Page Style Creation in OpenOffice Writer

October 17, 2007 11:23 AM

I'm using OpenOffice Writer 2.2 (Windows XP). I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to define a page style from a page I've already created, short of writing everything down and recreating the page. There's got to be a better way.

And, supposedly, there is. But the help page entitled "Creating a Page Style Based on the Current Page" tells me how to create page styles with different headers. I already know how to do that. I've spent hours tweaking this page style to fit what I need, and I want to use it again. I've Googled, and checked the OOBlogs and the OOWiki, but can't find what I need.

posted by jlkr to computers & internet (4 comments total)

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the question, but would doing a "Save As" and saving the file as an OpenDocument Text Template work?
posted by cog_nate at 12:28 PM on October 17, 2007

If you want a default style for all (or most) future work, then you want to make a template. To do that you manually configure the page, then, as cog_nate says, you choose "save as tempate." You then have to set that new template to be the default. You do that under File>templates>organize. (Search the forum for new default templates).

If you want to actually have a new page style (e.g. an Index page style), you start the same way: manually set the desired parameters (use Format>page). Then you hit F11. That brings up the style and formatting menu. Select "Page Style" from the five icons in the upper left of the floating window, then click on the drop-down icon in the upper right of the floating menu and choose "new style from selection" (don't worry if you have nothing selected). Give it a name and you are done.

But here's the catch. The new style will only appear in that document. So what you have to is save that file (yes save the blank, formatted file; choose a dummy name). In the future if you want to use the style again, you simple choose the "load style" option from the style menu and then choose the "import from file" (lower right of the window that pops up when you choose to load a style). In the mport window select the dummy file that you used to create the page style.

Voila.

(This is an awful kludge but it works and once you've got the style and dummy file set-up it works easily enough. )
posted by oddman at 2:23 PM on October 17, 2007

Thanks, oddman. I'll give that a try.

Technically, what I want is three different page styles bolted together into a document template (newsletter, front and last pages are different styles, inner (content) pages are yet another). I have had no luck trying to set three different document templates and using them in the same document. Transferring each type of page separately isn't an option either. (The plan is to be able to pass the page styles on to the next person who does the newsletter, now that the hard work is done.)
posted by jlkr at 3:27 PM on October 17, 2007

In that case set-up the three styles and the template at the same time.

That is open a file and immediately save it as an OTT.
Then set-up the first style (front page). Save it as a page style. (Use F11, and the steps I outlined above.)
Then set-up the next style (back page). Save it as a page style.
Then set-up the last style (content). Save it as a page style.

So, you've modified and saved the parameters (spacing, indent, font, etc.) on a blank page three times, once for each page style.

Now change the blank page to whatever you want the default to look like. (No reason it can't be one of the page styles.) Save the template, and you are done.

From what you've said, that should be exactly what you need. (I hope.)

(I just verified that saving the styles within an OTT works. I'm using OO.org 2.3 on Windows XP.)
posted by oddman at 4:43 PM on October 17, 2007