text and enter your own text. Click outside of the object to see your own Fontwork text.

4 - Choose Insert - Frame for a text frame. This is more advanced than a text box: in a text frame you can use text in columns, sections, insert pictures, and much more, which is not possible in a text box.

5 - Insert a text box as in choice 1, then drag the width to reduce the space to a one letter column. Note that using the proportional Thorndale font, I had to replace the capital V by a lower case v to get this trick done. With a mono spaced font like Courier this is not necessary.