Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

Greetings,

So, I'm trying to create blurbs for the side margins of one of my documents. What I'm doing is creating a rounded rectangle shape using the draw functions in Writer, then overlaying it with a text box, also through the draw functions in Writer. My problem is I need to be able to employ bullet lists within these text boxes. I've tried adding the bullets/numbering command to the text box toolbar, but even though the command is displayed it won't let me click it to configure the settings. I've also tried simply typing the bullet list in normal Writer and pasting it into the text box, but it never copies the formatting correctly and the text and bullets look, well, weird. Thoughts? Is this possible to do correctly, or am I going to have to make do with hyphenated lists instead of bullets? Any input is appreciated.

Insert a Frame in Writer rather than using Draw for text

Right. As is often the case in OO, you have to choose among several possibilities, each of which has different capabilities. No one option has everything you want.

Writer text frames support fully-formatted text, including lists, but they don't support rounded corners. You could use a separate graphic object for the background frame but maintaining the alignment to the text frame could become a chore.

Writer text boxes (from the Drawing toolbar) don't support formatted lists.

Draw text boxes support formatted lists, but the list formatting disappears if you copy/paste into Writer. You can paste into Writer as a metafile (similar to pasting an image); that maintains the list formatting but you can't easily edit the text or the shape.

I'd say the best option is to use the Writer text frames and either forego any separate decoration frame, or at least leave it until the very last so yo udon't get bogged down with it.