Format for Theater Play / Poem

[julioherce]

Hi Forum,

I want to transcribe a theather play which has also the look and feel of a poem. Please check the following sample:

However I don't know what is the best way to approach it. I basically need following formats:

- For describing the stage distribution: Normal format

- For the characters' dialogues (this is the most challenging for me): A left margin until the poem start but in the left part it should appear the name of the character (see picture above)

Could anyone help providing some tips for the best way to format with such styles.

Thanks in advance

[commodolorem]

You will need additional software to handle this.

You will need a PDF tool that can read the file and turn this into text. But you will have to find the font by yourself. A lot of online tools can handle this and can give you a tip what the font is. but it will not work correctly.

[JeJe]

For the Character style, create a new custom paragraph style
For the paragraph indents of the style set the before text so its indented
then set the first line indent to minus the same number
after typing the character name pressing the tab key should take you to the indented position.

[RoryOF]

A readymade template for formatting a theatre/stage play can be downloaded from
https://extensions.openoffice.org/en/se ... order=DESC

This is worth trying - it may prevent you having to reinvent the wheel.

[julioherce]

For the Character style, create a new custom paragraph style
For the paragraph indents of the style set the before text so its indented
then set the first line indent to minus the same number
after typing the character name pressing the tab key should take you to the indented position.

Thanks for your reply. The only issue that I see with this solution is that since it is a poem, I would have to add a break line for every line and then every line would have the minus indent and therefore I would have to press tab for every line. Is there a way to overcome this issue?

[Zizi64]

I would have to add a break line for every line and then every line would have the minus indent and therefore I would have to press tab for every line. Is there a way to overcome this issue?

Set the properties of your own (custom) Paragraph Style:
- the indent for the first line
- the indent for the other lines
- the line spacing
- the TAB-s

[JeJe]

For the Character style, create a new custom paragraph style
For the paragraph indents of the style set the before text so its indented
then set the first line indent to minus the same number
after typing the character name pressing the tab key should take you to the indented position.

Thanks for your reply. The only issue that I see with this solution is that since it is a poem, I would have to add a break line for every line and then every line would have the minus indent and therefore I would have to press tab for every line. Is there a way to overcome this issue?

Did you try it? You only have to tab the first line to go from the character to the indent which is the same for all the following lines and no other tab is needed.

See attached sample


Edit:
Even if every line is a separate paragraph you'll still need a tab.

[JeJe]

Thinking about it... you might mean you want a second style for the lines following the character heading line where you won't have to press tab.

See sample 2

[John_Ha]

The problem is that there may or may not be something on the left.

Use a two cell table. You will have to manage getting the lines aligned.

[JeJe]

Play standards have typewriter origins. This is a very simple problem that can be solved with tab stops alone... except that with word processors we can simplify things by using styles with differing paragraph indents.

[John_Ha]

Agreed but ...

... I was trying to prevent having to type a tab each line to create the indent. With a table, spilled lines in the right column automatically line up without needing a new tab to indent them.