[Solved] Removing margin lines and green boxes after pasting

[nikkitytom]

I suspect I've missed something very basic here. When I paste a PDF ( adobe acrobat) file into Open Office text document, it opens with a little gray "anchor" icon on the upper left hand side and small green "adjustment" boxes on all four sides. I am using Open Office to write a book featuring music scores. The transfer is excellent, very clean. But I can't seem to remove those boxes and the border lines and that darned anchor. I suspect I'm missing something very very basic here but will gladly sacrifice my embarrassment for a solution.

[RoryOF]

Click anywhere _outside_ the PDF image.

Note: these green handles indicate that the image, be it PDF or other, is selected. They do not print.

[nikkitytom]

Thank you SO much. Clicking outside the image worked like a charm.

But there is still a thin border line and on the right hand side of the page, it is flickering. I know there's no problem with printing, because I tested it when I first did a paste up. But I have to submit to a publisher and my last ( regular text ) book was clean and formatted. This is a mixed manuscript consisting of music scores and some text.

[RoryOF]

That is probably a cursor, the height of the inserted image. Hit Enter and see does it go away.

[nikkitytom]

Magic! Thanks so much. It vanished in a nano second.

Now it's all clean except for a thin gray border line on the top and the left hand side about an inch in from the edge.

[Hagar Delest]

Switch to page preview. It's certainly the text margins (that are not printed).

Please add [Solved] at the beginning of the title in your first post (top of the topic) with the *EDIT button if your issue has been fixed.

[RoryOF]

You can hide those (non printing) margin indicators by /View /Text boundaries; this will turn them off or on. It is best to leave them on while editing, as they help with page layout, allowing you to position content within the printable area they define.

[nikkitytom]

The margin indicators have been turned off ( I must have turned them off for another project). Just now I tried off and on several times, with no effect. I think the problem is with my source which is a PDF file opened with Adobe Acrobat Reader. I use the edit/photo and select all. which works perfectly. The page pastes in nicely centered into position on my Open Office page.

I tried to "select" my image to see if that margin would be changed. Nope. It's still there.

I know it doesn't print with margins or other extraneous marks. But I have to submit a formatted manuscript ( it's self-published. My previous book was text with illustrations and it printed perfectly, This one is mostly music scores with minor text blocks ). I suspect the problem isn't with Open Office, but with my PDF files and transferring them. Right now they're crystal clear on my screen and of course, print out perfectly ( minus the offending grey lines) .

[RoryOF]

OpenOffice Writer is designed to format text for output to print. The grey lines you describe may be visual on-screen artefacts. Without sample files and matching screenshots we are guessing in the dark,

[Hagar Delest]

Right now they're crystal clear on my screen and of course, print out perfectly ( minus the offending grey lines) .

You mean you still have a gray line in the final document?
Can you upload a sample file or screenshot?

[nikkitytom]

I hope this works. This is what appears on my Open Office page. It's a screen shot.

Gigue test.odt

(84.46 KiB) Downloaded 153 times

[RoryOF]

Perfect on my computer - no extraneous lines or anything.

[nikkitytom]

I'm completely flummoxed ... I opened the link and it had the thin lines. I mailed it to myself and it had thin lines on both Ipads and one computer. Everywhere it has those thin lines. But your suggestion that it might be a visual on-screen artifact seems to make sense.

At this point I can format book cover, introduction and the requisite contents lists etc etc ... plus five or six of these music score pages. Amazon Kindle allows book sizes as small as 25 pages. So I'll produce a "sample" and see what happens. Printing charges are incredibly reasonable. As both you and Hagar Delest have pointed out, Open Office is designed for output to print.

Thank you very much! I really appreciate your help and suggestions.

[musikai]

But I have to submit a formatted manuscript

Do you have to submit the odt file or can't you submit a PDF. If you export to PDF you always see the actual result as it will print.

I'm always interested when there is a project with musical score because I spent some time to find a solution which gives the best results of music scores in PDF-format used in OpenOffice or LibreOffice when exporting to PDF (see LOSA in the signature).

I see in your sample you are using a low quality raster image. Will you be using higher DPI images in your final result?
Will your final file have many pages? Im asking because OO/LO isn't very good in handling a huge number of high DPI files.

[RoryOF]

Ah!, I see. There is showing a light grey line and two small upstands from it at the page bottom. These are caused by /View /Text Boundaries being turned on, and the main body of these - the margin indicators, are hidden behind the pasted PDF image. Simply /View /Text boundaries once; this will turn off that line - but as I said, it is non printing.

[nikkitytom]

I've clicked the View/Text boundaries back and forth several times. When I first looked at it, it was off. I think the main thing is that it be non-printing.

My last book was self-published and I produced the entire format to my liking. It printed out beautifully, with perfectly placed illustrations and varying text blocks. But it printed exactly as I submitted it.

My next ( text ) book is being submitted to a regular publisher and I have only to submit a very simply formatted manuscript. Their editors will take over from there.

But I will take your advice and trust the nice prints I'm getting. And allow myself a "pre-sample".

[musikai]

If you export to PDF you should see how it looks printed.
This is your file as PDF (the right barlines are barely visible):

[nikkitytom]

Musikai ... thanks. I have printed from those PDF files for years after exporting them from MuseScore. In fact I link to them on my website and on YouTube, so my readers can have free access to my work. My problem was to convert them to an acceptable format for Open Office ... which Adobe Acrobat Reader DC does very nicely. Printing isn't my problem. Submitting an accurately formatted manuscript is essential because this is self-published.

I checked out LOSA. Actually there are many available templates for a nicely presented book and I'm going to stick to the one which worked so well for my Bird Songs. As I remember even Open Office can be tweaked to individual preferences. I'm an enthusiastic tweaker

[RoryOF]

When editing, you really need the /View /Text Boundaries on, as that allows you place your content within the margin areas.

Many using Writer for text layout will have /View /Text boundaries, /View Field Shadings/ /View /non printing characters on all the time - one quickly learns to mentally blank them out, but they do considerably help with careful layout.

[nikkitytom]

I don't think I've ever used the Text Boundary feature. I just visually imagine the text position as I input. I will try it and I can see how it will help when I eventually have to "justify" my text.

I checked and rechecked pasting my PDF into Open Office and I can clearly see that those grey lines are the boundary lines and apparently can't be removed while pasting. On the right hand side and the bottom, my pasted image simply covers those boundary lines. So I'm much more confident I can just ignore them as I format.

Thanks again for your help and tips. I'm learning as I go. I have to control my passion for bucking the system. But sometimes it works. I'm the Gimp WImp and was delighted to provide a hack for GIMP's business cards. But that was a lucky strike!

[musikai]

... from MuseScore. In fact I link to them on my website and on YouTube, so my readers can have free access to my work.

Your piece looks like a nice one. How can I find your website?

I checked out LOSA. Actually there are many available templates for a nicely presented book and I'm going to stick to the one which worked so well for my Bird Songs.

Bird Songs sounds interesting. Is it on your website?
Oh, yes, stick to your template. LOSA isn't especially layouted nicely. (The user has to tweak it). It serves as a tool to directly use (many) PDFs. But if you just have a few pages of music scores you surely can manage that in Open/LibreOffice.

[RoryOF]

A useful short introduction to OpenOffice Writer is at
Writer for students (several languages)

[nikkitytom]

Musikai ... the music is available on TheHappyPianoMuse.wordpress.com But "Bird Songs" is not. It's a collection of short childhood memories . You can look it up on AMazon and read a sample few pages and get an idea of the layout. Bird Songs by Nikki Ty-Tomkins ...

[nikkitytom]

RoryOF ... Thanks for this treasure. I used a guide for my first venture into self-publishing, but this seems much more comprehensive and I like the fact it's written for Open Office. I'm prone to missing "details" and this should make access to them much easier.