Halloween is such an awesome time. I absolutely LOVE it. Everyone gets some sweet treats for free. Both grown ups and kids have loads of fun. And we all get to be someone we’re not for one night.

The holiday inspires me. Especially with creating. Just take a look at that cute little shiny pumpkin over there. I made that, and 13 more super cute graphics. Of course I’m still learning to sharpen my drawing skills, but I think these turned out really really good.

You be the judge and take a quick look at what I made this year:

The above weren’t terribly difficult to create, just took a little time and tweaking, but I had fun doing them. And isn’t that what designing is all about? Having fun? I think it is.

I even decided to sell the above package to my subscribers with Private Label Rights for a super scary low price. I mean, it is only about a week until the big “haunt”. Plus I threw in a couple of extra graphics sets too. If you are interested in this package, and I have any left ( I set a limit of 50 total packs to be sold with PLR ), then shoot me a message and I’ll let you know how much my subscribers paid and if you can pick one up.

Worst case scenario these can be used for next Halloween

I can’t wait for the next installment of graphics. They’re going to be geared towards Christmas. My other favorite holiday. And they’re going to be even better!

Because, the more we practice, the more we improve our skills.

And, depending on how well the Christmas collection goes over, I may just do even more for other holidays like Easter, Thanksgiving, St. Patrick’s Day, Valentines Day, and a couple others. We shall see. At least I’ll have fun creating!

Share with me what you’ve been up to or creating. I’d love to see and hear from you.

Popularity: 35% [?]

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: 6% [?]