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Using Page Styles
From NeoWiki
Page styles are one of OpenOffice.org and NeoOffice's resources. They allow you to create page models like those created by desktop programming software. You can configure and use a variety of page types in a document, independent of its content. The following page style elements are customizable:
- Format
- Orientation
- Margins
- Background color
- Header
- Footer
- Border
- Columns
Contents |
How to Create a Page Style
First of all, make sure to keep the Styles and Formatting window open. Ctrl-F11. Then you have two options:
The first consists of individually setting the format of the page elements:
- Choose Page... from the Format menu.
- Work your way through each of the tabs (Organizer, Page, Background, etc.). Adjust the various settings to your liking.
- Click OK.
- In the Styles and Formatting window, click on the Page Styles icon. (The fourth from the left; it looks like a sheet of paper with the top right corner bent down.).
- Once the style list appears, click on the icon that looks like a page with a small green cross, and click on New style from selection}.
- Give the style a suitable name in the window which appears and click OK.
The second method consists of creating the page style directly in the Styles and Formatting window:
- In the Styles and Formatting window, click on the Page Styles icon. (The fourth from the left; it looks like a sheet of paper with the top right corner bent down.).
- Right click or Ctrl-click anywhere in the list of page styles (either on an existing style or on the white empty space).
- Choose New from the contextual menu. In the window that appears, specify the settings you want in the various tabs of the page format window. Don't forget to give the style a name in the Organizer tab.
- Click OK.
Keep in mind that these page styles only apply to the document that you have created. If you wish to use these styles for other documents, you must create a template.
How to Modify Page Styles
Once a page style has been created, you can always modify its elements as you like. In the Styles and Formatting window, right click or Ctrl-click on the style name you want to modify. When the contextual menu appears, choose Modify... and then make the changes in the subsequent window. Then click on OK and the modifications will take effect.
The changes that you make will be immediately applied to the pages of your document which use that style.
How to Apply a Style to a page
While the page to which you want to apply the style is visible, open the Styles and Formatting window. You have several options:
- Double-click on the desired style; it is immediately applied to the page.
- Select the desired style and click on the paintcan icon, then click on the page and the selected style is immediately applied.
- You can also use the status bar (at the bottom of the main NeoOffice window). The second option that appears in the status bar (from left to right in the bar by default) indicates the page style of the page in which the cursor is located. Double-clicking on this option brings up a dialog box which allows you to modify the page style. But if you right-click or ctrl-click, the list of available page styles appears. Chose the one which you would like and it is immediately applied to the page in question.
N.B. Sometimes the modfication of a page style can make changes in the following pages. To avoid this, check the styles related to the page style that you are using. This is done by placing the cursor on the name of the style and right-clicking or Ctrl-clicking on it. Choose Modify and in the Organizer tab, check what style appears in the option Next Style. Make sure that it is the page style which you want for the follow pages of the document that you are formatting.
Another means to avoid this problem is to put manual page breaks at the end of the page or to group the pages that you want to modify. To do this, select Manual break... from the Insert menu. In the window which appears, there is a Style option where you can specify the style you want for the following page(s).
How to Import a Page Style
You can import a page style created in an older document into the current document you are formatting.
- Open the window Styles and Formatting, select the type of style you want to import (First page, right page, etc.), then click on the last icon on the right (the one which shows a page with a small green cross) and chose Load Styles...
- In the dialog box that opens, check the Page box and click on From File...
- Choose the document from which you want to import the style and click on Open.
The imported style can be found in the Custom Styles category. You can now apply the style to your page as explained above.
Using Page Styles in a Master Document
It is possible to organize your documents in chapters which can be regrouped in a master document.
Using page styles in master documents is not difficult. We will explain it here.
Suppose that two authors are working together on a book and each is to work on different chapters. Also suppose that one of the authors is in Europe and the other in in North America. The standard page size for the European author is in A4, while for the North American author the standard size is Letter. When it is time to assemble the book, joining the chapters by the two authors with two different page sizes could present a problem. Because of that, NeoOffice and OpenOffice.org are not concerned with the page format used in the individual chapters, but instead uses as the default page style in use when the master document is created.
While on the one hand this is an intelligent decision, it can create problems when we create documents with different pages styles and then want to unite them in a master document. In effect, the master document ignores all the page styles present in the inserted files and uses only the default style, even if we have taken care to import the different page styles of the inserted documents.
For example, suppose that we have created a document that includes pages to which we have applied a custom page style, for example a horizontally oriented paged style (i.e. "landscape" orientation). If we now want to insert that codument in a master document we will discover that the original document, which was horizontal, is now attached veritcally ("portrait" orientation), even if we have already imported the horizontal (landscape) page style into our master document.
The only method to successfully attach the horizontal/landscape pages in our master document is to:
- split our "single" document into documents that contains only one page style each
- insert the sub-files as normally done for inserting files in a master document
- in the navigator select the file we want to have the different page style
- In the Navigator window, click on the Insert button and choose Text
- double-click on the Text you have just inserted
- Insert a manual break, choose page break and the choose page style you want to use. This page style will be applied from this point of the document onward (unless you have specified something different when you have created that page style). If after one or more pages you want to return to the initial style (in our case the standard veritical or Portrait style, you must repeat the procedure beginning with inserting a "text."
Related Wiki Articles
Editing Default Styles and Using Templates
How to Number Pages
Related External Links
Starting Page Numbering on Page 2, and Other Ways to Mix Page Styles in a Document an article by Solveig Haugland.
Pages Styles in NeoCalc by Solveig Haugland
