OpenOffice.org OpenOffice - 3.3 User Manual download pdf (Page 212)

Example: Rotating the text in a paragraph style

As an example, we will apply rotated table headings to a pre-existing table.

1) Create a new paragraph style. Name it Table Heading Rotated.

2) On the Position page of the Paragraph Style dialog box, in the Rotation /

scaling section, select 90 degrees. Click OK to save the new style.

Figure 238: Rotating a paragraph 90 degrees

3) Select the heading row of the table and apply the new style. Any text in the

cells of the heading row is now rotated.

4) If the headings are aligned to the top of the cells, you may want to change the

alignment to the bottom of the cells, as shown in Figure 237. To do this, click

the Bottom button on the Table toolbar or select Format> Alignment >

Bottom from the main menu.

Spacing options

Use the Spacing section of the Position page to control the spacing between

individual characters in the paragraph. When selecting an option other than default

in the drop-down menu, use the edit box to enter the value in points by which you

want to expand or condense the text.

The Pair Kerning option (selected by

default) increases or decreases the amount

of space between certain pairs of letters to

improve the overall appearance of the text.

Kerning automatically adjusts the character

spacing for specific letter combinations.

Kerning is only available for certain font

types and, for printed documents, only

works if your printer supports it.

Controlling tab stops

Although borderless tables are generally considered a much better solution to space

out material across a page, in many situations tabs are sufficient to do what you

need, with the added advantages of being simpler to manage and quicker to apply.

Tip

If you need to use tabs, and you will be sending a document to other

people, do not use the default tab stops. If the recipients of the

document have defined default tab stops that are different from the

ones you are using, the paragraph may look very different on their

machines. Instead, define the tab stops explicitly in the paragraph or

the paragraph style; then you can be sure that everyone will see the

same layout.

To define tab stops in your paragraph style, use the page shown in Figure 240. Here

you can choose the type of tab: left, right, centered, or decimal; the character to be

used as a decimal point; and the fill character—the characters that appear between

the end of the text before the tab and the beginning of the text after the tab. You can

212 OpenOffice.org 3.3 Writer Guide

Figure 239: Kerning disabled (left) and

enabled (right).

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OpenOffice.org OpenOffice - 3.3 User Manual Page 212

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