OpenOffice.org Writer | O'Reilly Media

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If you use OpenOffice.org Writer a lot, you'll want to take the time to set up the interface to suit your work and your personal preferences. But even if you use Writer only occasionally, you can make a few quick changes to make your work much easier.

The Options dialog controls many settings in the OpenOffice.org set of applications. Some settings apply to all the applications; other settings apply to only one.

This chapter covers some options of particular interest to writers and editors, and some that are a bit obscure or hard to find when you first start using the program. It does not cover all the options in detail.

In addition to setting options, you can change other Writer features to suit your preferences and working habits. For more information on all options and other customizable features, check the Contents of the online help for General Information for OpenOffice.org Writer > Configuring and Modifying OpenOffice.org.

This section covers some of the settings that apply to all the applications. For information on settings not discussed here, see the online help.

Click Tools > Options.
Click the + sign to the left of OpenOffice.org in the left-hand section. A list of subsections drops down.

In the Options dialog, click OpenOffice.org > General.
On the Options - OpenOffice.org - General dialog (Figure 1-1), the options are:

Year (two digits)
Specify how two-digit years are interpreted. For example, if the two-digit year is set to 1930, and you enter a date of 1/1/30 or later into your document, the date is interpreted as 1/1/1930 or later. An "earlier" date is interpreted as being in the following century; that is, 1/1/20 is interpreted as 1/1/2020.

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This section covers some of the settings that apply to all the applications. For information on settings not discussed here, see the online help.

Click Tools > Options.
Click the + sign to the left of OpenOffice.org in the left-hand section. A list of subsections drops down.

In the Options dialog, click OpenOffice.org > General.
On the Options - OpenOffice.org - General dialog (Figure 1-1), the options are:

Year (two digits)
Specify how two-digit years are interpreted. For example, if the two-digit year is set to 1930, and you enter a date of 1/1/30 or later into your document, the date is interpreted as 1/1/1930 or later. An "earlier" date is interpreted as being in the following century; that is, 1/1/20 is interpreted as 1/1/2020.

Help Agent
To turn off the Help Agent (OpenOffice.org's equivalent to Microsoft's Office Assistant), deselect Activate. If the Help Agent is active, you can specify how long it remains open before it is automatically closed. To restore the default Help Agent behavior, click Reset.

OpenOffice.org Help formatting
To display Help in high contrast for accessibility, choose one of the highcontrast style sheets from the list.

Open/Save dialogs
To use the standard Open and Save dialogs for your operating system, deselect the Use OpenOffice.org dialogs checkbox.

Document status
Choose whether printing a document counts as changing the document. If this option is selected, then the next time you close the document after printing, the print date is recorded in the document properties as a change and you'll be prompted to save the document again, even if you didn't make any other changes.

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You can set the Load/Save options to suit the way you work.

If the Options dialog is not already open, click Tools > Options. Click the + sign to the left of Load/Save.
Choose Load/Save > General.

Most of the choices on the Options - Load/Save - General dialog (Figure 1-10) are familiar to users of other word processors. Some items of interest are:

Load user-specific settings with the document
When you save a document, certain settings are saved with the document. If you select this option, these document settings are overruled by the user-specific settings of the person who opens it. If you deselect this option, users' personal settings do not overrule the settings in the document.

For example, your choice on the Options - Text Document - General dialog (Figure 1-13) of how to update links (Always, on Request, Never) is a userspecific setting that is affected by this option. Some settings (printer name, data source linked to the document) are always loaded with a document, whether or not this checkbox is selected.

Edit document properties before saving
When you select this option, then the first time you save a new document (or whenever you use Save As), the Document Properties dialog pops up to prompt you to enter relevant information.

Figure 1-10: Choosing Load and Save options

AutoSave
Note that AutoSave in OpenOffice.org overwrites the original file.

Size optimization for XML format (no pretty printing)
OpenOffice.org documents are XML files. When you select this option, OOo writes the XML data without indents and line breaks; the resulting file size is smaller, and documents are saved and opened more quickly. If you want to read the XML files in a text editor in a structured form, deselect this option.

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Settings chosen on the dialogs in the Text Document section of the Options dialog determine how your text documents look and behave.

If the Options dialog is not already open, click Tools > Options.
Click the + sign to the left of Text Document in the left-hand section. A list of subsections drops down.

The choices on the Options - Text Document - General dialog affect the updating of links and fields, the units used for rulers and other measurements, whether captions are automatically added to selected objects such as tables or figures, paragraph spacing, and tab stop behavior.

Choose Text Document > General on the Options dialog (Figure 1-13).
Some considerations to keep in mind when selecting options on this dialog:

Update links when loading
Depending on your work patterns, you may not want links to be updated when you load a document. For example, if your file links to other files on a network, you won't want those links to update when you are not connected to the network.

Update fields and charts automatically
You may not want fields or charts to update automatically when you are working because that slows down performance.

Figure 1-13: Choosing general options for text documents

Compatibility
Do you want your Writer documents to be compatible with Microsoft Word? If so, you may want to select some or all of these settings. Unlike some other options, the compatibility settings are valid only for the current document and thus must be defined separately for each document.

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You may need to do several things to set the spelling options to what you want:

Install the required dictionaries.
Choose the dictionaries and spelling options.
Change the default language for documents.
Set the version of English to be checked.
Create and use a custom dictionary.
Create and use an exception dictionary.

OpenOffice.org 1.1.1 automatically installs several dictionaries with the program. To add other dictionaries, you can use the AutoPilot (not available in versions of OOo before 1.1.1) or install them manually.

Section 1.4.1.1: Using the AutoPilot

Be sure you have write permission on the folder <OOo>/share/dict/ooo<OOo>/share/dict/ooo/dictionary.lst.
Be sure you are connected to the Internet, unless you have already downloaded a language pack or have one on a CD.
Click File > AutoPilot > Install new dictionaries. OOo opens a file (DicOOo.sxw) containing instructions in several languages and macro buttons to start the download and installation process. (The available dictionaries are for many more languages than those used in the instructions.)
Click the macro button and follow the instructions in the wizard to download a list of available dictionaries, select the ones you want, and download and install them. This process proceeds automatically.

Section 1.4.1.2: Installing a dictionary manually

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Because Writer's revision features mark your changes and comments with the name or initials stored in User Information, you'll want to ensure that your name and initials appear there. To do this, open the Options - OpenOffice.org - User Data dialog. If anything on this dialog is incorrect, delete it and type the correct information. Click OK after making any changes.

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You may find that some or all of the items in any word processing program's AutoCorrect function are very annoying because what you type will often change when you don't want it to. Many people find some of the AutoCorrect functions quite helpful; if you do, then select the relevant checkboxes. But if you find unexplained changes appearing in your text, this is a good place to look to find the cause.

To open the AutoCorrect dialog, click Tools > AutoCorrect/AutoFormat. This dialog has five tabs, as shown in Figure 1-29. Rather than going through the choices in detail, I will mention a few of my preferences.

I usually deselect most of the choices on the Options tab and all of the choices on the Word Completion tab.
Sometimes I leave Use replacement table selected on the Options tab, and then edit the list on the Replace tab if necessary.
Sometimes I leave the items on the Custom Quotes tab active.

Figure 1-29: The AutoCorrect dialog, showing the five tabs and some of the choices on the Options tab

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Writer provides many ways to write, edit, review, and comment on documents. This chapter covers some of those techniques, plus some other tips.

Figure 2-1 shows the terms that OpenOffice.org uses for parts of the main window.

OpenOffice.org also has fly-out toolbars on many of the toolbar and object bar icons. Icons with these toolbars have a tiny arrow in their upper right-hand corner; this arrow may be pointing down or to the right. If you click and hold one of these icons, a fly-out toolbar will appear. (Writer calls this long-clicking.) Move the mouse pointer over the icons on the fly-out toolbar and release it on the required icon. You can also detach any of these small toolbars and make them floating or dock them in a convenient place.

Figure 2-1: Parts of the main Writer window

If you use Writer a lot, you'll want to learn some of the many keyboard shortcuts. Look in the online help on the Contents page under Help about OpenOffice.org Writer > Shortcut Keys for Text Documents and General Shortcut Keys in OpenOffice.org.

If you're not sure what the toolbar icons are, click Help > Tips to show brief tooltips when you hover the mouse pointer over an icon or control in the main window. For more information about the options in a dialog, click Help > Extended Tips to pop up more information about a field, checkbox, or other control.

You'll find many useful functions on the right-click pop-up (context) menus, which often provide faster and easier access to the same functions that are available through the menu bar. It's well worth your time to check the right-click menu when you want to do something.

OpenOffice.org provides several special-purpose object bars that you can display in certain situations. For example, when you click on the Numbering On/Off icon or the Bullets On/Off icon to turn on bullets or list numbering, a left-pointing arrow appears at the right-hand end of the Formatting object bar. If you click this arrow, the Formatting icons are replaced by the Numbering and Bullets object bar (see Figure 4-20 in Section 4.2.6).

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Figure 2-1 shows the terms that OpenOffice.org uses for parts of the main window.

OpenOffice.org also has fly-out toolbars on many of the toolbar and object bar icons. Icons with these toolbars have a tiny arrow in their upper right-hand corner; this arrow may be pointing down or to the right. If you click and hold one of these icons, a fly-out toolbar will appear. (Writer calls this long-clicking.) Move the mouse pointer over the icons on the fly-out toolbar and release it on the required icon. You can also detach any of these small toolbars and make them floating or dock them in a convenient place.

Figure 2-1: Parts of the main Writer window

If you use Writer a lot, you'll want to learn some of the many keyboard shortcuts. Look in the online help on the Contents page under Help about OpenOffice.org Writer > Shortcut Keys for Text Documents and General Shortcut Keys in OpenOffice.org.

If you're not sure what the toolbar icons are, click Help > Tips to show brief tooltips when you hover the mouse pointer over an icon or control in the main window. For more information about the options in a dialog, click Help > Extended Tips to pop up more information about a field, checkbox, or other control.

You'll find many useful functions on the right-click pop-up (context) menus, which often provide faster and easier access to the same functions that are available through the menu bar. It's well worth your time to check the right-click menu when you want to do something.

OpenOffice.org provides several special-purpose object bars that you can display in certain situations. For example, when you click on the Numbering On/Off icon or the Bullets On/Off icon to turn on bullets or list numbering, a left-pointing arrow appears at the right-hand end of the Formatting object bar. If you click this arrow, the Formatting icons are replaced by the Numbering and Bullets object bar (see Figure 4-20 in Section 4.2.6).

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The Navigator is a very useful tool that helps you move quickly to specific parts of your document and also provides information about the content of the document.

To activate the Navigator (Figure 2-2), click Edit > Navigator, press F5, or click the Navigator icon

on the function bar.

Figure 2-2: The Navigator for a Writer document

In Writer, the Navigator includes lists of the graphics and tables in your document. Click the + sign by any list to display the contents of the list. You can double-click an entry in the Navigator and jump immediately to that place in your document.

If you have structured a document by using heading styles, you can change the sequence and hierarchical levels of chapters and subchapters using the Navigator. Select an item and click one of the Promote or Demote icons.

Click the Navigation icon at the top of the Navigator to open a toolbar that you can turn into a floating toolbar. Use the small icons on this toolbar to jump quickly to different parts of your document. The online help describes the Navigator's functions in more detail.

The Navigator is a bit different in master documents, as described in "Creating and Using Master Documents" in Section 7.4

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Although software won't find correctly spelled words that are used incorrectly, the spelling checker can be useful for making initial corrections. When used in combination with an exception dictionary, you can even find words that are wrongly used; see "Create and use an Exception Dictionary" in Section 1.4.5 for details.

"Preparing to Check Spelling" in Section 1.4 described how to choose languages and set up dictionaries in Writer.

The basics of checking spelling are the same as in other word processors, although some of the details differ. This section describes some of these differences and some features you might find useful.

You can choose to check the spelling only in selected text or in the full document.

Writer searches first through the selected user-defined (custom) dictionaries. If the word is not found there, it searches through the main dictionary. If the word is not there either, the Spellcheck dialog (Figure 2-3) is displayed. You can then correct the word, ignore it, or add it to a dictionary.

If you want to open the Spellcheck dialog, but there are no unknown words in your document, you need to enter a deliberately misspelled or unknown word.

If you want the spelling of text in headers and footers, tables, and text frames to be checked, then select the Check special regions checkbox in the Options section of the Options - Language Settings - Writing Aids dialog (Figure 1-22).

The "version of English to be checked" usually isn't an issue if you and all the writers you work with have your systems set up to use the same version (typically either U.S. or U.K. English). "Change the Default Language for Documents" in Section 1.4.3 shows how to do this.

If you work with some documents requiring U.S. English spelling and other documents requiring U.K. English spelling, you may need to change some documents to not use the default language.

To change the language for the current document:

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To open the Find & Replace dialog, click Edit > Find & Replace or press the shortcut keys Ctrl+F. This section assumes you know the basics of finding and replacing words or phrases, so it covers some advanced ways to use this function to make editing your work faster and easier.

Using the various buttons on the dialog, you can:

Use wildcards and regular expressions to fine-tune a search
Find and replace specific formatting
Find and replace paragraph styles
Plan a multiple-pass find and replace

A wildcard is a keyboard character that can be used to represent one or many characters when you are searching for something. A regular expression combines wildcards with other characters that instruct OOo how to treat the wildcards (See Table 2-1).

Table 2-1: Examples of search wildcards
To find	Use this wildcard or expression	Examples and comments
Any single character	.	b.d finds "bad," "bud," "bid," and "bed."
Any string of characters	.*	b.*d finds "bad," "brand," and "board."
One of the specified characters	[]	b[iu]n finds "bin," and "bun."
Any single character in this range	[-]	[r-t]eed finds "reed," "seed," and "teed"; ranges must be in ascending order.
Any single character except the characters inside the brackets	[^]	p[^a]st finds "post" and "pest," but not "past."
The beginning of a word	\<	\<log finds "logbook" and "logistics," but not "catalog."
The end of a word	\>	log\> finds "catalog," but not "logistics."
A paragraph marker	$	Does not work as a replacement character. Use \n instead.
A line break	\n	Finds a line break that was inserted with Shift+Enter. When used as a replacement character, it inserts a paragraph marker.

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You can use several methods to keep track of changes made to a document. Which method you use, and whether you need to keep a record of changes, depends on your company's or client's policy.

You can make your changes to a copy of the document (stored in a different folder, or under a different name, or both), then use Writer to compare the two files and show the changes you made. Click Edit > Compare Document. This technique is particularly useful if you are the only person working on the document, as it avoids the increase in file size and complexity caused by the other methods.
You can save versions that are stored as part of the original file, but this method can cause problems with documents of any size or complexity, especially if you save a lot of versions. Avoid this method if you can.
You can use Writer's change marks (often called "redlines" or "revision marks") to show where you have added or deleted material, or changed formatting. Later, you or another person can review and accept or reject each change.

Not all changes are recorded. For example, changing a tab stop from align left to align right, and changes in formulas (equations) or linked graphics are not recorded.

Although you (or your editor or reviewers) can use Writer's revision feature to mark up a document that has not been prepared for review, you may want to do the preparation step first, so the editor or reviewer can't forget to turn on the revision marks. After you have protected the document, you must enter the correct password in order to turn off the function or accept or reject changes. Passwords must contain at least five characters.

Open the document. To check whether it contains multiple versions, click File > Versions. If multiple versions are listed, save the current version as a separate document with a different name, and use this new document as the review copy.

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If you have more than one copy of the edited document (because different people worked on different copies), merge them into one document. Open one copy, then click Edit > Changes > Merge Document and select another copy of the document to be merged with the first. Repeat until all copies are merged. All recorded changes will now be included in the open copy. Save this file under another name.
Now click Edit > Changes > Accept or Reject. The Accept or Reject Changes dialog (Figure 2-12) appears.

Figure 2-12: The List tab of the Accept or Reject Changes dialog

You can accept or reject the changes individually or all together. Changes that have not yet been accepted or rejected are displayed in the list. Accepted changes are removed from the list and appear in the text without any marking. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be any way to retain the change bars without also retaining the visible deletions and insertions.

You can use the Filter tab (Figure 2-13) on the Accept or Reject Changes dialog to show only the changes of certain people, or only the changes of the last day, or various other restrictions.

Figure 2-13: The Filter tab of the Accept or Reject Changes dialog

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Many people copy one document (often written by someone else, or for a different project) when they create another, or they create a template from an existing document, but they don't change the document properties. Unchanged properties can end up being quite embarrassing for someone, particularly if the properties include confidential information. To change document properties:

Click File > Properties.
On the Properties dialog, look at all the fields on the Description, User Defined, and Internet tabs, and change anything that needs amendment. Click OK.

See Section 5.1 for more information about the User Defined tab. This book does not cover the Internet tab, which is used for HTML (Web) documents.

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Here are some tricks you might find useful when writing and editing documents.

You can click Edit > Undo, press Ctrl+Z on the keyboard, or click the Undo icon

to undo a series of edits or other actions, one at a time, working backward from the last action.

You can also long-click the Undo icon to see a list of the most recent actions you can undo. Scroll through the list until you find the action you want to undo, then click on it. Be careful, though: when you undo an action selected this way, you also undo all actions above it in the list. That result might not be what you want.

If Protect Records (see Section 2.5.1) has been turned on, you cannot undo edits.

Position the cursor anywhere in the paragraph. Press and hold the Ctrl+Alt keys while pressing the up-arrow or down-arrow key. The paragraph will move to before the previous paragraph or after the next paragraph in your document. To move more than one paragraph at a time, select at least part of both paragraphs before pressing the Ctrl+Alt+arrow keys.

If your paragraphs suddenly jump from one place to another, the most likely reason is that you have accidentally pressed one of these key combinations.

When you copy text (from within OpenOffice.org or from another application) and paste it into a Writer document, the default is for the pasted text to retain some or all of its original formatting, including typeface and type size, attributes such as bold or italics, paragraph indentation, and so on, instead of taking on the attributes of the paragraph into which the text is pasted.

Sometimes this is what you want. However, if you do not want the pasted text to retain its attributes, click Edit > Paste Special and choose Unformatted text, or long-click on the Paste icon and choose Unformatted text from the drop-down menu. (See Figure 2-14. The choices on this menu vary a bit depending on the type of material.)

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Writer provides several ways for you to control page layouts by using:

Page styles
Tables
Columns
Frames

This chapter describes these methods and some associated techniques:

Headers and footers
Portrait headers on landscape pages
Tabs
Table control

When doing page layout, show text limits, table limits, and section limits (in the Guides section of the Options - Text Document - View dialog) in addition to the paragraph ends, tabs, breaks, and other items in the Display section of the Options - Text Document - Formatting Aids dialog.

In Writer, page styles define the basic layout of all pages. Writer comes with several page styles, which you can use or modify, and you can define custom page styles. You can have one or many page styles in a single document.

Let's assume you want the first page of your document to always start on a right-hand page, and that the layout of the first page is different from the layout of the other pages in the chapter. The first page is followed by a left page, which is followed by a right page, and the pages continue to alternate left and right throughout the chapter. The left and right pages are mirror images of each other. (This book is designed that way.)

For the first page, let's assume you want a large top margin (so the document title starts part way down the page), a wider binding margin on the left-hand side, and a footer (with a line above it to separate it visually from the main body of the page), but no header. Here's how to set up the First Page style:

Click Format > Styles > Catalog.
In the Style Catalog dialog (Figure 3-1), choose Page Styles and First Page, and then click Modify.

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In Writer, page styles define the basic layout of all pages. Writer comes with several page styles, which you can use or modify, and you can define custom page styles. You can have one or many page styles in a single document.

Let's assume you want the first page of your document to always start on a right-hand page, and that the layout of the first page is different from the layout of the other pages in the chapter. The first page is followed by a left page, which is followed by a right page, and the pages continue to alternate left and right throughout the chapter. The left and right pages are mirror images of each other. (This book is designed that way.)

For the first page, let's assume you want a large top margin (so the document title starts part way down the page), a wider binding margin on the left-hand side, and a footer (with a line above it to separate it visually from the main body of the page), but no header. Here's how to set up the First Page style:

Click Format > Styles > Catalog.
In the Style Catalog dialog (Figure 3-1), choose Page Styles and First Page, and then click Modify.

Figure 3-1: Choosing the First Page style from the Style Catalog

In the Page Style: First Page dialog, choose the Organizer tab (Figure 3-2). The page style name is already set to First Page, but the Next Style could be anything (probably First Page). Set the Next Style to Left Page because you want the first page to always be followed by a left page.

Figure 3-2: Setting the style for the next page on the Organizer tab

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Now that you have set up your basic page styles, you can look at the finer details of page layout. In many cases, you can control page layout by using paragraph styles alone. Most of this book is done that way. The main advantage to using paragraph styles alone is that you can add or delete text and graphics, and everything flows from one page to the next automatically—you don't need to control each page individually. (See "Working with Styles" in Section 4.2 for more about paragraph styles.)

In some cases, however, you might need to use other methods to place text or graphics where you want them. One of those methods is to use tables.

Writer's tables can serve several purposes:

To present tables of data, similar to those you might see in a spreadsheet (sometimes these tables are imported from Microsoft Excel or another program), and to perform some calculations
To line up material that might otherwise be lined up using tabs and hanging indents
To create page layouts by positioning various page elements in columns, or to line up graphics or sideheads in the margin with specific paragraphs

A full discussion of tables, their use, and how to control them is beyond the scope of this book. This section describes how to achieve some common layouts by using tables.

Sideheads and marginal notes are commonly used in documents from resumes to computer user guides. The main body of the text is offset to leave white space (usually on the left-hand side) in which the sideheads or notes are placed. The first paragraph is aligned beside the sidehead, as in Figure 3-8.

Figure 3-8: Example of a sidehead

To create a table for use with a sidehead:

Place the cursor where you want the table to appear and click Insert > Table.

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You can use columns for page layout, and you can switch between single-column and multiple-column layouts on the same page. Columns can be of equal or unequal widths. For complex layout purposes, you may find that frames are a better choice, because you have more control over the placement of text. (See "Using Frames for Page Layout" in Section 3.4.)

When you change the number of columns on a page, the change affects all pages in your document with that page style. Therefore, you need to define a separate page style if you want some pages to have a different number of columns than the other pages. To define the number of columns:

In the Page Style dialog, go to the Columns tab (Figure 3-12).

You can also click Format > Columns to reach a different version of this dialog (Figure 3-13).
Choose the number of columns, and specify any spacing between the columns and whether you want a vertical separator line to appear between the columns. Click OK to save the changes.

Figure 3-12: Defining the number of columns on a page

You might want some parts of a page to have one column and other parts of the page to have two or three columns. For example, you might have a page-width headline over a three-column news story. To create this layout, use sections.

Position the cursor where you want the three-column section to begin. Click Insert > Section.
On the Insert Section dialog, go to the Columns tab, which looks much like Figure 3-12. Make your selections and click OK.
As you add text to the section, you'll see that the text flows from one column to the next so that all the columns adjust to the same length. If this is not what you want, click anywhere in the section, then click Format > Columns.

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Frames can be very useful if you are producing a newsletter or other layout-intensive document. Frames can contain text, tables, multiple columns, pictures, and other objects.

You can link the content of one frame to another, so the contents flow back and forth between them as you edit the text.

You can define and apply frame styles using the Style Catalog and the Stylist. For more information, see "Working with Styles" in Section 4.2.

The online help for Writer uses the phrase "text frame" for two quite different things with very different characteristics: frames (as discussed here) and text objects, which are drawing objects similar to lines and boxes. Drawing objects are discussed in "Using Writer's Drawing Tools to Create Graphics" in Section 8.2.

You can either insert a blank frame and type the text into it afterward, or you can select existing text and place it into a frame.

Section 3.4.1.1: Inserting a blank frame

To insert a blank frame, you have two choices. Which one you choose depends on the complexity of your page design and your preferred way of working.

You can click Insert > Frame and set numerous parameters on the various tabs of the Frame dialog (Figure 3-14).

Figure 3-14: Inserting a frame using Insert > Frame

You can long-click the Insert icon at the top of the main toolbar, move the mouse pointer over the Insert Frame Manually icon, then move the cursor down to select the number of columns you require in the frame, as shown in Figure 3-15.

Figure 3-15:

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You can type in the header or footer areas, or insert cross-references or other fields to include information such as the chapter title, the date, the author, and so on. For more about the use of fields, see Chapter 5.

To insert a page number, click Insert > Fields > Page Numbers (or long-click the Insert Fields icon on the main toolbar and click Page Numbers).

Define the Header and Footer styles to suit the needs of your document. You can also define character styles for individual elements in the header or footer; for example, you could make the font for the page number large and bold, as I've done in this book. For more information on styles, see "Working with Styles" in Section 4.2.

Avoid using floating pictures in a table in a header or footer—you won't be able to cross-reference to the text in the same header or footer. Put the picture in a frame, anchored to a paragraph in the header or footer.

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When you define a header and footer on a landscape page, they will be aligned with the long side of the page. If your landscape pages are going to be inserted between portrait pages, you might want the headers and footers to be on the short sides of the landscape pages, so the final printed product looks like the contents of the landscape pages have been rotated 90 degrees on portrait pages.

You can set up portrait headers and footers on landscape pages by using a trick involving frames. These are a bit tedious to set up, but once you have done so, you can copy and paste them to other landscape pages. I have not found a way to make these part of the landscape page style.

Calculate the required margins so the text area of the landscape page is the same size as the text area on the portrait pages, taking into account the space for headers and footers on the portrait pages. For example, this book uses the margins shown in the following table. The extra space used by the header is 1 cm (0.5 cm for the height of the header and a 0.5 cm gap between the header and the main text). The footer takes the same amount of space.

Portrait page (right page)		Landscape page (right page)
Top margin	1.5 cm	Right margin	2.5 cm
Bottom margin	1.5 cm	Left margin	2.5 cm
Left (inner) margin	2.8 cm	Top margin	2.8 cm
Right (outer) margin	1.8 cm	Bottom margin	1.8 cm

Create the landscape page style as described in "Define Other Page Styles" in Section 3.1.4.
Measure the distance from the upper and left edges of the page to the upper left-hand corner of the space where you want the footer to appear. Measure the width and length of the space the footer will occupy (to match footers on portrait pages). See Figure 3-16.

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Although tables are often a better choice than tabs for lining up material, tabs can be useful in some circumstances, if you set them up and use them correctly. The rules for effective tab use are:

Don't use the default tab stops; set the tab positions yourself.
Don't press the Tab key more than once between blocks of text, except to skip a tab setting.

Don't use spaces to line up text; choose the appropriate tab setting—right, left, centered, or decimal—to line up text or numbers the way you want.

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This section covers both tables for page layout and tables of data.

Any top or bottom space defined for a paragraph works between paragraphs in the same table cell, but is ignored at the top and bottom of the cell.

To create space between the cell border (whether visible or not) and the text, use the Spacing to Contents section on the Borders tab of the Table Format dialog (similar to Figure 3-6). You may prefer to deselect the Synchronize checkbox, so you can define different distances from different borders.

The Spacing to Contents settings affect every cell in the table. To change the spacing of a single row, column, or cell, you can use the following keyboard combinations.

Alt+Arrow keys	Changes the size of the column or row on the right or bottom cell edge
Alt+Shift+Arrow keys	Changes the size of the column or row on the left or top cell edge
Alt+Ctrl+Arrow keys	Like Alt, but only the active cell is modified
Alt+Ctrl+Shift+ Arrow keys	Like Alt+Shift, but only the active cell is modified

To create a heading row in an existing table that doesn't have one, you need to apply an autoformat that does have a heading defined. (Here's where having some personalized table formats could come in very handy.) Place the cursor anywhere in the table, and then click Format > AutoFormat. Choose a format. Click OK.

If you often use one combination of table characteristics, you can specify that combination as the default table style. For example, if you use tables a lot for page layout purposes, you might choose the combination of no borders, no table header, and no number recognition as your default.

Click Tools > Options > Text Document > Table.
On the Options - Text Document - Table dialog (Figure 3-20), deselect all the checkboxes (Heading, Do not split, and Border) in the Default section, and deselect Number recognition in the Input in tables section. Click OK.

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Table of Contents

Section 1.4.1.1: Using the AutoPilot

Section 1.4.1.2: Installing a dictionary manually

Section 3.4.1.1: Inserting a blank frame