[Solved] Text over "picture"

[lordirony]

I am an artist. I use OpenOffice to self advertise & promote my work. I draw my own decorative borders, but can not use them in OpenOffice because they insert as a full page picture, covering the entire document & preventing me from entering any text. I accidentally discovered how to layer the page so that I may type, but have no means of making the text fit within the parameters of the border. How can I create an area for my text within the border of my artwork?

[acknak]

Format > Page > Background allows you to select an image that will be used as the page background. It won't affect the text typing or layout at all.

[lordirony]

That works, but only to the extent that I can type. I still can not find how to make the text contour to my borders unless they are straight lines. I need to manually add Tab and Spaces in order to move the text, line by line, into position around my work. Also the background graphic gets cut off (erased) unless I bring the text borders to the very edge of the page.

[floris v]

You probably need DTP software for that kind of advanced features. Writer is just a word processor.

[Nikos]

A powerful open source DTP software, if you want to go that road is scribus:
http://www.scribus.net/canvas/Scribus
It is not that difficult to use once you have realized it is no word processor.
(I am unrelated to that project and this is not intended as am advertisement)

[lordirony]

Thanks for the helpful advice.

[acknak]

Writer can "contour" text to an arbitrary shape, with some limitations.

It's difficult to make any specific suggestion without knowing more about your project.

[floris v]

Wow, I'm going to eat my words, again.

Edit: Make a contour graphic for the graphic, select it, then Format - Wrap - Contour.

[Moe Shinola]

Format > Page > Background allows you to select an image that will be used as the page background. It won't affect the text typing or layout at all.

Someone linked to this thread about a question I had about putting text over a title page, and I tried this suggestion. The only problem is, the Format > Page > Background makes the pic the background on EVERY page. I only need it for the cover.
i have a back cover pic too, and only want to make it the background for 1 page.

[Hagar Delest]

Then you need to use different page styles. One for the first page, with the pic in background and another for the other pages.

[RoryOF]

Change your Page Style, so that you use different Styles for the body text and the front/back cover. I'm not going to tell you how to do it, as it will be more useful for you in the long term to read the Tutorial on Page Styles and start getting to grips with them.
[Tutorial] Page styles and headers/footers

[Cmiller]

Has anyone ever tried Scribus. Its free open source desktop publishing software. It can do many things that Microsoft Publisher and that Adobe software thingie (i forget its name lol) can do. It should be able to do exactly what you want. However I don't use it that often. If you need any help with the software go to their forum http://forums.scribus.net/.

Hope this helps,

Cmiller

Download from here ---> http://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Download

P.S There are some other "open source" suggestions that i can list. Here they are:

-- Inkscape ---> http://inkscape.org/
-- GIMP ---> http://www.gimp.org/
-- Serif website ---> http://www.serif.com/?MC=SERPPCBR1&gcli ... hwodNVcqzw

The Serif website has a multiple amount of software. All software is FREE to download. However, you have the option of purchasing an upgraded version for a fraction of the price you'd pay for Microsoft Publisher, or Adobe software.