Before, I told you how you could create links to your content by making use of the Bookmark setting inside OOo Writer.

Today, I’m going to show you a different way. One which will allow you to utilize the “Indexes and Tables” function, and at the same time, make it a clickable Table of Contents that leads right to your ebook chapters.

First though, let me tell you why this solution might be the better one.

The reason why I believe this is the better solution is because you won’t have to manually update your Table of Contents. Simply by clicking ONE button, you can have your TOC update itself…Including adding in new chapter links!

Can’t get any better than that. At least, I don’t think so.

So, How Do You Create A Linked TOC While Using The “Indexes and Tables”?

Well, first you have to know how to create a TOC, or Table of Contents, using the “Indexes and Tables” function inside OpenOffice Writer. So, I’m going to teach you how to do just that.

Once you get the hang of using the “Indexes and Tables” function, it will come like second nature to you. I promise.

Step 1: Use The “Styles and Formatting” Box/Menu

Okay, the first thing we’re going to need to do before we can even get to the point where we add our Table of Contents to begin with is to make some style changes.

This may sound complicated, but believe me, once you do it a couple of times, it gets really easy.

So, the first thing we’ll need to do, beyond having our ebook content of course, is to open up the “Styles and Formatting” menu.

To do that, look for this link in your main toolbar of OpenOffice Writer: Format.

Click the “Format” link in the toolbar.

A drop down menu will appear.

From that menu, select “Styles and Formatting” by left clicking it once.

The “Styles and Formatting” window should now be open and look like this:

Alternatively, you can hit the F11 button on your keyboard to open up the Styles and Formatting window as well. That’s the shortcut key

The next thing we’re going to do is make sure that our ebook Chapter titles show up inside our official Table of Contents menu within our ebook.

The way we do that is to assign a specific style to our ebook Chapters.

For our main ebook Chapter titles we’re going to use the Heading 1 style.

What you will need to do is to left click and drag across your ebook Chapter text to highlight it. Like so:

Then, you will want to apply the Heading 1 style by selecting it from the styles drop down menu shown below:

Of course it will show the Default style, to change it to the Heading 1 style, simply click on the arrow down and then select the Heading 1 style by left clicking it from the drop down menu.

You will see that your ebook Chapter text has now changed from the default format to the Heading 1 style format.

The next step is to do the above for every single ebook Chapter inside your ebook.

Always be sure to save your progress as you go!

You can also insert “Sub Chapters” within your Table of Contents.

How?

By highlighting your Sub Chapter text then applying the Heading 2 style from the styles/formatting drop down menu just as I showed you above.

Step 2: Adding A Basic Table of Contents Using The “Indexes and Tables” Function

Once you have all your Heading styles in place from Step 1 above, it’s time to insert our Table of Contents.

For this, you will need to create a new, blank page.

To do that, simply select the following from your main OpenOffice Writer toolbar:

Insert > Manual Break… > Page Break

Now that we have a fresh, new blank page, it’s time to insert our Table of Contents.

Be sure that your cursor is blinking somewhere within your newly created blank page.

Then from the main toolbar, select the following:

Insert > Indexes and Tables > Indexes and Tables

You should now see a box similar to the following:

All you need to do now is to hit the “OK” button.

Then you should see your new Table of Contents sitting inside your blank page.

Easy, right?

Well, maybe not at first, but if you do this every time you create a new ebook, it will become really easy.

Okay, let’s get those Chapters linked up.

Step 3: Adding In Hyperlinks For Your New Table of Contents

This is the tricky part. Not too tricky, but you will have to pay very close attention. There are a few magic clicks we’ll have to perform to get this part just right.

All right. The first step is to re-open the “Indexes and Tables” window that I showed you above.

To do that, simply right click anywhere inside your new Table of Contents.

From the menu that will appear, you must select “Edit Index/Table” by left clicking that option when it appears.

Then the “Indexes and Tables” window will reappear. See? Like magic

The next step is the tricky part.

From inside the “Indexes and Tables” window, you will need to click on the “Entries” tab pictured below:

Then you should see the following:

What we do next is to left click inside the little rectangular box directly behind the text: E#

Then click the “Hyperlink” button as shown here:

Keep the above window OPEN!!

There’s one more thing we have to do before we finish our work.

You will need to do the EXACT SAME THING outlined above for the # area shown below:

Remember, left click once inside the little text box behind the # symbol, then click the “Hyperlink” button.

Now, with that all done, simply hit the “OK” button.

Presto!

You now have an official linked Table of Contents.

What About Sub Chapters? Can They Also Be Linked?

Certainly.

Just do the same things outlined above, but instead of having the 1 selected as shown below:

Left click and select the number 2 directly below it.

Then follow the aforementioned steps.

You may have to redo the steps for your main chapter links, but that’s simple enough, right?

How Do I Update The Table of Contents When I Add New or Additional Content To My Ebooks?

That’s simple enough.

Anytime you add a new chapter, be sure that you use the Heading 1 ( or Heading 2 style for sub chapters ) style for your chapter titles, simply navigate back to your Table of Contents, right click anywhere inside of it, and select the “Update Index/Table” link.

Then your Table of Contents will upgrade automatically with your newly added contents. One click simple. Just like I said.

So, now that you know the more “professional” way to add a linked Table of Contents to your OpenOffice Writer ebooks, what are you waiting for??

Go ahead and try this method out yourself!

Popularity: 27% [?]

Ever wonder how to get some neat looking lines inside your ebook template designs without a bunch of fuss having to create them first inside Photoshop?

Well wonder no more!

Because today, I’m going to show you how to do it, simple, fast, and above all. . .easy!

Let’s get to it. . . .

How To Add Simple Lines To Your Headers & Footers

The first thing you’re gonna want to do is open up either an existing .ODT OpenOffice Writer text document, or create a new one by opening up OpenOffice Writer.

Now, normally, when you open up OOo Writer, it will create a brand new text document by default. At least, it does for me

Okay, once we have OOo Writer up and a text document, it’s time to add some snazzy lines to the Headers & Footers in our document.

For this tutorial, I’m gonna start off with a fresh new text document, and so this is my starting point:

Now it’s time to add a “default” Header & Footer:

From the top toolbar: Insert > Header > Default

From the top toobar: Insert > Footer > Default

Okay, now that we have our “default” Header & Footer inside our text document, it’s time to add a little bit of text to them. You can add whatever you want, or add nothing and skip this step. It isn’t necessary to add text to add the cool lines.

But, here’s what I have so far:

Nothing too spectacular, just some plain old text.

Now comes the fun part. . . .

Adding the lines. Yay!

To add a simple line that runs the length of either the Header or Footer, “Right Click” inside either the Header area or the Footer area.

From the menu that pops open, select “Paragraph. .”

And a new window will appear that looks similar to this:

And, if it isn’t already showing, like above, you will need to left click on the “Borders” tab:

Now we’re cookin’! Well, almost

We’ll need to determine how our line will look inside our Header or Footer.

To do this, simply play around with the settings inside the Line “style” section:

You can adjust the width of the line, and the color from here.

The next thing we’ll want to do is decide on where we want the line placed. Do we want it at the bottom of our text line? At the top? Around the right and left edges? Both top and bottom? Or enclose the text completely with the lines?

We can do any of these things inside the “Line arrangement” section:

For this tutorial, I’m only going to add a line that runs along the bottom of my Header and Footer.

To do this, all you need to do is “left click” one time inside the bottom line area of the image shown inside the “Line arrangement” section:

You’ll notice that there is now a dashed line surrounding a solid line with arrows on either side. That means that this is where our line will appear within our Header or Footer. Pretty easy, right?

Towards the bottom of the “Line arrangement” section, you’ll see a “Shadow style” section. Use this if you want to add a shadow to your line. I’m not going to, but feel free to play around with those settings and see what you come up with.

For a basic, thin black line underneath your text, use these settings:

Line “style”: 0.05pt – Color: Black

Okay, if you are pleased with your line settings, simply hit the “OK” button and whammo! There’s your line, tucked right underneath your Header or Footer text:

Cool!

How To Add More “Stylish” Lines To Your Header & Footer

That’s terrific, but what if you want to add a “dashed” line inside your Header or Footer?

Well, I can tell you how to do this too!

Here’s how. . . .

First you’ll need to bring up the “Drawing” toolbar, if it isn’t already visible. Inside my copy of OOo Writer, it wasn’t, so here’s how to open it:

Go to “View” on the top toolbar and select: View > Toolbars > Drawing

And poof! It will show up:

When I first opened up my Drawing toolbar, it popped up at the bottom of my OOo Writer in the left hand corner, yours may too. Or, it may show up at the top on the right hand side.

Okay, moving on. . . .

If you haven’t already guessed, we’re going to be drawing our dashed line. But don’t worry, it’s easier than you think. If you can hold down a couple of keys and drag your mouse, you can draw a perfectly dashed line.

The first thing you’re going to want to do is select the “Line” tool from your “Drawing” toolbar:

Now, you will want to go to the section where you want your dashed line to appear within your text document.

In this case, it will be inside our Footer.

Go up to the left hand side of the Footer, while still having the “line” tool selected, left click and hold it down while at the same time holding down the “Shift” key and drag across all the way to the right side of your Footer.

This is what you should end up with:

I know it doesn’t look like much now, but let’s keep going.

Right now, you should have a solid straight line as pictured above, even though you can’t see it very well.

But, we’ll change that.

The next step is to “hover” your mouse over top of your newly drawn line and then “right click”.

A new menu will open up and from that menu, select “Line”.

Now, you should see a new window that looks similar to this one:

From here, we’re going to solely concentrate on the “Line properties” area of this window.

In the first drop down menu, pictured above it has the word: Continuous shown, you will select the following from it: Dashed (variable).

This should give you a nice looking dashed line.

Feel free to change the color of the line and the width of the line also in the options below the drop down menu section.

Once you’ve made all your adjustments, simply hit “OK”.

Now, to actually see your new dashed line, left click anywhere inside your text document main area.

Here’s what I ended up with:

Again, I made my dashed line thicker so that you could see my end result. Yours will probably look different.

Don’t be afraid to test out new things by playing around with all the settings and tools available inside OpenOffice Writer.

You may just surprise yourself with what you can do

Popularity: 10% [?]

In this first tutorial, I’m going to show you how to add new colors to the default color palette of OpenOffice Writer.

I have to say, I haven’t tried this method with the other OOo tools, so you may have to try it and see if it works for them as well.

All right, let’s get straight to it. . . .

Step 1: Open Up OOo Writer
You can do this by opening up a new Text Document. And, once done, you should see this:

STEP 2: Select >> Tools > Options On The Main Bar
To do this, click the Tools Link as pictured below, and a drop down menu should open.

From that menu, at the very bottom, you should see the Options Link. Click it.

A new window will open up and look like this:

You will need to select the word “Colors” from the left hand menu. Like this:

Then the window should change to something like this:

STEP 3: Add A New Color
To do this, simply click on the “Add” button. A new window might pop open that says you already have a color with that name and to change it to a new name. If not, when you hit the “Add” button, you should see a new color swatch image show up at the bottom of the color palette list, like so:

To change the new swatch color, simply add in your own RGB or CMYB settings in the appropriate areas highlighted below:

You can also simply change the color by pressing the up/down arrows to the sides of the RGB or CMYK percentages.

When you finally get a color that you like, you will see the bottom color swatch box change:

Then, all you need to do is hit the “Modifiy” button and your color swatch will now be set to your specifications and added to the default color palette.

If you’re looking for premade color schemes, a great place to find some are at the Color Schemer Website.

While ColorSchemer is a terrific tool, it is only trial ware, and will expire. Therefore, I suggest you pick up the Color Pic tool from www.iconico.com.

Using it, you can pick up any color anywhere and have the RGB and CMYK values right there to add inside of OOo color palette.

I do hope this tutorial helped you, and be on the look out for the next one!

Popularity: 35% [?]