Adding comments and graphics to a document

Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3.x

Chapter 4: Getting Started with Writer

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• The Writer interface
• Working with documents
• Working with text
• Formatting text
• Formatting pages
• Adding comments and graphics to a document
• Creating a table of contents, index, or bibliography
• Printing from Writer
• Sending a fax
• Tracking changes to a document
• Fields, mail merge, master documents, forms
• Linking to another part of a document

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Adding comments to a document

Authors and reviewers often use comments (formerly called “notes”) to exchange ideas, ask for suggestions, or mark items needing attention.

To insert a comment in the text, place the cursor in the text and select Insert > Comment or press Ctrl+Alt+N. The anchor point of the comment is connected by a dotted line to a box on the right-hand side of the page where you can type the text of the comment. OOo automatically adds at the bottom of the comment the name or initials of the author and a time stamp. Below is an example of text with comments from two different authors.

Example of comments

Select Tools > Options > User Data to configure the name you want to appear in the Author field of the comment, or to change it.

If more than one person edits the document, each author is automatically allocated a different background color.

Right-clicking on any comment pops up a menu where you can delete the current comment, all the comments from the same author, or all the comments in the document. From this menu, you can also apply some basic formatting to the text of the comments. You can also change the font type, size, and alignment from the main menu.

To navigate from one comment to another, open the Navigator (F5), expand the Comments section, and click on the comment text to move the cursor to the anchor point of the comment in the document. Right-click on the comment to quickly edit or delete it.

You can also navigate through the comments using the keyboard. Use Ctrl+Alt+Page Down to move to the next comment and Ctrl+Alt+Page Up to move to the previous comment.

Working with graphics

Graphics in Writer are of three basic types:

• Image files, including photos, drawings, scanned images, and others
• Diagrams created using OOo’s drawing tools
• Charts created using OOo’s Chart facility.

See Chapter 11 (Graphics, the Gallery, and Fontwork) in this book and Chapter 8 (Working with Graphics) in the Writer Guide.