I need some explanation, please talk slowly :-)

Hi, I am familiar with Libre writer but I cannot figure out what I want to do which is to be able to write text in lines and columns and then preferably (but not critical) to remove the guide/grid leaving the text in neat lines and columns, if this can be done what would be the best Libra programme/tool to do this with, some instruction (without abbreviations) on how to proceed would also be most welcome, regards Robert

Do you want to write a text document in tabular form? Or are you trying to design a graphic document with text neatly aligned?

Your tags libre-writer(or short, writer, text component) and draw (graphic component) are confusing and somewhat contradictory.

Provide further details by editing your question (and perhaps retagging the question). Don’t use an answer which is reserved for solutions to the problem.

Hi, Sorry I am a little confused as when I tried to send my question some text appeared and said to append at least one word from a list of words, I appended Writer from the list because I am trying to do what I want with “writer” and then pressed send, nothing happened, so I just added draw from the list, I had no idea of its relevance, I just added it and it sent the question.

I am not sure what is tabular form but what I want to do is this

Headers > 09:30 / Route number / Arrives / 10:15 / time 045

Or > /Company / Ship / Date / Cabin / Notes /

And the relevant info typed below each entry in neat columns
Have I to send in this question again to another forum? Regards Robert

You have two options.

  • If your elements are guaranteed to be short, in other words a single word

You can design a special paragraph layout with tab stops (set from the ruler for example) and transform this paragraph arrangement into a style so that all lines share this layout.

Your elements are then separated with Tab characters.

However, this simple formatting is not fit for “comments” or “notes” because there is a high risk of overflowing on the next line and you won’t be aligned any longer.

  • If your elements are “long” text by themselves

Insert a table with Table>Insert>Table with the required number of columns. Don’t bother for the exact number of rows.

Each cell will behave like a sub-document, expanding the row height as necessary. All items in a row will always remain aligned and will never merge with data from other rows.

If you fall short of rows, put the cursor in the last position of the last cell and press Tab. A new row is added.

To show the community your question has been answered, click the ✓ next to the correct answer, and “upvote” by clicking on the ^ arrow of any helpful answers. These are the mechanisms for communicating the quality of the Q&A on this site. Thanks!

@Tyler4402: You requested, if possible, “… to remove the guide/grid leaving the text in neat lines and columns …”

When you insert a table as per ajlittoz’ instructions above, the preset table style is “Default” which will add a full grid to the table. scroll to to the top of the list of table styles and select “None” (or perhaps “No style” - I use a different language so I’m not sure about the exact wording). This will create a table without grid lines.

If you need to remove borders from an existing table, first move the insertion point (text cursor) inside the table. Then pick menu item Table - Properties…, click the Borders tab and then the leftmost presets icon, No borders, in the top left of the dialog.

You may still see grid lines in grey on screen. Those will not appear in printout or pdf-export. They only serve as guides when editing. In Writer you can toggle visibility for this grid with menu item View - Table boundaries

@keme: thanks for the precisions. I dislike so much the new table “styles” that I work without and forget that others may have a different work habit. The reason I dislike those is they aren’t styles as per Writer definition by mere templates (i.e. if you modify so-called styles, this has no effect on existing tables, contrary to “standard” styles).

Many thanks, problem solved, your instructions were great and I could follow them so I have saved them for reference kind regards Robert
Ps can’t find any tick to denote “Problem Solved” but I will click on the Green Up arrow

There is a “tick bullet” below the up/down arrows for the answer. You can click that to mark the answer as a working solution, which will also enable the “solved” state for your question.