Documentation/OOoAuthors User Manual/Writer Guide/Working with Text

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This is Chapter 3 of the OpenOffice.org 2.x Writer Guide (Third edition), produced by the OOoAuthors group. A PDF of this chapter is available from the OOoAuthors Guides page at OpenOffice.org.

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Introduction

This chapter covers the basics of working with text in Writer, the word-processing component of OpenOffice.org (OOo). It assumes that you are familiar with the use of a mouse and keyboard and that you have read about Writer's menus and toolbars and other topics covered in Chapter 1 (Introducing Writer).

We recommend that you also follow the suggestions in Chapter 2 (Setting up Writer), about displaying formatting aids such as end-of-paragraph marks and selecting other setup options.

When you have read this chapter, you should know how to:

• Select, cut, copy, paste, and move text
• Find and replace text
• Insert special characters
• Format paragraphs and characters
• Create numbered or bulleted lists
• Check spelling, use the thesaurus, and choose hyphenation options
• Use the autocorrection, word completion, autotext, and line numbering features
• Track changes and undo and redo changes

Selecting text

Before you can do anything with text, you need to select it. Selecting text in Writer is similar to selecting anything in other applications.

In addition to selecting blocks of text, you can select items that are not consecutive.

Selecting items that are not consecutive

To select nonconsecutive items (as shown in Figure 1) using the mouse:

1. Select the first piece of text.
2. Hold down the Control (Ctrl) key and use the mouse to select the next piece of text.
3. Repeat as often as needed.
4. Now you can work with the selected text (copy it, delete it, change the style, or whatever).

Note: Macintosh users: substitute the Command key when instructions in this chapter say to use the Control key.

To select nonconsecutive items using the keyboard:

1. Select the first piece of text. (For more information about keyboard selection of text, see the topic "Navigating and Selecting with the Keyboard" in the Help.)
2. Press Shift+F8. This puts Writer in "ADD" mode. The word ADD appears on the Status Bar.
3. Use the arrow keys to move to the start of the next piece of text to be selected. Hold down the Shift key and select the next piece of text.
4. Repeat as often as needed. Now you can work with the selected text.
5. Press Esc to exit from this mode.

Figure 1. Selecting items that are not next to each other.

Cutting, copying, and pasting text

Cutting and copying text in Writer is similar to cutting and copying text in other applications. After selecting text, you can use the mouse or the keyboard for these operations.

Cut: Use Edit > Cut or the keyboard shortcut Control+X or the Cut icon on the toolbar.

Copy: Use Edit > Copy or the keyboard shortcut Control+C or the Copy icon.

Paste: Use Edit > Paste or the keyboard shortcut Control+V or the Paste icon.

If you simply click on the Paste icon, any formatting the text has (such as bold or italics) is retained. To make the pasted text take on the formatting of the surrounding text where it is being pasted, click the triangle to the right of the Paste icon (or click the Paste icon without releasing the left mouse button) and select Unformatted text from the menu. See Figure 2.

Figure 2. Paste menu.

Moving paragraphs quickly

1. Put the cursor anywhere in the paragraph.
2. Press Control+Alt.
3. Holding the Control+Alt keys down, press the up-arrow or down-arrow key.

The paragraph will move to a new location either before the previous paragraph or after the next paragraph in your document. To move more than one paragraph at a time, select at least part of both paragraphs before pressing the Control+Alt+arrow keys.

If you are using Solaris, the key combination is Control+AltGr+arrow keys.

Tip: If your paragraphs suddenly jumped from one place to another, the most likely reason is that you have accidentally pressed one of these key combinations.

Finding and replacing text

Writer has a Find and Replace feature that automates the process of searching for text inside a document.

In addition to finding and replacing words and phrases, you can:

• Use wildcards and regular expressions to fine-tune a search.
• Find and replace specific formatting.
• Find and replace paragraph styles.

To display the Find & Replace dialog box, use the keyboard shortcut Control+F or select Edit > Find & Replace.

1. Type the text you want to find in the Search for box.
2. To replace the text with different text, type the new text in the Replace with box.
3. You can select various options, such as matching the case, matching whole words only, or doing a search for similar words. (See below for some other choices.)
4. When you have set up your search, click Find. To replace text, click Replace instead.

The Find & Replace dialog

Tip If you click Find All, Writer selects all instances of the search text in the document. Similarly, if you click Replace All button, Writer will replace all matches.

Caution: Use Replace All with caution; otherwise, you may end up with some hilarious (and highly embarrassing) mistakes. A mistake with Replace All might require a manual, word-by-word search to fix.

Use wildcards (regular expressions)

Wildcards (also known as regular expressions) are combinations of characters that instruct OOo how to search for something. Regular expressions are very powerful but not very intuitive. They can save time and effort by combining multiple finds into one.

Table 1 shows a few of the regular expressions used by OOo.

Tip: The online help describes many more regular expressions and their uses.

Note: To search for a character that is defined as a wildcard, type a backslash (\) before the character. For example, to find the text $5.00, you would search for \$5\.00.

To use wildcards and regular expressions when searching and replacing:

1. On the Find & Replace dialog box, click More Options to see more choices. On this expanded dialog box (Figure 4), select the Regular expressions checkbox.
2. Type the search text, including the wildcards, in the Search for box and the replacement text (if any) in the Replace with box. Not all regular expressions work as replacement characters; the line break (\n) is one that does work.
3. Click Find, Find All, Replace, or Replace All (not recommended).

Figure 4. Expanded Find & Replace dialog.

Table 1. Examples of search wildcards (regular expressions)

To find	Use this expression	Examples and comments
Any single character	.	b.d finds bad, bud, bid, and bed.
Any string of characters	.*	b.*d finds bad, brand, and board.
One of the specified characters	[xyz]	b[iu]n finds bin and bun.
Any single character in this range	[x-y]	[r-t]eed finds reed, seed, and teed; ranges must be in alphabetically ascending order.
Any single character except the characters inside the brackets	[^x]	p[^a]st finds post and pest, but not past.
The beginning of a word	\<start	\<log finds logbook and logistics, but not catalog.
The end of a word	end\>	log\> finds catalog, but not logistics.
A paragraph marker	$	Does not work as a replacement character. Use \n instead.
A line break	\n	Finds a line break that was inserted with Shift+Enter. When used as a replacement character, it inserts a paragraph marker.

Find and replace specific formatting

A very powerful use of Find & Replace takes advantage of the format option. For example, you might want to replace underlined words with italics.

On the Find & Replace dialog box (with More Options displayed, as in Figure 4):

1. To search for text with specific formatting, enter the text in the Search for box. To search for specific formatting only, delete any text in the Search for box.
2. Click Format to display the Text Format (Search) dialog box. The tabs on this dialog box are similar to those on the Paragraph format and Paragraph Style dialog boxes. Choose the formats you want to search for and then click OK. The names of selected formats appear under the Search for box. For example, you might search for all text in 14-point bold Helvetica.
3. To replace text, enter the replacement text in the Replace with box.
   To search for specific text with specific formatting (for example, the word hello in bold), specify the formatting, put the text in the Search for box and leave the Replace with box blank.
   To remove specific character formatting, click Format, select the Font tab, then select the opposite format (for example, No Bold). The No Format button on the Find & Replace dialog box clears all previously selected formats.
4. Click Find, Find All, Replace, or Replace All.

inline:Frame27.png

Tip: Unless you plan to search for other text using those same attributes, click No Format to remove the attributes after completing your search. If you forget to do this, you may wonder why your next search fails to find words you know are in the document.

Find and replace paragraph styles

If you combine material from several sources, you may discover that lots of unwanted paragraph styles have suddenly shown up in your document. To quickly change all the paragraphs of one (unwanted) style to another (preferred) style:

1. On the expanded Find & Replace dialog box (Figure 4), select Search for Styles. (If you have attributes specified, this checkbox is labeled Including Styles.) The 'Search for and Replace with boxes now contain a list of styles.
2. Select the styles you want to search for and replace.
3. Click Find, Find All, Replace, or Replace All.

Inserting special characters

A "special" character is one not found on a standard English keyboard. For example, © ¾ æ ç ñ ö ø ¢ are all special characters. To insert a special character:

1. Place the cursor in your document where you want the character to appear.
2. Click Insert > Special Character to open the Special Characters dialog box (Figure 5).
3. Select the characters (from any font or mixture of fonts) you wish to insert, in order; then click OK. The selected characters are shown in the lower left of the dialog box. As you select each character, it is shown on the lower right, along with the numerical code for that character.

Tip: Notice that the characters selected appear in the bottom-left corner of the dialog box.

Note: Different fonts include different special characters. If you do not find a particular special character you want, try changing the Font selection.

Figure 5. The Special Characters window.

Inserting dashes and non-breaking spaces

Non-breaking spaces

To prevent two words from being separated at the end of a line, press Control+spacebar after the first word.

Non-breaking hyphen

You can use a non-breaking hyphen in cases where you do not want the hyphen to appear at the end of a line. Examples of non-breaking hyphens are: in a range such as A‑Z or the hyphens in a telephone number, such as 123‑4567. To insert a non-breaking hyphen, press Shift+Control+minus sign.

En and em dashes

To enter en and em dashes, use the Replace dashes option under Tools > AutoCorrect > Options (Figure 11). This option replaces two hyphens, under certain conditions, with the corresponding dash.

Another means of inserting en or em dashes is through the Insert > Special Characters menu. Select the U+2013 or U+2014 character, respectively.

Formatting paragraphs

You can apply many formats to paragraphs using the buttons on the Formatting toolbar. Figure 6 shows the Formatting toolbar as a floating toolbar, customized to show only the buttons for paragraph formatting.

Tip: It is highly recommended that you use paragraph styles rather than manually formatting paragraphs, especially for long or standardized documents. For information on the advantages of styles and how to use them, see Chapter 6 (Introduction to Styles).

1 Open Styles and Formatting window	8 Line Spacing: 1.5
2 Apply Style	9 Line Spacing: 2
3 Align Left	10 Numbering On/Off
4 Centered	11 Bullets On/Off
5 Align Right	12 Decrease Indent
6 Justified	13 Increase Indent
7 Line Spacing: 1	14 Paragraph format dialog

Figure 6. The Formatting toolbar, showing buttons for paragraph formatting.

Figure 7 shows examples of the different alignment options.

Figure 7. Text alignment options.

Setting tab stops and indents

The horizontal ruler shows both the default tab stops and any that you have defined. To set the measurement unit and the spacing of default tab stops, go to Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer > General.

You can also set or change the measurement unit by right-clicking on the ruler to open a list of units, as shown in Figure 8. Click on one of them to change the ruler to that unit.

Figure 8. Ruler showing default tab stops.

Double-click on a part of the ruler that is not between the left and right indent icons to open the Indents & Spacing page of the Paragraph dialog box. Double-click anywhere between the left and right indent icons on the ruler itself to open the Tabs page of the Paragraph dialog box (Figure 9).

To fine-tune tab-stop settings, use the Tabs page of the Paragraph dialog box (Figure 9).

inline:Frame16.png

Formatting characters

You can apply many formats to characters using the buttons on the Formatting toolbar. Figure 10 shows the Formatting toolbar as a floating toolbar, customized to show only the buttons for character formatting.

Tip: It is highly recommended that you use character styles rather than manually formatting characters. For information on the advantages of styles and how to use them, see Chapter 6 (Introduction to Styles).

1 Open Styles and Formatting window	9 Subscript
2 Apply Style	10 Increase Font
3 Font Name	11 Reduce Font
4 Font Size	12 Font Color
5 Bold	13 Highlighting
6 Italic	14 Background Color
7 Underline	15 Open Character Format dialog
8 Superscript

Figure 10. The Formatting toolbar, showing buttons for character formatting.

Tip: To remove manual formatting, select the text and click Format > Default Formatting or right-click and select Default Formatting from the pop-up menu.

Autoformatting

Writer can be set to automatically format parts of a document according to the choices made on the Options page of the AutoCorrect dialog box (Tools > AutoCorrect > Options). See Figure 11.

The Help describes each of these choices and how to activate the autoformats. Some common unwanted or unexpected formatting changes include:

• Horizontal lines. If you type three or more hyphens (---), underscores (___) or equal signs (===) on a line and then press Enter the paragraph is replaced by a horizontal line as wide as the page. The line is actually the lower border of the preceding paragraph.
• Bulleted and numbered lists. A bulleted list is created when you type a hyphen (-), asterisk (*), or plus sign (+), followed by a space or tab at the beginning of a paragraph. A numbered list is created when you type a number followed by a period (.), followed by a space or tab at the beginning of a paragraph. Automatic numbering is only applied to paragraphs formatted with the Default, Text body or Text body indent paragraph styles.

Tip: If you notice unexpected formatting changes occurring in your document, this is the first place to look for the cause.

inline:Frame15.png

To turn autoformatting on or off, go to Format > AutoFormat (Figure 12) and select or deselect the items on the submenu.

• While Typing automatically formats the document while you type.
• If While Typing is deselected, you can select Apply to automatically format the file.
• Apply and Edit Changes automatically formats the file and then opens a dialog box where you can accept or reject the changes.

inline:Frame20.png

Creating numbered or bulleted lists

There are several ways to create numbered or bulleted lists:

• Use autoformatting, as described above.
• Use list styles, as described in Chapter 7 (Working with Styles).
• Use the Numbering and Bullets icons on the paragraph formatting toolbar (see Figure 6). This method is described here.

To produce a numbered or bulleted list, select the paragraphs in the list and then click on the appropriate icon on the toolbar.

Note: It is a matter of personal preference whether you type your information first, then apply Numbering/Bullets or apply these as you type.

Using the Bullets and Numbering toolbar

You can create a nested list (where one or more list items has a sublist under it, as in an outline) by using the buttons on the Bullets and Numbering toolbar (Figure 13). You can move items up or down the list, create subpoints, and even change the style of bullets.

1 Bullets On/Off	8 Insert Unnumbered Entry
2 Numbering On/Off	9 Move Up
3 Numbering Off	10 Move Down
4 Up One Level	11 Move Up with Subpoints
5 Down One Level	12 Move Down with Subpoints
6 Move Up (One Level) with Subpoints	13 Restart Numbering
7 Move Down (One Level) with Subpoints	14 Bullets and Numbering

Figure 13: Bullets and Numbering toolbar

Tip: It is possible to move a list entry up, together with all of its sub-entries. Do this by clicking the Promote One Level With Subpoints button.

Using footnotes and endnotes

Footnotes appear at the bottom of the page on which they are referenced. Endnotes are collected at the end of a document.

To work effectively with footnotes and endnotes, you need to:

• Insert footnotes.
• Define the format of footnotes.
• Define the location of footnotes on the page; see Chapter 4 (Formatting Pages).

Inserting footnotes/endnotes

To insert a footnote or an endnote, put the cursor where you want the footnote/endnote marker to appear. Then select Insert > Footnote from the menu bar or click the Insert Footnote Directly or Insert Endnote Directly icon on the Insert toolbar (see Figure 14).

inline:Frame14.png

A footnote (or endnote) marker is inserted in the text, and the cursor is relocated to the footnote area at the bottom of the page (or to the endnote area at the end of the document). Type the footnote or endnote content in this area.

If you use Insert > Footnote, the Insert Footnote dialog box (Figure 15) is displayed. Here you can choose whether to use the automatic numbering sequence specified in the footnote settings and whether to insert the item as a footnote or an endnote.

inline:Frame13.png

If you use the Insert Footnote Directly or Insert Endnote Directly icon, the footnote or endnote automatically takes on the attributes previously defined in the Footnote Settings dialog box (Figure 16).

You can edit an existing footnote/endnote the same way you edit any other text.

To delete a footnote/endnote, delete the footnote marker. The contents of the footnote/endnote are deleted automatically, and the numbering of other footnotes or endnotes is adjusted automatically.

Defining the format of footnotes/endnotes

To format the footnotes themselves, click Tools > Footnotes. On the Footnote Settings dialog box (Figure 16), choose settings as required. The Endnotes page has similar choices.

inline:Frame21.png

Checking spelling

Writer provides a spelling checker, which can be used in two ways.

AutoSpellcheck checks each word as it is typed and displays a wavy red line under any misspelled words. Once the word is corrected, the red wavy line disappears.

To perform a separate spellcheck on the document (or a text selection) click the Spellcheck button. This checks the document or selection and opens the Spellcheck dialog box (Figure 17) if any misspelled words are found.

Here are some more features of the spelling checker:

• You can right-click on a word with a wavy underline, to open a powerful context menu. If you select from the suggested words on the menu, the selection will replace the misspelled word in your text. Other menu options are discussed below.
• You can change the dictionary language (for example, Spanish, French, or German) on the Spellcheck dialog box.
• You can add a word to a dictionary. Click Add in the Spellcheck dialog box and pick the dictionary to add it to.
• The Options dialog box of the Spellcheck tool has a number of different options such as whether to check uppercase words and words with numbers. It also allows you to manage custom dictionaries, that is, add or delete dictionaries and add or delete words in a dictionary.
• On the Font page of the Paragraph Styles dialog box, you can set paragraphs to be spell-checked in a specific language (different from the rest of the document). See Chapter 7 (Working with Styles) for more information.

inline:Frame22.png

Using the thesaurus

The thesaurus offers alternative words and phrases. Select the word or phrase you want to find alternatives for and select Tools > Language > Thesaurus or press Control+F7. Click on a meaning to show alternative words and phrases for that meaning of the word. For example, when given the word “house", the thesaurus offers several meanings, including “dwelling", “legislature", and “sign of the zodiac". If you click on “dwelling", you will see “dwelling", “home", “domicile", “abode", and other alternatives, as shown in Figure 18.

Note

If the current language does not have a thesaurus installed, this feature is disabled.

inline:Frame26.png

Hyphenating words

To turn automatic hyphenation of words on or off:

1. Press F11 to open the Styles and Formatting window (Figure 19).
2. On the Paragraph Styles page of the Styles and Formatting window, right-click on Default and select Modify.
3. On the Paragraph Style dialog box, select the Text Flow tab (Figure 20).
4. Under Hyphenation, select or deselect the Automatically checkbox.
5. Click OK to save.

Note: Turning on hyphenation for the Default paragraph style affects all other paragraph styles that are based on Default. You can individually change other styles so that hyphenation is not active; for example, you might not want headings to be hyphenated. Any styles that are not based on Default are not affected. For more on paragraph styles, see Chapter 6 (Introduction to Styles) and Chapter 7 (Working with Styles).

Figure 19. Modifying a style.

Figure 20. Turning on automatic hyphenation.

You can also set hyphenation choices through Tools > Options > Language Settings > Writing Aids. In Options, near the bottom of the dialog box, scroll down to find the hyphenation settings (see Figure 21).

Figure 21. Setting hyphenation options.

To change the minimal number of characters for hyphenation, the minimum number of characters before a line break, or the minimum number of characters after a line break, select the item, and then click Edit.

Hyphenate without inquiry specifies that you will never be asked to manually hyphenate words that the hyphenation dictionary does not recognize. If this box is not selected, when a word is not recognized, a dialog box will open where you can manually enter hyphens.

Hyphenate special regions specifies that hyphenation will also be carried out in footnotes, headers, and footers.

Notes: Hyphenation options set on the Writing Aids dialog box are effective only if hyphenation is turned on through paragraph styles.
Choices on the Writing Aids dialog box for "characters before line break" and "characters after line break" override settings in paragraph styles for "characters at line end" and "characters at line begin". This is a bug.

To enter a conditional hyphen inside a word, press Control+minus sign. The word is hyphenated at this position when it is at the end of the line, even if automatic hyphenation for this paragraph is switched off.

Using AutoCorrect

Writer's AutoCorrect function has a long list of common misspellings and typing errors, which it corrects automatically. For example, “hte" will be changed to “the". Select Tools > AutoCorrect to open the AutoCorrect dialog box. There you can define what strings of text are corrected and how. In most cases, the defaults are fine.

Tip: AutoCorrect is automatically turned on. To turn it off, uncheck Format > AutoFormat > While Typing.

• To stop Writer replacing a specific spelling, use Tools > AutoCorrect > Replace, highlight the word pair and click Delete.
• To add a new spelling to correct, type it into the Replace and With boxes and click New.
• See the different pages of the dialog box for the wide variety of other options available to fine-tune AutoCorrect.

Tip: AutoCorrect can be used as a quick way to insert special characters. For example, (c) will be autocorrected to ©. You can add your own special characters.

Using word completion

If Word Completion is enabled, Writer tries to guess which word you are typing and offers to complete this word for you. To accept the suggestion, press Enter. Otherwise, continue typing.

Tip: Many people prefer not to use Word Completion. If you do not want to use it, select Tools > AutoCorrect > Word Completion and uncheck Enable word completion.

You can customize word completion from the Tools > AutoCorrect > Word Completion page (Figure 22):

• Add (append) a space automatically after an accepted word.
• Show the suggested word as a tip (hovering over the word) rather than completing the text as you type.
• Change the maximum number of words remembered for word completion and the length of the smallest words to be remembered.
• Delete specific entries from the word completion list.
• Change the key that accepts a suggested entry—the options are right arrow, End key, Return (Enter), Space bar, and Tab.

Note: Automatic word completion only occurs after you type a word for the second time in a document.

inline:Frame18.png

Using AutoText

AutoText allows you to assign text, tables, graphics, and other items to a key combination. For example, rather than typing out “Senior Management", you just have to type “sm" and press F3. Or you can save a formatted Tip (like the one on the next page) as AutoText and then inserting a copy by typing “tip" and pressing F3.

To insert AutoText, type the shortcut and press F3.

To assign some text to an AutoText shortcut:

1. Type the text into your document.
2. Select the text.
3. Go to Edit > AutoText (or press Control+F3).
4. Enter a name for your shortcut. Writer will suggest a one-letter shortcut, which you can change.
5. Click the AutoText button on the right of the AutoText dialog box and select New (text only) from the menu.
6. Click Close to return to your document.

Tip: If the only option under the AutoText button is Import, either you have not entered a name for your AutoText or there is no text selected in the document.

AutoText is especially powerful when assigned to fields. See Chapter 14 (Working with Fields) for more information.

Line numbering

Line numbering puts line numbers in the margin. The line numbers are displayed on screen and are printed. The example below has numbering on every line.

Line numbering example.

Click Tools > Line Numbering and select the Show numbering checkbox in the top left corner. Then click OK.

You can choose how many lines are numbered (for example, every line or every tenth line), the numbering type and whether numbers restart on each page. In addition, a text separator (any text you choose) can be set on a different numbering scheme (one every 12 lines, for example).

Line numbering dialog.

Undoing and redoing changes

To undo the most recent change, press Control+Z, click the Undo icon on the Standard toolbar, or select Edit > Undo from the menu bar.

The Edit menu shows the latest change that can be undone, as shown in Figure 25.

Figure 25. Edit > Undo last action.

Click the small triangle to the right of the Undo icon to get a list of all the changes that can be undone (Figure 26). You can select multiple changes and undo them at the same time.

Figure 26. List of actions that can be undone.

After changes have been undone, Redo becomes active. To redo a change, select Edit > Redo, or press Control+Y or click on the Redo icon . As with Undo, click on the triangle to the right of the arrow to get a list of the changes that can be reapplied.

To modify the number of changes OpenOffice.org remembers, select Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Memory and change Undo: Number of steps. Be aware that asking OOo to remember more changes makes it consume more memory.

Tracking changes to a document

You can use several methods to keep track of changes made to a document.

• Make your changes to a copy of the document (stored in a different folder, under a different name, or both), then use Writer to combine the two files and show the changes you made. Click Edit > Compare Document. This technique is particularly useful if you are the only person working on the document, as it avoids the increase in file size and complexity caused by the other methods.
• Save versions that are stored as part of the original file. However, this method can cause problems with documents of nontrivial size or complexity, especially if you save a lot of versions. Avoid this method if you can.
• Use Writer's change marks (often called "redlines" or "revision marks") to show where you have added or deleted material or changed formatting. Later, you or another person can review and accept or reject each change.

Tip: Not all changes are recorded. For example, changing a tab stop from align left to align right and changes in formulas (equations) or linked graphics are not recorded.

Preparing a document for review

When you send a document to someone else to review or edit, you may want to prepare it first so that the editor or reviewer does not have to remember to turn on the revision marks. After you have protected the document, any user must enter the correct password in order to turn off the function or accept or reject changes.

1. Open the document. To check whether it contains multiple versions, click File > Versions. If multiple versions are listed, save the current version as a separate document with a different name and use this new document as the review copy.
2. With the review copy open, make sure that change recording is turned on. The Edit > Changes > Record menu item has a check mark next to it when recording is turned on.
3. Click Edit > Changes > Protect Records. On the Enter Password dialog box, type a password (twice) and click OK.

Note: Passwords must contain at least five characters. It is not necessary to password protect the document while preparing it for review.

Recording changes

See Chapter 2 (Setting up Writer) for instructions on setting up how your changes will be displayed.

1. To begin tracking (recording) changes, click Edit > Changes > Record. To show or hide the display of changes, click Edit > Changes > Show.
2. To enter a comment on a marked change, place the cursor in the area of the change and then click Edit > Changes > Comment. In addition to being displayed as an extended tip, the comment is also displayed in the list in the Accept or Reject Changes dialog box. To move from one marked change to the next, use the arrow buttons. If no comment has been recorded for a change, the Text field is blank.
3. To stop recording changes, click Edit > Changes > Record again.

Tip: Hold the mouse pointer over a marked change; you will see a Help Tip showing the type of change, the author, date, and time of day for the change. If Extended Tips are enabled, you will also see any comments recorded for this change.

Inserting a comment during change recording.

Inserting notes

To insert a note that is not associated with a recorded change:

1. Place the cursor at the text you want to comment on, then click Insert > Note.
2. On the Insert Note dialog box, type your note. Click the Author button to insert your initials and the date and time.

Inserting a note.

To view a note, move the mouse pointer over the note marker (displayed as a small yellow rectangle). Writer displays the note in a Tip above the text. You can also double-click on the note to see it inside the Edit Note dialog box. If you have trouble viewing or selecting notes this way, you can use the Navigator instead: expand the list of notes, select the one you want, right-click on it, select Note, and then select Edit to display the Edit Note dialog box.

The Edit Note dialog box looks much like the Insert Note dialog box, with the addition of forward and back arrow buttons if the document contains more than one note.

Tip: You can change the color of the note marker using the Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Appearance dialog box. (In the Text Document section, look for Note Indicator.)

Accepting or rejecting changes and comments

1. Click Edit > Changes > Accept or Reject. The Accept or Reject Changes dialog box opens.
2. When you select a change in the dialog box, the actual change is highlighted in the document, so you can see what the editor changed.
3. Click Accept or Reject to accept or reject the selected change. You can also click Accept All or Reject All if you do not want to review the changes individually.

The List tab of the Accept or Reject Changes dialog.

Changes that have not yet been accepted or rejected are displayed in the list. Accepted changes are removed from the list and appear in the text without any marking.

To show only the changes of certain people or only the changes on specific days or various other restrictions, use the Filter page on the Accept or Reject Changes dialog box. After specifying the filter criteria, return to the List page to see those changes that meet your criteria.

The Filter tab of the Accept or Reject Changes dialog.

Merging modified documents

The processes discussed to this point are effective when you have one reviewer at a time. Sometimes, however, multiple reviewers all return edited versions of a document at the same time. In this case, it may be quicker to review all of these changes at once, rather than one review at a time. For this purpose, you can merge documents in Writer.

To merge documents, all of the edited documents need to have recorded changes in them.

1. Open one copy.
2. Click Edit > Changes > Merge Document and select and insert another copy of the document to be merged with the first.
3. After the documents merge, the Accept or Reject Changes dialog box opens, showing changes by more than one reviewer. If you want to merge more documents, close the dialog box and then repeat step 2.
4. Repeat until all copies are merged.

All recorded changes are now included in the open copy. Save this file under another name.

Comparing documents

Sometimes reviewers may forget to record the changes they make. This is not a problem with Writer because you can find the changes if you compare documents.

In order to compare documents, you need to have the original document and the one that is edited. To compare them:

1. Open the edited document.
2. Select Edit > Compare Document.
3. The Insert dialog box appears. Select the original document and click Insert.

Writer finds and marks the changes and displays the Accept or Reject Changes dialog box. From this point, you can go through and accept or reject changes procedure as described earlier.

Tips and tricks

Switching between insert and overwrite mode

With the keyboard, press Insert to toggle between overwrite mode and insert mode. In insert mode, any text after the cursor position moves forward to make room for the text you type; in overwrite mode, text after the cursor position is replaced by the text you type. The current mode is displayed on the Status Bar.

With the mouse, click in the area on the Status Bar that indicates the current mode in order to switch to the other mode.

Counting the words in a selection

Select a block of text and choose Tools > Word Count. OOo displays the number of words and characters in the selection as well as the number of words in the document. You can also see the number of words and characters (and other information) in the entire document in File > Properties > Statistics.