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How do I insert a photo into a word document as a watermark? The help files are not helpful, the tabs that are sujpposed to be there
FORMAT -> PAGE -> BACKGROUND but the background tab does not exist. Maybe sometime in past versions of LibreOffice it may
have, but in Version: 6.0.3.2 Build ID: 1:6.0.3-0ubuntu1 some genius has decided it is unnecessary.
Using Ubuntu 64bit 18.04.
I'm running LibreOffice 5.1.6.2 on Linux Mint 18 an noticed "FORMAT >
PAGE > BACKGROUND" is missing too. However, I was able to add a
watermark by doing this:
1. Use "Format > Page > Area" menu to access the "Fill" setting.
2. I chose a "Fill" setting of "Bitmap" and used the "Import Graphic"
button to import my image.
3. Then, I went to the "Transparency" tab and set transparency setting
of 85% (you'll probably want a higher setting)
When I then typed some text over the background image, the image was in
full color (no opacity).
Maybe this is the new/current way to add a watermark in Writer.
Hope this helps!
Peace...
"The Other" Tom
The LibreOffice Writer 6.0 guide also documents the above information:
https://documentation.libreoffice.org/en/english-documentation/writer/
Peace...
"The Other" Tom
I use Format > Page > Area > Bitmap to add a background image.
I use to create an image for the watermark with GIMP or other software and make them look transparent there. I even test them with that package to see how the graphic will work. I made one for a letterhead that showed printed, but would not copy when you try to use a printer/scanner or a copy machine. This was a security feature I made for an organization I am still on the board of [since 2007].
I have use the transparency menu for other background images and watermarks.
I have been making watermarks and background images with foreground text since the earliest days of LibreOffice and some of the later years of OOo - a number of yours before LO came out.
I still need to upgrade to the next version [6.0.6, but have downloaded the DEB install files.
Hi 
LO is a continuation of OOo, just a name-change and radical revamp of
infrastructure. Most of the people and organisations that were in OOo
moved to LO and 'just' re-organised things to be a lot more sensible. The
code was initially the same.
So it was more like OOo had just moved offices and rebranded and finally
followed the years-old plan to reincorporate as an independent
organisation.
Regards from
a Tom
I switched to LibreOffice when OOo stopped sending our updates/upgrades.
As for the code, I thought the developers worked on the code a lot to make it easier maintain and upgrade.
Yes, I agree that if you used OOo, you will find LO very similar to use. Also there are many forks from the original OOo code made into individual projects. I am glad I went with LibreOffice.
Thanks for the work-around. I downloaded and installed the offline help, and it still shows FORMAT -> PAGE -> BACKGROUND. It makes sense to work on the code to make it easier to maintain but to exclude the help files from changes should be a resulting responsibility.
Hi
When you photocopy something or when an artist copies a famous painting
there are usually differences between the copy and the original. The copy
is often thought of as inferrior. If you take a photocopy of a photocopy
of something and keep on going copying the most recent copy rather than the
original then the newer copy's quality plummets.
If you look at a dinner fork then which of the prongs is the continuation
of the handle? Can it be said that only 1 is the original handle and the
others are just copies? Of course the prongs are usually all smaller and
thinner so maybe none of them are the original handle as none of them
resemble it.
If i email you a file then the copy you get is identical - so the idea that
it is a 'copy' rather than the original is just semantics. Philosophically
we could argue that you now have the original and i have kept a copy.
When a project such as OOo forks it is even less clear which is the
original and which is the copy. People who had applied changes to the
code-base under Sun found those changes finally approved and applied to the
same code-base but that was now becoming called LibreOffice. While they
had been developing the code they had been OOo people· Their code went to
OOo and got applied to LO.
Quite sizable chunks of code hadn't been changed since before even Sun,
back when OOo was called Star Office.
When Oracle bought-out Sun one of it's first acts was to completely cease
any communication with the community that had been working on OOo. They
seized assets belonging to the community and restricted people's access to
various parts of the infrastructure that the community had built. They
fired most of Sun's staff that had been working on OOo or redirected them
to work on other things.
Meanwhile an awesome bunch of 20 people had been enacting a plan that Sun
and the community had drawn-up to migrate OOo off to be it's own separate
and independent organisation. So pretty much the only people working on
OOo at that time were continuing to move OOo forwards by making it
independent. Most of the community followed them and i think some of the
ex-Sun staff also followed in a voluntary capacity.
All that Oracle kept was the name, the branding (which almost no-one had
ever heard of at that point), and a bit of a ghost town where there had
been a bustling vibrant community. Their prong was seriously diminished
and was almost nothing like what OOo had been.
Also meanwhile the various forks that had been using OOo as the base of
their own projects almost all carried on seamlessly by using LO as their
base. Even as it was forming TDF was FAR more responsive to community
developments than even Sun had been so a lot of those forks sent their work
upstream to LO, got their work approved and merged back into LO.
One of those forks was Go-OO, which collectively handled all the changes
required by all the different Gnu&Linux distros. Their improvements had
been going on for over a decade so when they merged into LO the code was
massively improved and all the distros dropped the Sun OOo or Go-OO
branding and started using LibreOffice's - but by doing so they were
continuing to use the same thing that they always had been using.
It might only seem like semantics but we are not some random fragment
picked up by clueless people who had never worked on it before (although
some of us are - well i am). We are not a cheap knock-off copy. I think
it's important for us to realise that we are part of a decades-old project
with the experience, wisdom and reliability that brings.
Regards from a Tom
Hi
Sorry all! Especially sorry to Tim who didn't deserve my rant at all.
It is really hot here and i'm struggling to cope with the heat and it's
making me grouchy so i should have stayed away or at least left it as a
draft for a couple of days before choosing to send or abandon.
Anyway, many apologies and regards from
a Tom