OpenOffice.org as an Outliner

I was never a hardcore user of OpenOffice.org but I do need it from time to time because of the documents I need to write.

OpenOffice.org

There are a lot of people in my office who prefer to use it for everything. Although one thing I’ve noticed is that they just open it as if it’s any other text editor. But I don’t think they’ve seen it as an outliner before.

Dmitri Popov of Linux Magazine has shared tips for us on how to use OpenOffice.org as an outliner:

The easiest one is to press the Numbering On/Off button in the main toolbar or the F12 key. This turns the current line in the documents into a numbered entry and displays the Bullets and Numbering context toolbar which offers basic outlining tools.
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Another approach requires a bit more work, but it allows you to use OpenOffice.org Writer as a two-pane outliner. This solution is based on the Outline Numbering feature which lets you specify a hierarchy of heading styles and then manage them using the Navigator. By default, OpenOffice.org Writer uses the built-in heading styles (i.e., Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, etc.) for each level, but you can easily change that using the Tools -> Outline Numbering dialog window.

Two options to help us use OpenOffice.org in a different way. I personally like outliners like emacs-org mode because it helps me organize my thoughts better. I also help write training materials so this is a great help to me.

For those of you who like making lists, check this out. These awesome tips might help you work better with an existing application instead of downloading a separate outliner.

Again, thanks to Dmitri Popov for the tips!