[Solved] Expand and Collapse text

[lordhallmark]

How do i expand and collapse text in an open office document?

[RusselB]

Welcome to the Forums.
Regretfully, to me, your question isn't clear.
When I think of Expanding/Collapsing something in a document, it is a list with either a + or - symbol in front.
If the + symbol is showing, then the items in that list can be shown by clicking on the + (aka expand the list)
Likewise, if the - is showing (and therefore the full contents of that list) then I can click on the - thereby collapsing the list, and changing the - to a + character.

If this is what you are talking about, then I think you are out of luck as far as Writer is concerned.

If this isn't what you are referring to, then please try to clarify, If you have/can make a document that shows the end result of what you're looking for, then please upload it to the forum using the Attach Document option from the PostReply (not QuickReply) screen.

[Hagar Delest]

Ses if this discussion helps: [Solved] I miss Outline view in Word.

[lordhallmark]

Welcome to the Forums.
Regretfully, to me, your question isn't clear.
When I think of Expanding/Collapsing something in a document, it is a list with either a + or - symbol in front.
If the + symbol is showing, then the items in that list can be shown by clicking on the + (aka expand the list)
Likewise, if the - is showing (and therefore the full contents of that list) then I can click on the - thereby collapsing the list, and changing the - to a + character.

If this is what you are talking about, then I think you are out of luck as far as Writer is concerned.

If this isn't what you are referring to, then please try to clarify, If you have/can make a document that shows the end result of what you're looking for, then please upload it to the forum using the Attach Document option from the PostReply (not QuickReply) screen.

sorry for my lack of clarity. I didnt really know how to describe what i wanted but what you described sounds like what i'm looking for. I'm disappointed that to learn that this is not a way to do this in writer. but thank you for your help.

[MrProgrammer]

Hi, and welcome to the forum.

How do i expand and collapse text in an open office document?

It won't be nice, but you can achieve this effect by putting the text in a frame and setting a small frame height. Check Format → Frame/Object → Type → Height → AutoSize to expand the frame; uncheck to collapse it. An ambitious macro programmer could probably use form controls on the page to perform the check/uncheck automagically when the controls are activated. The place to ask about that would be in the Macros and UNO API forum.

Read about frames in Help → Index or in User Guides (PDF) or searching for topics about them in the Writer Forum.

If this solved your problem please go to your first post use the Edit button and add [Solved] to the start of the title. You can select the green checkmark icon at the same time.

[RoryOF]

Another method that is not as simple as immediate expansion or contraction of text by clicking on a text heading is this:

A method that might be of use for other purposes is to place each area of text in an OO Section, and use Navigator. One can then right click on a Section name in Navigator, select Edit and check or uncheck "Hide". I often use this when writing a long document to hide or show areas not Immediately relevant to current editing. The use of Sections permits each area (in my case, usually chapters) to have a different background colour, which can be helpful in keeping track of the various transitions of a work.

There are available various long document additions, sometimes called "Writer's organisers" such as
oStorybook
Manuskript
Plume Creator

And there are also commercial forms of Writer's organisers which I do not list.

[keme]

There is no "outline view" like the one you can find in MS Word. There may be extensions/plugins which makes Writer provide this view. I don't know of any, but I haven't searched either.

What is your reason for wanting this?

• To navigate in a document, you can use the navigator. The headings structure (multilevel) can be expanded/collapsed in the navigator pane, and you click on a heading there to move the view in the editing window to that chapter/section. To use this you must format your headings using the proper "Heading x" styles (just like with Word's outline view).
• For automated building of a document from standard elements, you could use conditional text or the autotext feature.
• To have the presentation dynamics of outline view, you need a tool that supports that kind of view fully. The presentation module of OpenOffice - Impress - has an outline view. The structure in Impress is a bit more rigid than what you have in a wordprocessor, but it may do what you need.
  There is a quick way to get your Writer document into Impress with the structure intact, so you can see how it will look. It is the last item on the File - Send submenu. Something like "send auto digest to presentation". (I don't have the English user interface installed, so I am uncertain about the exact wording.)

[RoryOF]

There is a quick way to get your Writer document into Impress with the structure intact, so you can see how it will look. It is the last item on the File - Send submenu. Something like "send auto digest to presentation". (I don't have the English user interface installed, so I am uncertain about the exact wording.)[/list]

Using an English version the entries are

/File /Send /Create AutoAbstract
/File /Send /AutoAbstract to Presentation