Archive for May, 2011

Fixing columns leftover in OpenOffice Writer

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

Just in time to keep up with my goal of publishing at least one article per month…

Sometimes you just have to have several columns in article in OpenOffice’s Writer. And sometimes you realize that the idea looked much better in your head than on the screen and you want to get rid of it again. The obvious columns are easy to get rid off but sometimes there are leftovers…

The original text without columns:

An image showing the text with no columns

No columns

The same text with the second and third paragraph in two columns:

The same text with paragraphs two and three in two columns

2 columns

The text after reverting back to one column:

The same text back to no columns but with remaining sections

No more columns but with sections

Do you see those grey lines? You can’t get rid off those via the menu “Format” -> “Columns…”
Instead click into the area contained within those grey lines and via the menu “Format” -> “Sections”, select the appropriate section e.g. “Section1” and remove it via “Remove” on the right side”. Confirm by clicking on “OK” and you’re back to square one.