I have a list of items in my document. I would like to create columns whereby the narrow list has a parallel wider column of comments on each item. I would like these two columns to wrap the page until full and then continue into the next page, and so on.
How can I do this, and still keep each comment parallel with the item even if the comment takes more lines?
You can use tables or frames or you work with Calc.
How would one accomplish that in those ways?
If you are a beginner, you should start with the basics.
Creating a table in Writer
Frame in Writer
Layout in Writer
English documentation
I am an advanced user of word processors, but do not know how to do these things in Writer.
Your specification is not very clear to me.
Do you mean that the overall “composite object” (= name in narrow column + comment in wide column) is rather narrow and, in order to spare space, you think you can layout your page in two “newspaper” columns?
If so, you best option is to change the page layout.
Depending on how your list is sync’ed with page breaks, you have two possibilities:
Insert>More Breaks>Manual Break to switch to the specific 2-column page style.Insert>Section to modify the current page layout. Click after the section boundary to continu your text after the list.View>Text Boundaries to have visual clues of the extent of the various parts of your document.
Insert your table in a page/section column. It will be limited to the column width.
Make sure it is allowed to split across pages in Table>Properties, Text Flow tab. You can also request that the heading row(s) be repeated at top of every section/page column.
No, not newspaper columns. I need the two associated columns to be parallel. However, I need the two parallel columns together to become a single run of newspaper columns which automatically fit and pour thru the page width as possible.
It would therefore become one “style” or format within another.
Do your instructions apply here?
By the way, I tried a four column layout but could not separate the two pairs in the manner I desired.
Follow my instructions. The 4-column table is not the way to go because your data is 2-column. Use a 2-column table in a 2-column page or section. You’ll get what you are looking for.
The page or section is where the “newspaper flow” occurs. Your 2-column table offers you the parallel synchronised cells. Think of this design as 2-layered: one layer for your table, unaltered; one “supra-layer” to split your table into visual side-by-side “sub-table”.
So you’re saying to create the columns in the page and then create a table in one of the columns?
Yes. And you don’t “create a table in one of the columns” because you can’t choose the column (they are logically a same and unique flow, tarting from top left of left column continuous down to bottom right of right column). Just as if the page was reduced to half its width (like you put two A4 pages into an A3 sheet) with a fold in the center.
If your list starts after some text already in the page, use a section to temporarily change the number of page columns and leave the section to continue your text.
What do you mean by the use of the word “section”?
A page is some part of your document delimited by page breaks. Its layout is described by a page style which necessarily becomes active after a page break, potentially leaving a large empty space in the previous page.
A section is a part of a page (may span several contiguous pages) with its own layout. Consider it as a kind of “sub-page”. Being part of a page, it can’t change page margins, nor header/footer. The difference with a page is it can start anywhere, immediately after a paragraph break without causing a page break. Its contents therefore appears in continuity with the previous one.
Thank you both.
I checked out the link and found this interesting paragraph:
Sections and Columns
You can insert sections into an existing section. For example, you can insert a section containing two columns into a section that contains one column.
A section layout, for example on the number of columns, has priority over the page layout defined in a page style.
I believe this is what was described before. I need to get my head around that concept.
Okay, it looks like the problem has been solved. Because of the odd way it worked, it took awhile to understand and visualize the way of doing things before the steps made any sense.
There are a lot of steps to accomplish the creation of the document format desired. I also found that one must be very careful to follow the steps in the specific order and in the very particular places described.
For instance, one cannot just create a list in a column.
What might have helped is this across newspaper columns:
Parallel columns with block protect
Parallel columns with block protect keep each row of columns together. If a column in one row becomes so long that it moves across a page break, the entire row moves to the next page.
This is an example of parallel columns with block protect.
What you show is probably done with a table.
If this behaviour is not desirable, i.e. you only want the excess of one cell on the next page, avoiding a large gap at bottom of page, enable Allow row to break across pages and columns in Text Flow table properties.
