Lesson 7 - Creating A Two Column Newsletter

Transcription

1 Lesson 7 - Creating A Two Column Newsletter Introduction This lesson will cover some of the basics for creating a newsletter or similar two column document. Most newsletters have a standard format that is repeated in each issue. This is a natural application for LibreOffice Writer since once the page and paragraph styles have been established, the editor need only worry about content. Importing Styles Open LibreOffice Writer and start a new document. From the Menu Bar, select File, Save As, and enter Lesson 7 Newsletter as the file name. In the Styles and Formatting Sidebar, select Load Styles. In the Load Styles dialog box, toggle all of the check boxes on, then select From File. In the Open dialog box, select My Lesson 4. This last step has saved a lot of time in creating page and paragraph styles. There are a few modifications Figure 7-1: Loading Styles. to make for the newsletter format, but starting with the styles created in an earlier lesson provides a big head start. Place the text cursor in the first page. Then, from the Styles and Formatting Sidebar, select the Page tool and double click on the My First Page style. From the Menu Bar, select File, Properties and enter My LibreOffice Writer Newsletter as the Title. Your document should now look similar to Figure 7-3. If the document title does not appear in the first page header, you missed a step back in Lesson 4. No problem. If the title does not appear, complete the following step. Figure 7-2: The Properties Title Page 1 of 14

2 Lesson 7 - Creating a Newsletter Place the text cursor in the header and from the Menu Bar select Insert, Field, Title. Inserting a Date Field Place the text cursor at the end of the title paragraph and press the Enter key. From the Menu Bar, select Insert, Field, Date. Double click on the date and in the Edit Fields dialog box, select your preferred date format. Figure 7-3: Modifying the title. Modifying a Paragraph Style Next, we will modify the Paragraph Style for the first page header. In the Styles and Formatting Sidebar, select the Paragraph tool and right click on the My Title Paragraph style and select Modify. In the Paragraph Style My Title Paragraph dialog box, select the Borders TAB. Set the Line Width to Set the Padding to 0.12, then select Apply and view the result.. In the Paragraph Style My Title Paragraph dialog box, select the Area TAB. Select the Bitmap option, select the Figure 7-4: Formatting the date field. Sky bitmap, then select Apply and view the result. In the Paragraph Style My Title Paragraph dialog box, select the Font Effects TAB. Turn the Outline and Shadow options ON. Change the Font color to Blue, then select Apply and view the result. Page 2 of 14

3 Forward You should feel free to explore the different Paragraph Style settings and options, and do a bit of experimenting. When you are satisfied with your My Title Paragraph style modifications, select OK. Figure 7-5: Modifying My Title Paragraph style. As you can see, it is easy to create a custom newsletter masthead by using a custom Paragraph style for the page header text. Modifying Page Styles It is common for newsletters to use a two column style. Most people can read narrow columns of text faster than full page with lined of text. Your eyes can track vertically better than having to shift from one side of the page to another. Therefore, we will modify the newsletter page styles to have 2 columns. In the Styles and Formatting Sidebar, select the Page tool and right click on the My First Page style, and select Modify. Select the columns TAB. In the Page Style My First Page dialog box select the 2 Figure 7-6: Setting the page style to 2 columns. Columns option. Check to see that the Spacing between columns is 0.20, then select OK. Page 3 of 14

4 Lesson 7 - Creating a Newsletter Repeat the above steps for the My Left Page and My Right Page styles. Importing Text Next, we will need some text for our newsletter. For this example we will copy and paste text from the Internet. The rule of thumb is that you should never have to type text twice, even if someone else typed it first. Open your web browser and go to In the Wikipedia search box, enter Plant Taxonomy. Highlight (or select) the first two paragraphs in the article ( See Figure 7-1) and then press Ctrl+C to copy the text to the clipboard. We would like to paste the text into the newsletter, but we do not want to use whatever text formatting used by Wikipedia. LibreOffice Writer has an option for pasting text that will use the current paragraph style. Place the text cursor in the first paragraph in your newsletter column 1. Figure 7-7: Copying text from Wikipedia. In the Styles and Formatting Sidebar, select the Paragraph tool and double click on the My Text Body Paragraph style. From the Menu Bar, select Edit, Paste Unformatted Text. This trick will add the text to your document using the paragraph style where the text was pasted. The Wikipedia article added an extra blank paragraph between the two paragraphs. This is easy to delete. Place the text cursor in the blank paragraph and press the Del key. Figure 7-8: Pasting Unformatted Text. We need a heading for this part of the newsletter article. We can copy and paste the words Plant Taxonomy to a new line. Page 4 of 14

5 Forward Press Ctrl+Home to move the text cursor to the top of the document, the press the Enter key to add a new paragraph. Select the words Plant taxonomy and press Ctrl+C to copy the words to the clipboard. Press Ctrl+Home to move the text cursor to the top of the document. Press Ctrl+V to paste the text. With the text cursor in the first line, select Heading 1 from the Paragraph Style drop down list. That was so much fun, let s get some more text from Wikipedia. Figure 7-9: Selecting the Heading 1 style. Press Ctrl+End to move the text cursor to the end of the document and press Enter. Set the paragraph style to Heading 1 and then enter Carl Linnaeus. Press Enter to add anew paragraph. Set the new paragraph to the My Text Body Paragraph style. Select the text Carl Linnaeus and press Ctrl+C to copy the text. Go to the Wikipedia web site, place the text cursor in the search box, and then press Ctrl+V and search for Carl Linnaeus. The copy and paste tricks work between different program windows and can save you a lot of time. Highlight (or select) the first three paragraphs in the Carl Linnaeus article and then press Ctrl+C to copy the text to the clipboard. Place the text cursor in the My Text Body paragraph below the Carl Linnaeus heading. From the Menu Bar, select Edit, Paste Unformatted Text. Delete the blank paragraphs in the Linnaeus article. Importing Pictures The copy and paste trick works for pictures as well as text. Right click on the picture of Linnaeus in the Wikipedia article, and then select Copy Image from the context menu. Figure 7-10: Copying an image. Page 5 of 14

6 Lesson 7 - Creating a Newsletter Place the text cursor somewhere in the first paragraph of the Linnaeus article, then press Ctrl+V. This adds the picture, but it needs a bit of formatting. Double click on the Linnaeus picture in the newsletter. Select the Type TAB in the Image dialog box. Toggle the Keep ratio option ON in the Image dialog box. Set the Width to 1.25, then set the Horizontal Position to Right. Select the Wrap TAB in the Image dialog box. Set wrap to Before, and then set Spacing to 0.10 for Left, Right, Top, and Bottom. Select the Borders TAB in the Image dialog box. Set All Four Borders, then select Cast Shadow to Top Left. Select OK in the Image dialog box. Your newsletter should now look similar to Figure Press Ctrl+End to move the text cursor to the end of the document and press Enter. Set the paragraph style to Heading 1 and then enter Rudbeckia. Press Enter to add anew paragraph. Set the new paragraph to the My Text Body Paragraph style. Select the text Rudbeckia and press Ctrl+C to copy the text. Go to the Wikipedia web site, place the text cursor in the search box, and then press Ctrl+V and search for Rudbeckia. Highlight (or select) the paragraphs in the Rudbeckia article down to the word Ratibida and then press Ctrl+C to copy the text to the clipboard. Place the text cursor in the My Text Body Paragraph below the Rudbeckia heading. Page 6 of 14 Figure 7-11: Adding a picture. Figure 7-12: Adding a Rudbeckia picture.

7 Forward From the Menu Bar, select Edit, Paste Unformatted Text. This example shows what happens when you copy specially formatted text and paste it into your document. The text that was copied included text in a frame. In this example we will simply delete unwanted paragraphs. Delete the blank paragraphs in the Rudbeckia article including the paragraphs from the Contents box. OK, here is a quiz challenge for you. Copy and paste the rudbeckia picture into your newsletter. Make the image 2.0 inches wide. Next we will add a bit of highlighted text. Go to the last paragraph in the Rudbeckia article. Remember how to select a sentence? Select the first sentence in the last paragraph of the Rudbeckia article. Use the Highlight Color tool to set the highlight color to Light Yellow 4. OK, time for another challenge quiz. Do you remember how to change font case? In the last paragraph, select Olof Rudbeck. Change the case of the Olof Rudbeck to upper case. HINT: Use Format, Text. Make Olof Rudbeck Bold. Press Ctrl+C to copy the Olof Rudbeck text. Figure 7-13: Highlighting text. Press Ctrl+End and add a paragraph to the end of your text. Paste the Olof Rudbeck text into the last paragraph. Change Olof Rudbeck to the Heading 1 style. Press Enter to add a new paragraph and set the style to My Text Body Paragraph. Go to Wikipedia and paste Olof Rudbeck in the search box. Copy the first paragraph in the Rudbeck article and add it your newsletter. Page 7 of 14

8 Lesson 7 - Creating a Newsletter Next challenge. Copy and paste the Olof Rudbeck picture into the first paragraph of the Olof Rudbeck article. Set the picture width to 1.50, Position Right, wrap Before, 4 borders with 0.04 padding. Adding Captions Next, we will add a caption to the picture. Right click on the Olof Rudbeck picture. Select Insert Caption from the context menu. The Caption dialog box provides several Category text options to precede your caption. You can also enter your own In this example, we will select None. Select Category None Enter the text Olof Rudbeck, Len s 8th great uncle. Figure 7-14: Inserting a Caption. Captions have a default paragraph style, however, you can use any paragraph style, including custom styles for caption paragraphs. In the example shown, the caption text was selected and the font modified. Let s add another article to the newsletter. In the Olof Rudbeck article, select and copy Johannes Rudbeckius. Go to the end of the document and add a new Heading 1 paragraph for Johannes Figure 7-15: Picture with caption. Rudbeckius. Add a new My Text Body Paragraph below the Johannes Rudbeckius Heading 1 paragraph. Enter Johannes Rudbeckius in the Wikipedia search box. Copy the 5 paragraphs about Johannes Rudbeckius from Wikipedia and past them in your newsletter as unformatted text. Delete the blank paragraphs from the article. By now you can see how easy it is to copy text from an Internet article and add it to your own documents. Let s add another article to the newsletter so that we will have enough text to fill at least 3 pages. Page 8 of 14

9 Forward In the Wikipedia article about Johannes Rudbeckius, locate and select the name Alfred Nobel near the end of the article. (The name should be highlighted in blue.) This should open a Wikipedia article about Alfred Nobel. Follow the process used above to add a section about Alfred Nobel to your newsletter. Add a picture of Alfred. Next we will add an introductory paragraph followed by a Table of Contents for the document. Press Ctrl+Home to move the text cursor to the beginning of the document. Enter the words In This Issue and change the paragraph style to Heading 1. In the paragraph following In This Issue, enter the following text. This issue of Flower Power News focuses on the history of giving the Black Eyed Susan the scientific name Rudbeckia. You will learn about some of the historical characters who have influenced the field of botany. Inserting a Table of Contents Tables of contents are based on paragraph styles. The default style Heading 1 makes it easy to insert a Table of Contents to our document. Place the text cursor in the paragraph below the text entered in the previous step. From the Menu Bar, select Insert, Table of Contents and Index, Table of Contents, Index or Bibliography. Select the Type TAB in the Table of Contents dialog box and check to see the Title is Table of Contents. Select the Background TAB in the Table of Contents dialog box. Select Light Lime 4 as the Background Color. Select OK to close the Table of Contents dialog box. If you hover the mouse pointer over the Figure 7-16: Inserting a Table of Contents paragraphs in the Table of Contents, you can see the default paragraph style for each entry. It is possible to either modify the default paragraph styles, or to create custom paragraph styles for use in the Table of Contents. In this example, the default styles will be modified. Page 9 of 14

10 Lesson 7 - Creating a Newsletter Right click on the Table of Contents paragraph. From the context menu, select Styles, Edit style. In the Paragraph Style Contents Heading dialog box, select the Alignment TAB, select Center, then select OK. Right click on one of the contents listing paragraphs and from the context menu, select Styles, Edit style. In the Paragraph Style Contents 1 dialog box, select the Indents & Spacing TAB. Set the Indent, Before text to Set the Indent, After text to Select the Font TAB and set the font to Ariel, Bold, 11pt. Select OK to close the dialog box. Figure 7-17: Modifying a paragraph style. Your document should look similar to Figure If you make any changes to the text in your document, it might change what page the Heading 1 paragraphs are located. Before finalizing your document you should right click on the Table of Contents and select Update Index. Modifying Paragraph Styles In earlier lessons, you learned how to modify paragraph style by right clicking on the style in the Sidebar and selecting Modify. As you have seen in the Table of Contents example, you can also modify a paragraph style by right clicking on it in the body of the document and selecting Styles, Edit from the context menu. Let s use this trick to modify the header and footer paragraphs. Right click on the left page header paragraph. Figure 7-18: A modified Table of Contents. In the Paragraph Style My Left Header Paragraph dialog box, select the Indents & Spacing TAB. Set the Indent, First line text to Page 10 of 14

11 Forward Select the Borders TAB and select the Set Top and Bottom Borders Only option. Select the Area TAB, Bitmap option, and set the Bitmap to Sky. Then select OK. Repeat these settings for the My Right Header Paragraph style. You can also modify the footer paragraph styles if you like. Widows and Orphans In typesetting, widows and orphans are lines at the beginning or end of a paragraph, which are left dangling at the top or bottom of a column, separated from the rest of the paragraph. Most document designers do not like to see a page or column begin or end with a single line of text. LibreOffice Writer provides a way of controlling widows and orphans. There is also a way to control Hyphenation of words. Right click on a My Text Body Paragraph. In the Paragraph Style My Text Body Paragraph dialog box, select the Text Flow TAB. In the Options section, turn on the Orphan control, and Widow control options ON. Turn ON the Hyphenation, Automatically option. Select the Indents & Spacing TAB, and change the First line spacing to Then select OK. Now that we have dedicated this newsletter to botany, let s change the title. Changing The Document Title From the Menu Bar, select File, Properties. Change the title to Flower Power News. If you press Crtl+Home, you should see the new title in the first page header. We can use the Insert, Field tool to add this to the headers. Place the text cursor in the left page header. Select all of the text, then from the Menu Bar, select Insert, Field, Title. Place the text cursor after the title in the header, add a space, then select Insert, Field, Date. Double click on the date and select your preferred date format. Repeat this process for the right page header. By using the Insert, Fields trick, you can change all of the headers and footer text with a quick change of the Properties Title. Changing A Page Background One last experiment is to mess with the first page background. Page 11 of 14

12 Lesson 7 - Creating a Newsletter NOTE: If your computer does not have enough processor speed or RAM, adding a background graphic to a page may slow it down. Press Ctrl+Home to jump to the first page. From the Sidebar, select the Gallery tool. In the Gallery, select Backgrounds. Right click on sand-light and then select Insert as Background, Page. When you add a background to a page, it will look better if some space is added between the margin and the text. This can be done by modifying the paragraph styles. Right click on a My Text Body Paragraph. Select the Indents & Spacing TAB, and change the Before text and After text spacing to Then select OK. Right click on a Heading 1 Paragraph. Select the Indents & Spacing TAB, and change the Before text spacing to Figure 7-19: Inserting a page background image. Just in case the paragraph style changes moved things to different pages, the Table of Contents should be updated. You might also have to move some of the pictures around after chnging the paragraph style. When you move a captioned picture be sure to select the frame, not the image. In some cases you might have to add blank paragraphs to force picture frames to stay within the margins. Right click on the Table of Contents and select Update index. Be careful when adding background images to pages. I have see too many instances when clever designers get carried away with adding colorful styles to documents and making them hard to read. I have seen this in high quality magazines where the artistic page design interferes with text readability. I have been frustrated by brochures designed for seniors that use font color and background color combinations together with small font sizes that require seniors to use a magnifying glass to read the text. The point is that even tough LibreOffice Writer provides you with a variety of design options, you should keep your audience in mind and do not create documents that artists love, but that are not readable. One last trick to finish this lesson. Page 12 of 14 Figure 7-20: Inserting a current date field.

13 Forward Press Ctrl+End to place the text cursor at the end of the document. Enter This document was last edited and then from the Menu Bar select Insert, Field, Date. Double click on the date and select Date [rather than Date(fixed)]. Then select your preferred date format. To get an idea of how the entire newsletter will look, you can use the Page view and zoom tools. In the lower right corner of the LibreOffice Writer window, select the Book View option. Adjust the zoom until you can see the entire document layout. The Page and Paragraph styles you have created can be applied to any document where you would like to use the two column format. If you are creating similar documents, like newsletters, on a regular basis, LibreOffice Writer makes the job easier. To create a new addition of a newsletter, simply load an existing document, use File Save As to create a document with a new name, and delete all of the text. Now you can simply create words for the new version without the added effort of formatting the document. Exporting PDF Files Figure 7-21: The If you want to share documents with folks who do not have Book View. LibreOffice Writer, you should export a PDF file that you can attach to an , or share on a flash drive. Nearly everyone has Acrobat Reader, or some program that can open PDF files. To export a PDF file, select the Export as PDF tool on the Tool Bar. When the PDF file is opened, it will include quick click bookmarks from your Heading 1 paragraphs. Page 13 of 14

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