LO Writer 24.2.7.2 Ubuntu
This document has been converted online from the original PDF, firstly to .doc then opened and converted to .odt in Writer.
As expected the formatting is not perfect (neither was the formatting of the original pdf!).
Is there any way I can change the formatting of the section headers (the ones with white on black)
And how are the columns formatted?
PS the document is not copyrighted and I am editing it for my own use).
Olachan_0002.odt (59.8 KB)
The conversion tool produced a bad-structured document.
It created sections where obviously you needed tables (bi-lingual dictionary if I guess correctly), where you can vertically “synchronise” terms between the columns.
It used Text boxes (drawing objects, not text) for your white-on-black “headings”. This may be valid under Word but wrong under Writer because it prevents you from styling nicely the corresponding text.
The tool also erroneously decided to style Heading n paragraph which are not headings. And, worst, direct formatting appeared nearly everywhere.
And, every page ended up as a style of its own with hard page breaks in between. Consequently your text does not flow smoothly from one page to the next but is jailed inside one (with the unfriendly effect of creating a new nearly empty page if you extend text and it overflows).
My best advice is: restart from scratch by pasting unformatted text into a new document. This should be easy now that you have useable text already collected in paragraphs (instead of simple lines as would be in a PDF).
Thanks. I tried several conversion tools, most of which were even worse!
Yes I will probably have to restart from scratch, but first there may some things I can do to make it easier.
For example the text boxes you mention cannot be selected like you can an ordinary text box and transfer over when I paste into a new document. After much clicking I found that they can be selected and deleted by using >Form >Design.
I’m also pasting the paragraphs into tables, as they seem easier to line up than in column mode.
I have never used Forms before, and they seem to be useful.
This is not a solution to initial question and should have been posted as Comment.
Form Design is intended to create fillable form, not a sequential-reading document. But text boxes can also be created in usual document for “spot” decoration. Don’t try to copy/paste them because you’ll keep the idiosyncrasy. Instead, select the text itself and transfer it.
Text boxes can be deleted more simply: select them (resizing handles appear all around) and press Del.