[Solved] 2 sections side-by-side AND plain text friendly

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ibonyun
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Joined: Tue Sep 07, 2021 9:01 pm

[Solved] 2 sections side-by-side AND plain text friendly

Post by ibonyun »

I want 2 sections side-by-side in the document: a sidebar on the left with text and a main block on the right with text. There is no correlation between the content of the 2 sections. Ideally, for getting the formatting right, I want to be able to use columns in each section. (I've been using a series of 1-row/2-column elements to create what amounts to a list of key:value pairs. And I want to be able to do this both in the sidebar and in the main block.)

Crucially, in addition to looking right on the page, I need this to survive being SaveAs'd to plain text without text getting garbled, jumbled, or disappearing entirely. I think the desired output would be each section treated as a column so they'd appear one after the other in the plain text file.

I've tried using 2 sections, but they will only stack vertically. I cannot figure out how to get them side-by-side.
I've tried 2 columns, one for each section, but then I cannot use columns inside each section. Nested columns appear to be impossible.
I've tried making one or both sections frames. This works great for formatting, but the contents of a frame vanishes when converted to plain text.
I've tried using tables but, like sections, they cannot be placed side-by-side.

Any ideas?
Last edited by Hagar Delest on Wed Sep 08, 2021 8:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: tagged solved.
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RoryOF
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Re: 2 sections side-by-side AND plain text friendly

Post by RoryOF »

Try a single table with multiple columns.

Another method is to insert a table, perhaps of a number of columns but only a single row. Into each cell you can the insert a multi column section. With an extremely complex layout you may have to hand steer your text insertion and column breaks.
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JeJe
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Re: 2 sections side-by-side AND plain text friendly

Post by JeJe »

If you use textframes you can fix the problem like this.

*Make a copy of your document* and close the original. Run this macro upon it. it will insert the plain text of the frames into the main text - or at least it worked with some simple testing. Then save as a text file.

Code: Select all

Sub FrameTextIntoMainText
tf = thiscomponent.textframes
en =  tf.createenumeration
do while en.hasmoreelements
a = en.nextelement
a.anchor.string = a.text.string
loop
End Sub
Windows 10, Openoffice 4.1.11, LibreOffice 7.4.0.3 (x64)
ibonyun
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Sep 07, 2021 9:01 pm

Re: 2 sections side-by-side AND plain text friendly

Post by ibonyun »

JeJe wrote:If you use textframes you can fix the problem like this.

*Make a copy of your document* and close the original. Run this macro upon it....
Thanks for the suggestion. This would only work when I'm the one converting it to plain text. I need it to be plain text-friendly when someone else converts it, and I can't assume they're going to run your macro.

For context, I'm writing a resume and I'm trying to ensure that the automated applicant tracking systems (ATS) won't mangle it. I wasn't getting the interviews I expected and wondered why. Someone suggested I convert my resume to plain text to better see what the ATS sees and what I saw was shocking and frustrating. Some of it was garbled, some was missing entirely. My resume was likely being discarded by the ATS because it couldn't find the info it was looking for and so deemed me unworthy of consideration. I suspect my resume was never seen by a human. So now I'm taking pains to avoid this going forward.
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JeJe
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Re: 2 sections side-by-side AND plain text friendly

Post by JeJe »

Could you have a convert-to-plain-text button on the document which runs the macro (modified slightly to create a new document with the end result)?
Windows 10, Openoffice 4.1.11, LibreOffice 7.4.0.3 (x64)
ibonyun
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Sep 07, 2021 9:01 pm

Re: 2 sections side-by-side AND plain text friendly

Post by ibonyun »

RoryOF wrote:Another method is to insert a table, perhaps of a number of columns but only a single row. Into each cell you can the insert a multi column section.
Thanks for the suggestion. This is a combination I didn't think to try but it's exactly what I needed. Allows me to get it to look right on the page AND convert sensibly to plain text.

Problem solved.
Apache OpenOffice 4.1.2
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