I want to pull snippets or paragraphs from specific sections of my report and use them in the Exec. Summary at the beginning. I don’t want to have to remember to copy paste each section.
Can I create sections in the the summary that re-use paragraphs from other parts of the document?
I can’t find any really good references to this in the documentation, and there’s even less in the LO Books that talks about Sections.
Suggestions please. Thanks in advance.
Select the snippet, then click Insert > Bookmark. Give the bookmark a suitable name.
Repeat for each snippet, paragraph, etc.
To insert the text
Re-useTextElsewhere.odt (13.2 KB)
@EarnestAl gave the solution. I only want to comment about word “section”.
In Writer context, this word is ambiguous. The layman meaning is simply any portion of the document. But, this same word is used to name a technical feature.
The geometry of a page is defined in a page style and this configuration is applied to all pages under this style control. But you may wish to alter temporarily this “geometry”, mainly the number of columns, while retaining margins, header and footer unchanged. In this case you insert a section (the word then designates a special Writer object controlled by the feature). Text flow is slightly altered in a section: columns can be filled “in parallel” to balance uniformly text between them, or text spills over to next column at bottom of page. Choice between both strategies is yours.
Fantastic, that’s exactly what I was looking for. Thank you.
Understood. Thank you. And I think there’s significant power in using “Sections”, however, I’ve also come to learn that they can be complicated to apply if you don’t fully understand how they work with the page styles. I don’t plan to overuse these. But they come in handy for specific tasks, or on a bespoke document.
Don’t abuse the feature, as always. If they are not absolutely necessary, don’t use them. Whatever you add to your main text (tables, frames – including images --, sections, drawing objects, …) has an impact on the document structure. Keep it as simple as possible for reliability and stability. Note also that direct formatting puts a considerable stress on Writer; you might not notice it on small documents but it becomes more and more perceptible as the document grows. Consequently, styles are mandatory for non-expendable documents. And by styles, I mean all of them: paragraph, character, page, frame and list. Character styles are frequently neglected (because they don’t exist in M$ Word) but they are a key in formatting success. List styles are also disregarded (for the same reason) because an emulation of Word workflow is provided but this is a sin against reason (the feature in Word is a real mess and this mess is forwarded to Writer – unless you switch to list styles). I kept frame styles for the end: their concept is difficult to understand and mastering their configuration is super-expert skill. However they ensure predictability and stability in positioning your frames and images which can’t be achieved otherwise (which would end up in direct formatting).
I did not mention “table styles” because they are not styles but behave like a collection of macros which are fired under various circumstances (when you expect the least). If you’re satisfied with the layout and look designed by the “style” author, that’s fine. However, if you intend to customise your tables, stay far away from these table “styles” because “macro triggering” will erase/mask your customisations and add its layer of direct formatting.