Opening text docs in OpenOffice

[coppens1]

OpenOffice Support 031118 Opening text docs in Open Office

Deqr fellow Open Office Users, I often prepare and save documents using Microsoft Notepad, because of the minimal storage used.

But when I print, I often open the .txt documents in Open Office. EAch time I have to adjust the margins from the default of .79 inches to .3 inches using the format page function.

I tried to eliminate that by changing my 'untitled 1' template so that the default margins are all .3 inches. Now when I initiate Open Office text documents I get a .3 margin. But when I open documents saved as .txt documents, the margins still appear as .79.

How can I change Open Office so it will open .txt documents with the desired .3 margins?

Thanks, JC

[RoryOF]

What happens if, instead of opening your text document directly in OO, you start a blank document in Writer, then /insert /File /Your_text_document.txt?

[coppens1]

I haven't tried that, because it is an extra step. But I assume since I am pasting into a document with .3 margins, it will stay at .3. I will try it and get back to you. JC

[Lupp]

As far as I know (not knowing the reasons): When opening plain-text-files with Writer always the original 'Default' template is used, not the standard template you may have created. As a rule you cannot edit the 'Default'.

But:
OpenOffice is capable of importing styles from other documents and of overwriting the previously defined styles with the imported ones having the respective names (same category, of course).
It is simple to create a template with the few style definitions you need: 'Default' page style and 'Preformatted Text' paragraph style as a minimum. You then can load these styles into the already opened plain-text-document and overwrite the existing used styles by them. However, I don't know the menu path for doing it manually in AOO. (In recent LibO it's placed near to the surface: > Styles > Load Styles....) But anyway it may not be a great advantage concerning time expense as compared with directly setting the margins anew every time.

If you need this really often, you can create a "macro" module in your local MyMacros.Standard library and probably connect the relevant macro to an additional /text/icon/ sensitive area in a toolbar.

If you are badly pressed I can advise you concerning the macro.

[John_Ha]

A standard Notepad .txt file stores only text characters. It does not store any margin settings.

If you set margins in Notepad, the margin settings are stored in the Notepad application and not the .txt file you are editing. The margin settings are only used for printing.

1. I created fred.txt using Notepad.

2. I started Writer and an empty page appeared with page margins. I went File > Open ..., and navigated to fred.txt.

The content in fred.txt was brought into Writer using Writer the page margins.

[Lupp]

A standard Notepad .txt file stores only text characters. It does not store any margin settings.

Yes. And no font information, nothimg about indentation and/or tabs...

That should be the reason for what Writer, when used to open such a file, places the text into a new (still unsaved) document made from the 'Default' template. In addition the paragraph style 'Preformatted Text' is applied. Presumably Writer treats plain text this way because this paragraph style is supposed to have "zero formatting" and a monotype font.
Writer simply cannot treat plain text as just plain text. It always has to apply a style necessarily. It only can use the "least stylish" one per category.

[coppens1]

Rory 041118 Open Text Docs in Open Office
Dear Rory, as I suspected, if I do the extra step, I can obtain an Open Office copy of my text document with .3 margins. The disadvantage is having to open two documents and copy from one to the other.

I don't understand why, if my 'Untitled 1' default start document in Open Office has .3 margins, why, when I open a txt document using 'open with' and select 'Open Office Writer' it opens with .79 margins.

Why doesn't the system use my default Open Office document with .3 margins? JC

[coppens1]

Dear Lupp,
Lupp » Sat Nov 03, 2018 11:14 pm

"As far as I know (not knowing the reasons): When opening plain-text-files with Writer always the original 'Default' template is used, not the standard template you may have created. As a rule you cannot edit the 'Default'......
If you need this really often, you can create a "macro" module in your local MyMacros.Standard library and probably connect the relevant macro to an additional /text/icon/ sensitive area in a toolbar.
If you are badly pressed I can advise you concerning the macro."

I think you are right, the Writer is using the original "default template". Yes, I do it often enough that a macro would be helpful so I can get the .3 margins. How do I go about doing the macro? JC

[Lupp]

justForTest.ott

(10.31 KiB) Downloaded 118 times

A roughly sketched macro and a little helper function for the purpose are contained as text -not in a macro module- in this attached plain-text file:

manualCSV.text.csv.txt

(1.81 KiB) Downloaded 123 times

The template which I used for testing you find here:

justForTest.ott

(10.31 KiB) Downloaded 118 times

To get things work you need to
-1- copy the macros, create a module in your 'MyMacros.Sztandard' library and paste the macrois in.
-2- save the template (or a better one you created yourself) at a known place in your file system, probably in the folder 'template' of your user profile. Better: Import it to your templates with the template manager.
-3- replace the string assigned to templateFN in the macro with the actual pathname of the template on your system.

Now you can open a plain text file (the attached example e.g.) with one of the extensions 'txt' or 'text' or 'csv' and go > Tools > Macros > Run > select the macro > OK.

-4- If you decide to use the macro on a regular basis, you may insert a link to it into a toolbar via > Tools > Customise.

[coppens1]

Dear Lupp, Thansk for your response.

Is the justForTest.ott file an Open Office file? I haven't used .ott files. I am in the library, and it won't open here. I will try it at home with Open Office. JC

[robleyd]

.ott is a Writer template file.