Writer Guide

Distributing text across columns
As you add text to the section, you will see that the text flows from one
column to the next. You can distribute text across the columns in one of
two ways:
• Evenly—If you choose to distribute text evenly, Writer will fill the
first line of each column, followed by the second line of each
column, and so on.
• Newspaper-style—If you choose to distribute text newspaper-
style, Writer will fill the columns one at a time, beginning with the
first column.
To distribute text evenly, select the Evenly distribute contents to all
columns option in the Settings area. Deselect this option if you want
to distribute text newspaper-style.
Tip
Choose View > Nonprinting Characters (or press Ctrl+F10 )
to display end of paragraph markers (¶). Often, unexpected
behavior of columns is due to extra paragraphs that are
normally invisible to the user but are taking up space.
Using frames for page layout
Frames can be very useful when producing a newsletter or other
layout-intensive documents. Frames can contain text, tables, multiple
columns, pictures, and other objects.
Use frames when you need to:
• Position something in a particular place on a page, for example, a
logo or a “stop press” news box in one corner of a page.
• Allow text on one page to continue on another page, somewhere
more distant than the next one, by linking the content of one
frame to another so the contents flow between them as you edit
the text.
• Wrap text around an object, such as a photograph.
Because OpenOffice.org does not allow you to define page styles with
recurring frames, consider doing some quick sketches of the basic
page layouts you need, indicating the approximate positions of
different frames and their purposes. Try to keep the number of
different page layouts as low as possible in order to avoid chaos in your
design.
Pay special attention to the positioning of frames. Many of the
predefined styles default to a center alignment. Although centering all
122 OpenOffice.org 3 Writer Guide