How to center text in a grid

English
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#1

I work at a theatre and I have to change the marquee every week. I have to do it by hand since it’s not electronic. I go up on a ladder and change it. I have to do all the centering by counting out the letters and placing them. Is there a way to have LibreOffice do the entering for me automatically? I also want it to highlight the center point. As shown in the attached photo. Or even if a window pops up saying the center letters are:

First row: Y
Second row L Y

Or something similar. It’s mainly getting the center (we don’t include spaces since they fluctuate in size depending on how it looks when I get off the ladder).

Any help would be great since this would take out about 10 or 20 minutes each week.

image
image1289×425 27.7 KB

(Hopefully, the image works if not then I’ll edit the post or replay it)

Edit: The photo worked. The theater is a small business theatre so it’s just me doing it and the owner approves the look of it (I also have other jobs to do at the theatre so any time saved would be helpful)

Edit 2: Thank you all for your help. I will probably end up putting this on my phone. Since most of the time I don’t bring my laptop to the theatre (I could also remote into my desktop at home)

#2

I count 43 squares which would make the centre between the Y of Comedy and the space.
These are effectively monospaced fonts if they fit a grid so use a monospaced font at a size that will fit 43 characters across the page and make the two paragraphs centred.
Try this, there will be a little adjustment required if there are an even number of characters
MonospacedFont43Characters.odt (14.4 KB)

#4

Yeah, this looks like this could work. Just we might have more than 43 characters. But I think at that point we need to cut out some words. Is it possible to have cell 22 continue down a bit? Like to cover the last paragraph? So I don’t have to eyeball it?

Thanks for your help.

#7

A spreadsheet approach:
AskLO_79475.ods (20.8 KB) (version 4)
Enter your text on the first sheet “Input”.
Watch results on sheet “Result”. On that sheet there are 2 more yellow input cells for adjustment to the left and right by entering negative or positive numbers.
Use the filter buttons on sheet “Char List” to hide rows with zero.
Use the print preview of this document for a clearer view on the result.
Print to PDF for a print-out that can be viewed on any device such as smart phones.

#9

Is it possible to put in what is up there now like “Happy 4th Of July” and have it calculate what stays up and what comes down? I.E. All of July would stay up so remove 1 letter from J, U, L, Y. The O from the word of can stay so remove 1 from O, TH from 4th so remove 1 from T, H, etc. And have it tell me what comes down I.E. the H, A, P, P from Happy comes down, etc. Obviously, this is an old example and doesn’t have as many characters as we would normally have up for a show. But it works since it’s small and was actually up there. Let me know if this is possible. (I have also listed my Windows version and LibreOffice version if you need it).

Edit: I also need to know where the center is since that’s where I start and work my way right then left starting from the center. Sorry to be a pain I just don’t know how to do it.

Edit 2: I fixed some spelling and grammar. Also, this seems to be the best idea so far than the one by aijittoz with draw

#11

I tried it out with what I changed yesterday and I don’t know if I broke it or what but. More letters should be green. All of Friday and July should be highlighted. Could you add a center point please. But other than those two things it looks perfect. Thanks again.

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image1920×1080 171 KB

#12

Should be possible somehow. Not yet. I found an error in my hasty conditional formatting. The highlighting works now with https://ask.libreoffice.org/uploads/short-url/67v6ilGZu6CUVa3JdjQ3W14iw2Z.ods (version 3) if (and only if) the letters are at the exact same positions. It will not match FRIDAY or JULY at any other position.

#13

Ok. Do you know when this will be fixed? Or does this work in a previous version?

Edit: Do the letters I need to pick work regardless?

Edit 2: The highlighting is a convenient feature but not really required. the main things is the letters I need to pick. Could the color of the text change from black to let’s say red or green?

#15

https://ask.libreoffice.org/uploads/short-url/8cjJeeFAc8Onp5beyDUiFXFzVPG.ods is my last offer on this. I spent another hour to get this more user friendly. Open the file and follow the instructions in the yellow text boxes.

AskLO_79475.pdf (27.4 KB) is a print-out to PDF which can be viewed on any device.

2 Likes
#16

Sorry. I didn’t mean to be a pain. But thank you for your help.

#17

Sorry for being rude. It was late in the evening here and I got angry about myself. In the end I do this voluntarily.
You are welcome.

#18

It’s ok. I get it. But I really appreciate your help. I found that V4 works the best. Since it auto hides letters. When there is a negative number what does that mean? Is it just an error?

#19

When I enter a negative number into a yellow cell on the result sheet, I move the respective line to the left.
-4 moves the line 4 characters from the calculated center to the left.
4 moves the line 4 characters from the calculated center to the right.
0 or empty cell has no effect.

This is yesterday’s version 4 with 4 negative offsets:
AskLO_79475(1).ods (20.3 KB)
I don’t see any error.

#3

IMHO, Writer is not the best tool for that.

Use Draw and a text box (with centered text). In the attached sample file, I created a rectangular text box with monospaced centered text. I also drew a vertical line in the center of the sheet and text box to represented the central axis.

I just need to type my text inside the box (triple-click to select the existing one and replace it) and I visually see where the vertical axis splits text.

AskLO-centeredText.odg (10.4 KB)

When you change the markee (I assume you have big individual letters), start from the center which is probably tagged on the bilboard.

#5

Yeah this looks like what I want. Thanks. I also want to be able to have it tell me what letters I need to get from storage and what letters to take down (this is complex and would probably require some code (something that I don’t feel comfortable doing)).

#6

You didn’t mention your OS name (nor LO version). If you have access to some bash-like utility, the following command will give you the letters to extract from storage:

grep -o . <<<"comedy night friday july 8th 730pm" | sort | uniq -c

Result is:

      5  
      1 0
      1 3
      1 7
      1 8
      1 a
      1 c
      2 d
      1 e
      1 f
      1 g
      2 h
      2 i
      1 j
      1 l
      2 m
      1 n
      1 o
      1 p
      1 r
      2 t
      1 u
      3 y


Ignore the count for space (or type your text without spaces).

#8

Oh sorry, I didn’t mean for it to actually happen. I am running Windows 10 Home 64-bit (20H2). LibreOffice version 7.3.4.2 (x64)

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