IF...THEN - Conditional Text in Writer
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.
Thank You for this great tutorial. Is it possible to assign button/dropdown menu for EN/DE section? (Ctrl+F2 -> change variable -> apply -> F9 is quite complicated).
Posted by Bob Jurencak on April 28, 2008 at 12:08 AM CEST #
Yes, that should be possible. You can write a macro that takes care of the value change and updates the view. I'll write a separate blog entry.
Posted by Frank Peters on April 28, 2008 at 02:07 PM CEST #
I'm looking forward to read this blog entry, it'll be really very helpful for me. Thank You.
Posted by Bob Jurencak on April 28, 2008 at 09:53 PM CEST #