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.

In the previous two blogs, first you've learned about Form Controls, where you created a Push Button http://blogs.sun.com/oootnt/entry/exploring_hidden_secrets_push_buttons, and then you utilized the built-in wizards to click your way to a DVD Collection database:  http://blogs.sun.com/oootnt/entry/exploring_hidden_secrets_creating_a.

May be you followed the steps using your own copy of OpenOffice.org or StarOffice. Then you might have entered some data records to your new DVD collection database.

In this blog, you can see how to create a Writer text document with some database related form controls.

The Writer document is designed to show your database records. Why not just use the ready made Base form? Well, one advantage of a Writer document over a Base form is the full control about layout and formatting, using the well known Writer menus and icons. Another advantage or disadvantage (this depends on your use cases) is the fact that the Base form is always an integrated part of the complete Base file, while the Writer document is an external document that just opens a link to the connected database.

This is the mydvds.odb Base file to start from. We already did enter some data records.

1. Choose File - New - Text Document to open a new Writer document.

2. Enter a heading and some other text as you like.

3. Choose View - Toolbars - Form Controls to open the Form Controls toolbar.

4. On the Form Controls toolbar, click the More Control icon to open the More Controls toolbar.

5. On the More Controls toolbar, click the Table Control icon.

6. Drag a rectangle of the size and position of the new table where your database records will be shown.

   The Table Element Wizard opens.

In the Table Element Wizard, select your data source and the Base table to be used.

Click Next for the next page of the wizard.

Double-click the fields that should be shown as columns in the table element. Then click Finish.

Remember that you can click the Design Mode On/Off icon on the Form Controls toolbar to switch from design mode to data entry mode and back.

Found issues: The ReleaseYear field obviously accepts date values in the default date format only. I did enter years like 1999, 2000, 2008, but they got converted to some unwanted values. Or my data did not show up at all, because I clicked the "Next Record" button instead of the "New Record" button when I did enter the records (?). I don't know and this blog is not a bug hunting blog, so let's pretend there are years in the ReleaseYear fields.

In design mode you can control the properties of the table element. A double-click opens the Control Properties window. But the more interesting window is the Form Properties window. Right-click the table element and choose Form.

On the Data tab page you can see that the Table Element Wizard did fill in the correct values for Data Source, Content Type, and Content.

Now let's add two text boxes to display the database fields of the record that is selected in the table element.

1. Switch to design mode (the Design Mode On/Off icon must be enabled)

2. On the Form Controls toolbar, click the Text Box icon.

3. Drag a rectangle where you want to show the first text box.

4. Double-click the new text box to open its Control Properties window.

On the Data tab page, select the Data Field that should be shown in this text box.

Next, switch from design mode to data entry mode and test your new Writer form document.

Do not forget to save the Writer document.

When you close the Writer form document and open it again, it will be ready in data entry mode.

Many hidden treasures are slumbering beyond the menus of OOo. If you only scan the menu bar for those features you're searching for, you'll find at most 10% of them.

Well, you can argue the exact percentage, but I'm quite sure that you will miss a lot if you never explore beyond the obvious menu commands.

• Some dialogs and wizards will only show up on some actions, as with drag-and-drop from Calc to Base.

• Some cool features are only part of context menus, like the Arrange, Align, Flip, and Convert commands in Impress.

• And some useful things can be inserted into your documents, but they never show up as commands in the Insert menu. Such are the Push Buttons and other Form Controls.

Let's take an intuitive beginner's approach to explore the power of Form Controls. Or to scratch the surface of Push Buttons.

To insert an action button to open another document

You want to add a new button to your document. When you click that button, OOo will start some action, for example, open a certain document in addition to the current document. I chose this example because this is a built-in action, so it's an easy first start.

1. Open a new Writer text document. Optionally type some text.

2. Choose View - Toolbars - Form Controls.

   You see the Form Controls toolbar. As with most other toolbars, you can drag the toolbar to other places, dock and undock it to the document borders, and reshape it to show more rows or more columns of icons. And you can click the down arrow in the title bar to open a menu. The Visible Buttons command shows a nice overview of the available icons with their names.

3. 
   On the Form Controls toolbar, click the Push Button icon. (Do not click the Push Button command in the Visible Buttons menu: this would hide the icon from the toolbar!)

4. Drag a rectangle of the position and size of the push button, then release the mouse button.

5. Right-click the new push button and choose Control from the context menu. This opens one of the two main properties windows.

6. 
   Click the Action list button and select "Open document/web page" from the list.

7. The URL text field is now enabled. Click the … button next to the URL text field to select the document that should be opened when a user clicks the button.

That's it. You have created your first action push button. However, we are not finished yet.

• Currently the button is labeled "Button". Select the text in the Label text field and enter a more descriptive text, like "Open Memo Doc".

Currently the document is set to design mode. When you click the button, it gets eight handles to resize the button, and you can change the button's properties. In order to use the push button, you must leave the design mode. There are two ways to leave the design mode:

• Click the Design Mode On/Off icon on the Form Controls toolbar. You can immediately test the actions of your form controls. Don't forget to save your document before you test the actions. May be the action is defined to quit the current document.

• Save the document and open it again. By default a document with form controls is opened in "action mode", not in design mode. You can change this, of course.

To create an action button to close the current document

Now you know how to create a working push button. However, not all actions are listed in the Actions list box. If you want to define the action to close the current document, you would need a macro that does just that. Then you assign that macro to the push button.

Intuitively, you might want to use the built-in macro recorder of OpenOffice.org. But that is not a good idea when you try to record the "Close this document" action, because that also closes the macro recorder.

So the next choice is to search the web for "OpenOffice.org macro to close the current document". Some minutes later, you find this command:

StarDesktop.CurrentComponent.CurrentController.Frame.close( true )

1. In your web browser or wherever you found the macro, select the macro and copy it to the clipboard.

2. Open the Writer document where you want to create a Close push button.

3. Choose Tools - Macros - Organize Macros - OpenOffice.org Basic.

   This opens the Macros dialog.

4. Click Edit.

   This opens the Basic IDE (Integrated Development Environment).

5. Paste the macro command between the Sub and End Sub statements as follows. Rename the Sub Main to another meaningful name like Sub close_current:

6. 
   Close the Basic IDE. OOo saves your macro automatically.

Next, you create a push button as outlined above in steps 1 to 5.

1. Right-click the button and choose Control to open the Properties window.

2. Click the Events tab on top of the Properties window.

   You see the Events tab page, where you can assign macros to all possible button events.

3. 
   Normally, a button responds to a mouse click when you release the mouse button. So you assign the close_current macro to that event. Click the … icon next to "Mouse button released".

4. You see the Assign Action dialog. Click the Macro button on top right.

5. You see the Macro Selector dialog. Click to open the path "My Macros - Standard - Module1". Now you can select the close_current macro and click OK.

Almost finished. You have written the close_current macro in the Basic IDE, then you have assigned the macro to the "release mouse button" event of your own push button. Not bad for a beginner!

Again, you may want to change the Label of the button to some meaningful text like "Close this doc".

And do not forget to save the document before you try out the Close button in action mode.

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.

Often a cell area of your Calc sheet or a table inside a Writer text document needs to be formatted. The first row and/or column should have a different background, the font should look bold or italic, the values should get some numbering formats.

And you have at least three wishes when applying the formatting:

• Fast and easy, with as few clicks as possible.

• Always the same style.

• Looking nice.

The answer is easy: It is called AutoFormat. AutoFormat defines a set of different formatting rules and properties with a distinctive name. Several AutoFormats are already supplied and installed in Calc and Writer.

If you don't like the supplied AutoFormats, you can add your own AutoFormats and give them the names you want. Format a table as you like, select all the formatted cells, then open Format-AutoFormat to add your formatting as a new style. Easy, isn't it?

You can add backgrounds, borders, set automatic cell width and height, use currency formats, and more. You can even apply patterns, which means defining alternating colors for alternating rows or columns.

To apply an AutoFormat

1. Select an area of cells.

2. Choose Format - AutoFormat.

3. Select a name from the left list and watch the preview in the dialog.

4. Click OK to apply the AutoFormat.

A: Look here, darling, I've got something to tell you right now, and it is of highest priority.

B: You make me curious. Continue.

A: I've found some reasons to feel some affection towards you.

B: Can you be more precise in this statement, please?

A: I've found four reasons to feel an affection towards you increased up to 100 percent.

B: Go ahead ...

A: These are the reasons, in order from top to bottom:

1. You look so beautiful.
2. You give me reason to live.
3. I get excited when I think of you.
4. We can exchange more than words.

B: This is a numbered list, shouldn't it be a bullet list?

A: You're right as always, darling. I love the way you edit my words right out of my mouth.

B: Thank you for saying that. Al least you got the punctuation right. But you could have read the Sun Editorial Style Guide, Chapter 3, and follow that advice.

A: You're welcome, darling - better I wake up now.

This can happen to a tech writer when mixing up the following:

• reviewing a newly written Sun book all day long
• reading High Fidelity by Nick Hornby late at night
• trying to live a personal life, as much as possible, if possible at all

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.