Formatting Text

Apache OpenOffice 4.1 Impress Guide

Chapter 6: Formatting Graphic Objects

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• Formatting Objects
• Formatting Lines
  • General Line Settings
  • Creating Line Styles
  • Creating Arrow Styles
  • Line Shadow
• Formatting the Fill Area
  • Uniform Color
  • Fill with a Gradient
  • Fill with a Line Pattern (Hatching)
  • Fill with an Image
  • Using the Area Dialog
• Creating New Area Fills
  • Adding Custom Colors
  • Creating Gradients
  • Creating Hatching Patterns
  • Working with Bitmap Fills
    • Creating and Importing Bitmaps
  • Formatting Shadows
  • Transparency Formatting
  • Advanced Gradient Controls
• Formatting Text
  • Text Animation
• Formatting Connectors
• Working with Graphics Styles
  • Linked Graphic Styles
  • Creating Graphics Styles
    • Creating a New Graphic Style Using the Style Dialog
    • Creating a New Graphics Style from a Selection
  • Modifying a Graphics Style
    • Updating a Graphic Style from a Selection
  • Applying Graphics Styles
  • Deleting Graphics Styles
  • Assigning Styles to Shortcut Keys

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Formatting Text

Impress provides two dialog boxes related to text formatting: Format → Character and Format → Text.

To modify formatting such as font and font effects, select the text in the shape and then go to Format → Character. For more information, see Chapter 3 (Adding and Formatting Text). This section covers the formatting of the overall shape of text, which is added to a line or a shape.

To add text to an object (a shape or a line):

1. Select the object to which text will be added.
2. With the green resizing handles showing, double-click on the object and wait for the cursor to become an I-beam, or just start typing.
3. Type the text. When finished, click somewhere outside the object or press  Esc .

To format the text in a shape:

1. Select the object to which text was added.
2. Select Format → Text or right-click on the shape and select Text from the pop-up menu. The Text dialog is displayed.

The top section of the Text tab, shown in Figure 118, offers several options in the form of checkboxes. Some of the options will be grayed out, depending on the object to which the text will be attached.

• Select Fit width to text to expand the width of the shape or line if the text is too long for it.
• Select Word wrap text in shape to start a new line automatically when the edge of the shape is reached.
• Select Fit height to text to expand the object height whenever it is smaller than the text (set by default for lines).
• Select Resize shape to fit text to expand a custom shape when the text inserted in the shape is too large.
• Select Fit to frame to expand the text so that it fills all the available space.
• Select Adjust to contour to make the text follow a curved line.

Figure 118: Main dialog to set the text properties

In the Spacing to borders section, specify the amount of space to be left between the border of the shape or line and the text. This is similar to the settings for indentation and spacing for paragraphs.

The text anchor grid in the bottom right corner of the dialog is used to decide where to anchor the text. The Full width option determines if the anchoring should be applied to the full width of the shape.