Lesson 5 Styles, Tables, and Frames

Transcription

1 In this lesson you will learn how to create a new document that imports the custom page and paragraph styles created in earlier lessons. You will also see how to add tables to your documents. If LibreLibreOffice Writer is not running, start it. If it is already running close any open documents using File, Close, and then open a new document. From the Menubar, select File Save As, and set the Save In folder to a known location. Enter Class News as the file name. From the Menubar, select File Properties. With the Description tab selected, enter LibreOffice Writer Class News as the Title. Importing custom styles: Next, the custom formats will be imported from the My Lesson 4 Document file. Open the Styles and Formatting dialog box. [Press F11 or Select Format, Styles and Formatting from the Menubar.] In the Styles and Formatting dialog box, select the New Style from Selection tool, then select Load Styles from the pop up menu. Observe that the Load Styles dialog box provides options for loading styles from Templates. You can create different templates and store them for future use. There are also standard templates available on the web site. Rather than using a template in this example, you will load styles from your Lesson 4 document. Make sure that the options along the bottom of the Load Styles dialog box, Text, Frame, Pages, Numbering, and Overwrite, are all checked. Select the From File button, select your My Lesson 4 Document file, and then select the Open button. This procedure will import the custom styles and formats from the My Lesson 4 Document file and make them part of the the Class News file. At this point the Styles and Formatting custom paragraph styles should show the Custom Styles from your earlier document. Page 1

2 If you think about this for a minute, you will realize that a word processing document file contains more than just words. It also contains background information about style settings and other mysterious stuff. Now that your custom styles are available, they can be used in the new document. With the text cursor in the body of the Class News document, and with the Page Styles tool selected in the Styles and Formatting dialog box, double click on the My First Page format. With the text cursor in the body of the Class News document, and with the Paragraph Styles tool selected in the Styles and Formatting dialog box, double click on the My Section Heading format. Type the words LibreOffice Writer Class News followed by one space (do not press the enter key yet). Inserting and editing date fields: The current date will be added by inserting a date field. From the Menubar, select Insert, Fields, Date. This will insert the current date in place of the word date. Note that the date is shaded. This is to remind you that it is an inserted filed, not regular text. The shading will not appear when the document is printed. It is possible to change the format of the date, and to make it a fixed date, or have it change every time this document is opened and saved. Double click on the date. This opens the Edit Fields dialog box. Observe that either a fixed date or the current date can be set. Also, there are a variety of date formats to choose from. Select your date preferences from the Edit Fields dialog box and then select OK. Some text paragraphs will now be added to the Class News document. Enter the following paragraphs in the Class News document. Page 2

3 Inserting and editing date fields: Welcome to the latest edition of LibreOffice Writer Class News. This edition has already helped you see how to import custom page and paragraph formats from other documents. Custom formats can save a lot of time when you are creating different documents that share the same styles. In this edition you will learn how to insert a date field into a document. You will also see how to change between a fixed date or the current date. An Introduction to Word Processing class will be offered soon. The date and time for the class will be posted on the bulletin board. Following is a tentative listing of topics to be covered. Introduction to Word Processing Press the enter key several times to add some blank paragraphs. Place the text cursor in the Introduction to Word Processing paragraph. In the Styles and Formatting dialog box, select the small arrow on the bottom right corner of the box and then select Chapter Styles from the pop up context menu. Double click on the Title paragraph style. Set the Styles and Formatting dialog box back to Custom Styles. Position the text cursor in the paragraph below the Introduction to Word Processing paragraph. Adding tables: Next, a table will be inserted into the document. Tables are very useful when you want to align sections of text horizontally and vertically. On an old typewriter this was done using tabs and spaces. The problem is that if you use spaces and tabs to align things in word processing, and then if the font size or style is changed, everything will have to be realigned. A table takes all the work out of the alignment process. Tables in LibreOffice Writer have many features similar to spreadsheets. From the Menubar, select Table, Insert, Table. In the Insert Table dialog box (see the illustration) enter Schedule as the Name. Enter 2 columns and 3 Rows. Toggle the Heading option ON, then select OK. Your display should now look similar to the following illustration (except that your table will not yet be filled out). Page 3

4 There are several points to note when filling out tables. Place the cursor in the first cell of the table and type the desired text, but do not press the enter key. Pressing the enter key will add another paragraph to a cell. It is not wrong to have multiple paragraphs in a table cell, but most of the time cells hold a single paragraph. Press the tab key to move to the next cell in the table. If you press the tab key with the text cursor in the last table cell, the system will automatically add a new row of cells to the table. You can also use the cursor control arrow keys to move between cells in a table. When the text cursor is in a table cell, the Table Tools will open. There is a lot more to tables than can be covered here, but if you pause the cursor on the different tools you will get an idea of the different functions available. Fill your table with information similar to that shown above. Observe in the example shown that the first cell in the Topic column has a paragraph that does not fit into one line in the cell. The system automatically uses word wrap to increase the row height as needed. The Session column is much wider than required. There is an easy way to adjust table column widths. Move the cursor over the center vertical line in the table and watch the cursor change to a double arrow. When the cursor changes to a double arrow, drag the vertical line to change the cell widths. To get complete control of table characteristics, first position the cursor somewhere in the table, and then from the Menubar select Table, Table Properties [or select the Table Properties tool from the Table Tools window]. This will open the Table Format dialog box that provides control over all table parameters. Open the Table Properties dialog box and review the various options. Be sure to check all of the tabs. When you are through, select OK. Page 4

5 Adding tables: Tables can enhance your documents and take the pain out of aligning rows and columns. Tables in LibreOffice Writer can also include many functions found in spreadsheet software. The example below was created directly in this LibreOffice Writer document. It uses date and currency formats (accessed through Table, Number Format from the Menubar), and also uses formulas to calculate totals and the sum of the last column. Good bye calculator! Item Purchase Date Cost per Item Qty Total Cost Book December 5, 2011 $ $43.00 Paper November 3, 2011 $ $41.70 Binders November 3, 2011 $ $8.85 Total $93.55 Tables or columns? Some beginners make the mistake of trying to use columns to imitate tables. The problem with this is that they have to keep messing with adding and deleting empty paragraphs to keep things aligned between adjacent columns. Columns are designed to have the text flow from one column to another. They are sometimes used to improve readability since people can have trouble tracking text from one end of a line to the next on very wide columns. The use of columns can also improve reading speeds for many people since the eyes can track faster vertically rather than having to track both horizontally and vertically. However, columns should never be substituted for tables. Inserting Frames: The next LibreOffice Writer feature that will be explained is frames. Frames are like little documents that are inserted into a main document. Frames can contain the same kinds of things the main document contains, however, the main document body text flows around frames. They are sometimes used as side-bars to provide separate but related text or illustrations. Picture in a Frame Page 5

6 Frames can contain text, graphic images,or tables. Frames are typically anchored to a paragraph in the main document. They float with the paragraph. That means that if the text before a frame is edited, and this causes the paragraph to move, the anchored frame will move with it. The wrap function can be used to control how text flows around a frame. Enter the following paragraphs after the table in the Class News document. Frames added to list of useful tools. Frames are like little documents that are inserted into a main document. They can contain the same things the main document contains. They are sometimes used as side-bars to provide separate but related text. Frames can also contain graphics images or tables. Frames are typically anchored to a paragraph in the main document. They float with the paragraph. That means that if the text before a frame is edited, and this causes the anchor paragraph to move, the frame will move with it. The wrap function can be used to make text flow around a frame. Place the text cursor in the Frames added to list of useful tools paragraph, then set the Paragraph Style to My Section Heading. Next, a frame will be added to the document. Place the text cursor in the Frames added to list of useful tools paragraph, then from the Menubar, select Insert Frame. This opens the Frame dialog box. The Type tab of the dialog box provides for setting the width, height, and position of the frame. A Frame dialog box is shown in the following illustration. In the Frame-Type dialog box, set the Width to 2.50, the Height to 1.5, the Anchor to To paragraph, the Horizontal position to Right, and the Vertical position to Top. With the Wrap tab selected in the Frame dialog box, set the Wrap to Before. Wrap: When a frame or graphic object is embedded in a document a Wrap property determines how the text and object interact. The graphic object associated with this paragraph has the Wrap property set to have the image repel the text. This frame has one paragraph of text with a border, and a second paragraph with these caption words. With the Borders tab selected in the Frame dialog box, select the Set all four borders option, and set the Line Width to 0.35pt. With the Borders tab selected in the Frame dialog box, set the Shadow style position to Cast Shadow to Bottom Right. Page 6

7 Inserting Frames: With the Background tab selected in the Frame dialog box, set the color to Pale yellow, then select OK to create the frame. To add text to a frame, place the text cursor inside the frame and enter the following text. This text is inside a frame. Text in a frame can use any paragraph style. A frame can also contain a graphic image. The results of your frame design should look similar to the illustration. To stop adding text to a frame, click the text cursor outside of the frame. This text is inside a frame. Text in a frame can use any paragraph style. A frame can also contain a graphic image. Observe that the default paragraph style for frames is Frame contents. However, any paragraph style can be assigned to paragraphs in frames. If you click the cursor on a frame border, the frame will be selected and grab points will be added to the corners and mid points of the frame. By dragging these grab points you can move or resize a frame. If you double click on a selected frame, the Frame dialog box will open and modifications can be made to the frame. When you are through modifying your Class News document, Save the file. Points to remember: Page, paragraph and other styles can be imported into a new document from existing documents. Tables provide an easy way to format rows and columns of entries. Tables in LibreOffice Writer provide a number of functions found in spreadsheet software including formatting cells to display currency or dates and inserting calculation formulas in cells. Columns should never be used in documents where side by side alignment of text is required. Tables are preferred over columns for this application. Frames can be inserted into the body of a document and can contain their own text or graphics. Frames can be set to make the body text wrap around the frame. Frames can have border lines, background fills, and shadows. Page 7

8 This frame is a filler to make the chapter have an even number of pages. Page 8