[Solved] Templates: Reapply content

[mofog]

Hi there,

I'm quite sure I already found the answer here (http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wik ... a_template), but maybe this information has changed recently. Is there a way to reapply content coming from a template? It would be very handy to keep your business letters up-to-date, for example, when the logo or the general business terms have changed. Currently, you open up a previously created document and Writer will tell you that a newer version of the template was available. But instead of just reapplying the format definitions (like font face of the main text), it would also update the logo and other elements mentioned before.

Any ways to achieve that? Thanks for your support.


Morin

[acknak]

I don't see how that would work. How would OOo know for sure what parts to change? Automatically changing content sounds like a dangerous approach.

Also, it seems like it would be preferable to keep older documents as they were last modifed, as a record of what was sent, rather than automatically changing them.

If you do need to include items like an image or graphic that you may want to update, the best way I know of is to keep the object in its own file and include a link to the file in your documents. Then, if you modify the object, the link can bring in the modified version if you want.

[mofog]

Okay, fair enough. I can see that this would be difficult to handle. But one approach could be to mark the elements, which should be updated automatically, by a flag etc.

On the one hand side, you're right: it makes sense to not change documents automatically -- as a proof of what was sent years ago, for example. On the other hand side, it is possible to think of certain documents, whose content will stay the same over years, but the outer appearance has to fit the current corporate identity. Right now, you'd have to manually transfer the content from the old document into the new one everytime you change the layout.

By "linking" do you mean "insert an OLE-Object" refering to another ODT? Theoretically this seems to be one possible approach, but the actual implementation (OOo 3.1.1, OOO310m19, Build: 9420) seems to be buggy: the included elements, like logos and text frames, move around arbitrary and sometimes even disappear.

[acknak]

I wasn't thinking of OLE--as you said, it just doesn't work very well in OOo.

When you insert an image (Insert > Picture > From File), you have an option on the file dialog, named "Link". If that option is on, then the image file is included only by reference to the external file. If the external file is changed, then OOo will offer to update the document with the new image.

[mofog]

That's indeed a solution to achieve what I was aiming at -- not quite, but it'll do. Thanks for your suggestions!
Bye.