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HowTo: Inverted text / Merged

Asked by Graham S. Jarvis

Hello,

I'm trying to create place/name 'plates' for a meeting so I need a merge document where the text at the top of the page is upside down and right justified so that when the paper is folded it is correct.
In writer, if I copy merge variables into a text box they don't "arrive" on paste and if I type <name> etc it's not seen as a merge variable.

Can this be done? (In spreadsheet???)

I'm using:
OOO320m12 (build:9483)

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Tony Pursell
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Best Tony Pursell (ajpursell) said : 		#1

Hi Graham

First, I have to ask, why are you using OpenOffice? All recent versions of Ubuntu use LibreOffice, and that is what I am using. What I am about to tell you is based on LO in Ubuntu 12.04LTS.

You can use Writer. You will need to register your spreadsheet as a data source (ask me if you need help with that).
 First hit F4 to show your data sources. You need to insert two frames side by side. You can drag the name field from your data source into a frame. Then highlight the data item. It will be shown as something like <Name>. Got to Format > Character and select the Position tab. You can rotate the highlighted text by 90 or 270 degrees.

Note that you are placing the inverted names side by side, not one above the other, so you will have to experiment with page size and layout so the individual place cards can be folded down the page rather than across the page.

When you select Print, you will get a prompt followed by a dialogue about printing a merge document. I suggest you select Print to File as a single document.

Hope that helps. Do ask if you need more help with anything.

Tony

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Graham S. Jarvis (gsjarvis) said : 		#2

That'll do nicely!!!!

All I have to do now is sort out the fact that one of the frames expands in the opposite direction than I expect and sometimes falls off the margin. No big deal - I'll soon get that worked out.

Thanks again!

Oh, I'm using OOO because it's a _really_ old PC with 10.04 LTS and it still works - so I don't want to fix it ;)

-Graham-

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Graham S. Jarvis (gsjarvis) said : 		#3

Thanks Tony Pursell, that solved my question.