LOWriter: Create "did you know?" text box or similar between paragraphs with random statistics

[captlibre80]

Greetings
I am not sure how to describe what I need, but I need A type of “did you know?” box with 1 or 2 statistics in point form between paragraphs in a document.

DOes anyone know of a tutorial on how to do this AND make a custom style I can re-use in the document?

Thanks

[ajlittoz]

Are your “Did you know?” points some kind of margin or side notes? I assume they will be quite “complex” with a title/heading (“Did you know?” to draw reader’s attention) and a few paragraphs with nice formatting. Then a Text Box is definitely not your friend, nor what you need.

Text Boxes are simple graphical decorations and they don’t really collaborate with main text. As graphical objects, the label you put inside must be fully manually formatted. No style can be applied.

On the contrary, frames create a full sub-document. As a sub-document, styles can be applied to inner text which greatly simplifies writing and guarantees consistency across you various notes.

Also, the frames can be controlled by a frame style guaranteeing that all your frames will be located the same relative to their anchoring object (mainly a paragraph). But, and this a serious caveat, you must drop any temptation to “fix” frame settings, including position, with the mouse. Frames are extremely, excessively, sensitive to direct formatting which immediately breaks frame style effectiveness. This makes frame styles very difficult to master. However, they are the only tool to achieve predictable and reliable behaviour after text edits.

I can’t but repeat my previous recommendation: read available documentation. Practice on scratch documents to become “fluent” in traditional styles (paragraph, character, page), prohibiting direct formatting, before tackling frame style pitfalls.

EDIT: here is a rudimentary example
AskLOMarginNotes.odt (52.5 KB)

[captlibre80]

Thanks for reply

1. It does NOT need to have a box – but it would be ideal. What do you recommend ? Only the attachment you provided?

[ajlittoz]

Either your “Did you know?” are part of the narrative. Then they are written like ordinary paragraphs albeit with specific paragraph style(s). And if you’re careful enough the group of such paragraphs can have a common border around them (this is quite tricky across different styles but doable if you’re meticulous enough).

Or they provide additional information, akin to notes. Then go for a frame. It is easier to have a common border (the frame border) without being specially careful on paragraph styles. But the price is understanding anchor and position of frames, which is not immediate.

Is the example provided in the sample close to what you are looking for? If so, I can elaborate to explain the basis for it. For more information, see this question:

How to create a cut-in heading

Hi there. I’m curious how to create what the Chicago manual of style refers to as a “cut-in heading”. It’s seen a lot in 18th and 19th century non-fiction books. The 1948 Chicago Manual of Style defines it thus: “A cut-in head[ing] is a head[ing] placed in a box of whitespace cut into the side of a type page. It is usually set in different type from the text and, as a rule, is placed under the first two lines of a paragraph.” I hope that decription is sufficient. If not, it’s basically a short…

The discussion there may help you to make up your mind.