Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

I'm writing a non-fiction book and I plan to include text sidebars with "Did you know?" and "Here's a funny tale...." sections that are peripheral to the main body.

The problem is, I cannot figure out a way to include text sidebars within the document, which the main text must wrap around. (You see this in virtually every magazine and newspaper article.) I planned on simply using a single table cell. However, I cannot find a way to have the text wrap around a table cell. So, I figure there must be an alternative way.

Thanks in advance.

Look at Paragraph Style Marginalia (F11 for Styles and Formating window, click left hand icon on top bar).

RoryOF wrote:Look at Paragraph Style Marginalia (F11 for Styles and Formating window, click left hand icon on top bar).

Rory,

I'm trying this, but I still cannot get the main body of text to wrap around the sidebar. (The side bar only occupies about 1/4 of the right-hand side of the page. Much like if you were to insert a picture into the document, I want the text to flow around it.)

Then I think you may have to use a frame - there my experience ends.

RoryOF wrote:Then I think you may have to use a frame - there my experience ends.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, but I still don't know how to do this. If anybody else knows how to do it, please share. Thank you.

There was a discussion some months/weeks ago on this forum on how to do something similar, and as far as I remember the end of the matter was that the poster was referred to the Marginalia style. But I think possible other solutions such as frames, columns and tables were mentioned in course of the discussion. Search for "marginalia", which was explicitly mentioned in the discussion. I remember it because I could possibly, sometime in the future, have need for hanging shoulder notes.

The basic idea is to put the sidebar content in a text frame (Insert > Frame). The frame is independent of the main text flow, so you can position it wherever you want and the main text can flow around it.

To keep the appearance consistent, you probably want to use a frame style--there is a pre-defined frame style named "Marginalia" but it is very minimal and you will probably need to customize it or make your own.

See the Writer Guide for background on frames (Chapter 4) and frame styles (Ch. 7).

Acknak & Rory:

Thanks to both of you for your time. I was assuming that there was a simple method of doing this, but now that I see that I'm going to have to get involved with macros and the rest....I'm thinking that I might actually just include them as image files. Either way, it's going to be a lot more work than I expected. Man.

But thanks again.

What leads you to say there are macros needed? They're not, at least for the common cases.

It does take some time to learn how to do it. Once you're over that hurdle, it takes only a few minutes to configure the appearance and a few seconds to create a new one.

acknak wrote:What leads you to say there are macros needed? They're not, at least for the common cases.

It does take some time to learn how to do it. Once you're over that hurdle, it takes only a few minutes to configure the appearance and a few seconds to create a new one.

I assumed that there were macros needed because I didn't see any "Frame style" options in the primary tabs or sub-tabs, and also because I couldn't find anything called "Marginalia" (although I know it's there someplace!)

Could you do me a favor and tell me step-by-step how to do this?

Thanks.

dbrennan3333 wrote:Could you do me a favor and tell me step-by-step how to do this?

Have you checked acknak's post above with Insert>Frame menu???

See also: [Solved] White Paper w/comments down the side.

Thanks to add '[Solved]' at beginning of your first post title (edit button) if your issue has been fixed.

Thanks to everybody. "Insert">"Frame" works well. For some reason I was not able to type text into the frame earlier, but now I can. (I don't know if it was just a momentary glitch or what was causing it.)

The easiest is to hit the Enter key when it has been inserted (when you see the green handles).

Have a look at the Writer Guide:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wik ... age_layout

Here's a little sample:

Thanks a lot, Acknack. That particular page is especially useful for sidebars and similar non-linear Writer page inserts.