I am a lawyer and avid WordPerfect user (although I also have Word). Many of my documents have “pleading paper” with numbers on the left side and a vertical line on the right. WordPerfect no longer works after I upgraded to Windows 11 for ARM (I use a Mac with M1 processor). At the recommendation of Word Perfect tech support, I downloaded LibreOffice, but when I open my legal docs, it opens the file just great, but no “pleading paper.” Is there a setting or way to import the legal document with the pleading paper intact?
Please name the LibreOffice version you are using and upload an anonymized sample file here. Thank you. And from this sample file, create another PDF file and upload it here as well.
Alternatively, upload the sample file and the PDF file to a cloud and share the link here. Thank you.
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Im using LibreOffice 7.6.03. I am running MacOS Ventura 13.5.1 on a MacBook Air with the M1 processor.
Attached is the file as opened by LibreOffice
Castle Creek Properties, Inc.- Strike Memo.pdf (179.9 KB)
and a PDF of the ODT file.
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Oh sorry, the original file from WordPerfect and a PDF of it is needed, thanks.
Unfortunately, I cannot upload the original WPD file as it is greyed out. If you have any suggestion on how to do that, I’ll do it right away! Here is the PDF of the original WPD file.
Cheat on AskLO site engine: add an .odt or .pdf extension at the end of this original file name, keeping the .wpd extension (or whatever it is).
The hack would not work. the file stayed greyed out.
I had a look at your sample file. It ends up entirely direct formatted. This may be the result of the translation from WP format or your WP original already does not make use of WP abstract primitives such as LO styles.
I see you have PMx page styles, nearly one per page. This also could be an artefact of the conversion.
As it is you’ll have huge difficulties to tidy up your documents and give them some structure facilitating your future updates.
Regarding line numbering and right border, this can be fixed easily:
-
line numbering
Go toTools>Line Numberingand set the parameters to fit your needs.
Caution: Your first page contains a section with a faulty number of 3 columns. I write “faulty” because one of the columns is only a gutter to space the other columns. This should be set through the geometry settings of the section.
Also, line numbering will be done in every column of this section (to give a unique id to every line, so that you can designate unambiguously a line in any column. This means you’ll have as many numbering vertical “areas” as you have columns and this will overwrite some text. -
lateral borders
You can add borders at left and right of text area in your page styles. This assumes that you can transpose your WP skills into LO Writer control settings. I recommend you read the Writer Guide for an introduction to styles and their expressive power.
You wouldn’t happen to have a template consistent with the formatting of the PDF file that I could use, do you? Or might I possibly impose on you for such a template. All of what you say is not particularly clear, as it is my first day of trying to figure LibreOffice at the recommendation of WordPerfect tech support, and I haven’t set up a pleading template in WordPerfect in years!
It seem to me, your numbers are not related to lines in your document, but at fixed positions. So a quick work-around could be to use a scan or pdf of an empty “pleading paper” as background image for your actual documents as used in the thread linked below. I guess the proper way for a template like this would be to add the numbers at fixed positions to the page, as we do for markers for folding or punch-holes.
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Wow! Thanks so much for helping out! LibreOffice seems pretty powerful and very similar to Word in how it works, so I guess I will have to teach myself the ins and outs of it. I mainly got it so that I could open my WordPerfect documents and cut-and paste the contents somewhere, but maybe LbreOffice can replace both! Now I have to figure out the column for the caption and how to do a table of contents and table of authorities but you really saved the day with this head start! I and my clients that you!!!
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You are correct. The numbers on the left side stay fixed and are not related to the lines in the document. Other than being able to open WordPerfect documents (which Word cannot do), LibreOffice seems to be set up basically like Word though. So I suppose that someone very comfy with Word could easily use LibreOffice. Thanks for your help!
@Numbnut
Hi,
my first version of the template had a PNG file (300 dpi - 8 colors) as a page background (ca. 134 kB), now I chose a SVG file as a page background for the template, which does not require so much space (18 kB). See attachment.
CastleCreekTemplateSVG.ott (17.6 KB)
– Cheers
EDIT
Be aware that MS Word cannot display nor save a (Writer) page background which was generated by
menu Format | Page Style | Area | Image