USING TABLES IN OPENOFFICE WRITER TUTORIAL HANDOUT

Transcription

1 1 USING TABLES IN OPENOFFICE WRITER TUTORIAL HANDOUT A table is made up of rows and columns of cells that you can fill with text and graphics. Tables are often used to organize and present information, but they have a variety of other uses as well. You can use tables to align numbers in columns, and then sort and perform calculations on them. You can also use tables to create interesting page layouts and arrange text and graphics. Lets begin our tutorial: 1. First we will create a table with 4 columns and 5 rows. Click on the Table menu, choose insert, choose table. 2. Key in 4 columns and 5 rows. Click OK.

2 2 3. We want to add the following information to your table. This will be a table with your daily school schedule. (Use Comic Sans MS 12-pt. Bold) Your completed schedule should look something like this: Block Course Teacher Room First Computer Applications I Kincaid 104 Second Biology Elkins 106 Third English II Schiffel 114 Fourth Algebra II Watts Based on our table, some of our columns would look better resized. Re-size each of the columns appropriately. Place your cursor at the top of each column divider line until you see it turn into a doubleheaded arrow and move to the left or right. Your completed table should now appear as below: Block Course Teacher Room First Computer Applications I Kincaid 104 Second Biology Elkins 106 Third English II Schiffel 114 Fourth Algebra II Watts Now we will center our table. Move your cursor until it is positioned in the upper left corner of your table. You will see your arrow point to the bottom right and the text will appear Select Whole Table. Click and your table will highlight.

3 3 6. You will see a floating toolbar to your left. Click on the Table Properties icon.. 7. In the dialogue box that appears, under alignment, choose Center. Click OK. 8. Now, we want to add a row above our column headings, Block, Course, Teacher, etc. This will allow us to title our table. To do this, place your cursor before the B in Block. Then on the floating toolbar to your left, click on Insert Row. You will have to cut/paste your text down a row to leave one blank row at the top. See below.

4 4 9. We want to merge these four top row cells so that our title will span across the entire table. Highlight the four cells, go to your floating toolbar at the left, and click on the Merge Cells icon. Type your first name with SCHEDULE and center it. Also, make your font title red with a point size of 18. Your table should now appear as below: JOHN S SCHEDULE Block Course Teacher Room First Computer Applications I Kincaid 104 Second Biology Elkins 106 Third English II Schiffel 114 Fourth Algebra II Watts 310

5 5 10. Now we will change the table border. Change the border to a double line style in blue color. First, highlight your entire table by moving your cursor to the upper left corner and when you see it say Select Whole Table with an arrow pointing to the bottom right corner, click to select and highlight.. Then, got to your floating toolbar at the left, find the Line Style icon, and click the down arrow. Choose the double line 2 pt style. You will see your line style change in the table. Now we will change the line color to blue. Go back to your floating toolbar, find the Line Color icon, and click the down arrow. Choose a blue color. Your table should now appear as you see below:

6 6 11. We will insert an image into one of our cells. OpenOffice does not have a ready made clip art gallery like Microsoft Word does. We will first need to use the Internet to find a picture. Once we find it we will save it on our desktop. We will then use OpenOffice to insert it into our table. 12. First, go to We want to find a microscope image to place beside our Biology text the table, so type in the search term microscope. Hit enter. 13. When Google brings up the matches it has found, go to the top of your screen and hit the Images link. This will bring up specific image matches for your search term microscope. 14. Right-click on a picture you like and choose either Save Picture As or Save Target As (what you will see depends on which Internet browser you are using). Save the picture to your desktop or to a convenient location your find on your computer. 15. Now we are ready to insert the picture in your table in OpenOffice Writer! Switch back to your OpenOffice Writer file. Click to position your cursor in the Biology text cell. Click on the Insert menu, choose Picture, choose From File.

7 7 16. Browse to the folder where you saved your picture. I saved mine on the desktop so I browsed to my desktop. Click on your picture to select it. Click on the Open button. You will see your picture pop up into your table. Browse to Desktop Click on image to select it Click open Your table should now appear as below with your saved picture inside. You can use the handles in the corners of the picture to resize the picture to an appropriate size. 17. Now let s shade the row of your third block class. Highlight that row only, go to your floating toolbar, click on the Background color icon, and choose a color to shade the row. Your table should now appear as below:

8 8 18. Let s add an autoshape to indicate your favorite class. First, we must ensure that your Drawing toolbar is showing. Click on the View menu, choose Toolbars, and make sure Drawing has a check mark beside it. If it doesn t click on Drawing to place a checkmark there. The Drawing toolbar should appear on your screen. Mine appeared at the bottom of the page. Drawing Toolbar 19. Click to position your cursor beside the name of your favorite class. (I chose Computer Applications ) Enter down with your enter key about 3 or 4 times to give yourself room to draw your picture. Then, go to your Drawing toolbar, and click on Stars, and choose the Explosion autoshape. Your cursor will become a crosshair. Go under your Computer Applications I text and click and drag to draw your explosion shape. When you finish you can use the handles to resize it if necessary.

9 9 20. Your table should now appear as below: 21. Now lets change the color of your autoshape to yellow and add text to it. First click on your autoshape to select it. You will see a floating toolbar appear entitled Drawing Object Properties. Click on the icon Area Style/Filling and select the Color option, and then beside choose the color Yellow. You will have to scroll down to find the Yellow.

10 Now we will add our text. This time double-click on the autoshape to select it. You will see a blinking cursor appear inside the autoshape. Key in Fav. Then click off of the autoshape. 23. I will now show you how to change the direction of the Biology text. Highlight the word Biology. Then click on the Format menu and choose Character. When the dialogue box appears, click on the Position tab. Under Rotation/scaling choose 90 degrees. Click OK.

11 The last thing we will do in this tutorial is format our table with a table autoformat. First, highlight your entire table by moving your cursor to the upper left corner of the table and when you see your cursor change to arrow pointing to the bottom right corner of your screen and the text Select Whole Table click and your table will be highlighted. Then, go to your floating Table toolbar and click on the Table Autoformat icon. Choose an autoformat of your choice. I recommend the Default autoformat because I noticed that some of the other autoformats took away my text and made it a symbol. 25. You are done! You see my completed table below. I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial!