writer: business cards w/ tables - duplicate cells

users
#1

I'm trying to print out some business cards in writer. The document consists of a 5x2 table taking up the entire page.

I'd like the first cell to be the master cell and the remaining 9 to just be duplicates. I've tried to set the other cells as a formula =<A1>, but that just leaves me with 0.

Is there some way to do this? If it involves fields, will it include the formatting?

As a secondary issue, the 5 cell rows are 2 inches high. The document is US Letter (11 inches long). And the top and bottom margins are set to .5 inches each. Therefore, everything should fit exactly. However, there is a blank second page which I cannot get rid of. Any suggestions?

#2

I'm trying to print out some business cards in writer. The document consists of a 5x2 table taking up the entire page. I'd like the first cell to be the master cell and the remaining 9 to just be duplicates. I've tried to set the other cells as a formula =<A1>, but that just leaves me with 0.

That's because that facility works with numbers, not text.

Is there some way to do this?

Here's one idea:
o Select the required text in the first cell.
o Go to Insert | Cross-reference...| Cross-references.
o Under Type, select Set Reference.
o For Name, enter a name for your paragraph of text.
o Click Insert. (Leave the Fields panel open.)
o Click in each other cell in turn.
o Under Type, select Insert Reference; under Selection, select your name; and under "Insert reference to", select Reference.
o Click Insert.

You will notice that only a single paragraph of text can be referenced in this way. And if you modify the source text, you will need to use Tools | Update > | Fields (or F9) to update the copies.

If it involves fields, will it include the formatting?

Sadly, it appears not. So it might be easier simply to copy and paste the text ...

As a secondary issue, the 5 cell rows are 2 inches high. The document is US Letter (11 inches long). And the top and bottom margins are set to .5 inches each. Therefore, everything should fit exactly. However, there is a blank second page which I cannot get rid of. Any suggestions?

There is always an empty paragraph after a table, and this appears to occupy a vertical space appropriate to its font size. You can get around this problem in many ways:
o Simplest, just print the pages you need, not the extra one.
o Reduce the bottom margin to accommodate the empty paragraph. Nothing will print there, of course.,
o You can reduce the font size of the empty paragraph to make all this easier.
It is easier to see what you are doing here if you toggle on the display of non-printing characters.

But here's a much better idea:
o Go to File | New > | Labels.
o On the Format tab, set up your required card sizes.
o On the Options tab, select "Entire page" and "Synchronize contents".
o Click New Document.
o Enter and format your text once and click Synchronize Labels.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker

#3

I'm confused on what you are describing. How can you do business cards if the content takes up an entire 8 1/2 x 11 page? Or by page do you mean the entire business card? If this is what you mean it is very simple to do.

If you use the File > New > Business Cards commands, it brings up a screen where you select the Brand of business cards you are using and then select the specific style. When you select 'New Document' it brings up a new screen with the outline of the cards on the page. Only the first (upper left) can be written in. There is a "Synchronize Label" button in the upper right corner. Generate the table in the first card. Once you have it finished to your satisfaction including font, color, margins, etc. click on the synchronize button. This copies the first card onto the other 9 on the sheet. If you are not happy with the results, edit the first card, hit synchronize again to complete the page.

Jerry

#4

Mathew,

That blank second page is inserted by LibreWriter for some unknown reason.

After you have generated the business card, press Ctrl P to bring up the print menu. Select the LibreOffice Writer tab and unselect "Print automatically inserted blank pages".

Jerry

#5

Hi Everyone,

I think the gentleman who made the initial post is using a table style template and not the ones which come with LibreOffice/OpenOffice. Therefore advice using the menus in LibreOffice do not help.

I always use the table style templates. I think OpenOffice had them available as an extension at one point, and they are available from http://www.worldlabel.com/ . I want each card to be the same, so I simply copy and past the information to the label next to it. Then I copy both cards on the first line to the second through 5th lines. It you want multiple pages, just copy the entire first page to the second page.

There is an easy way to prevent the blank pages. I will need access to my work computer to be able to find that and post that here. I will not be back to the office until Monday, and I will look it up then. I hope I can find it.

Don

#6

Thank you to all of the replies. I am indeed not using the label/business card templates because I don't like the way they look nor the control I feel I have over them. If I could figure out how to create my own template that might work. For now it seems the best solution is really to just copy and paste.

I've gotten rid of the extra page by change the font size outside of the table to the smallest possible value and then decreasing the bottom margin ever-so-slightly.

The reason I'm concerned about some of these particulars is because I'm setting this stuff up for an older even-less-informed user than myself and I want him to be able to print and make small modifications without too much knowledge.

Thanks!
Matt

T

#7

I don't believe that is always the case. I just used the label format to create a set of 422 labels for specimens in a museum using a spreadsheet which contained all of the label data and LibreOffice Base. There were 39 pages of labels and the program inserted a blank page between each page of labels. There were no page numbers.

Since the museum required a special size label - one that did not match any of the templates, I used the closest size template and then changed the label dimensions and margins to suit our needs. Saved it as a custom template. We did not use actual labels, but printed white on black (margins included) on heavy stock and then cut the sheets apart to the proper size.

Jerry

#8

Matt

I see that if you do File>New>Business Card you are forced to use preformatted cards with layouts and fields already selected.

But if you use File>New> Label, and then select as your label, one of the Business Card templates (e.g. Avery Letter Size; Avery 5371) you will get a blank template of the proper size with no preselected fields or formatting. You can then design that space any way you like. And then generate the sheet of cards with the synchronize button.

Don't you have to conform to the business card templates in terms of size and margins in order to get them to print properly? This just seems like the easiest way to do it.

Jerry

#9

That blank second page is inserted by LibreWriter for some unknown reason. After you have generated the business card, press Ctrl P to bring up the print menu. Select the LibreOffice Writer tab and unselect "Print automatically inserted blank pages".

Sorry, but that's not going to help in this case. The "automatically inserted blank pages" referred to are those created when pages have been numbered and in order to ensure that odd-numbered pages are always rectos and even-numbered pages always versos. This blank page is different, being the result of an additional, empty paragraph after the end of a table which completely fills the first page. The document is merely ever so slightly longer than a single page.

But you can, of course, just as easily choose, in the print dialogue, to print only page 1.

I don't believe that is always the case. I just used the label format to create a set of 422 labels for specimens in a museum using a spreadsheet which contained all of the label data and LibreOffice Base. There were 39 pages of labels and the program inserted a blank page between each page of labels. There were no page numbers.

Sorry, but you have misunderstood what I said. You have constructed a document which contains many blank pages that you did not want. Of course you can do this, and I didn't suggest otherwise. But those are not the blank pages referred to in the "Print automatically inserted blank pages" option - and deselecting that option will not help you by suppressing those pages. The special blank pages referred to are not shown in the normal editing view, so you may not even be aware they are there. But they do appear in Page Preview, with a large grey legend "blank page" (which doesn't print, of course). Your genuine blank pages will show in editing view and also in Page Preview, but without the legend.

Since the museum required a special size label - one that did not match any of the templates, I used the closest size template and then changed the label dimensions and margins to suit our needs. Saved it as a custom template. We did not use actual labels, but printed white on black (margins included) on heavy stock and then cut the sheets apart to the proper size.

It sounds as if you have (sensibly) used tables, as did the original questioner, and left empty paragraphs between each full-page table. In fact, although you cannot remove the trailing empty paragraph after the final table (and therefore need to suppress it in one of the ways I described), you can, in fact, remove the unwanted paragraphs between the tables. So there was no need to retain all those intervening blank pages in your document.

Brian Barker

#10

I use to make a lot of specialty business cards and odd size labels for people. I found that many of the .doc templates did not work well with LO, or even Word 2003. I had to adjust the margins to fit the printer's needs since some of these templates used smaller top margins than the inkjet printer could use properly.

I do like the make one label and then press a button and all the labels are made the same. That works well most times. As for needing each label to be different for the sheet[s] of labels, I think everyone has their own stories to tell about what works, and do not work, with their printer and their needs.

If you must work out a procedure for an "older user" you will need to do the step-by-step instructions based upon that user's printer and his actual work. If you make it work on an Epson Artisan 810 printer, which does borderless printing for letter size paper, it may not printout properly with a HP PSC-1410 printer or a HP Color Laserjet 2600n. I know this, since these are the three working printer I currently have and I must use different margin sizes for each printer, it seems to my experience. So if you do this for someone else, you need to use the margins, etc., what his printer needs to use.

#11

Matt

I see that if you do File>New>Business Card you are forced to use preformatted
cards with layouts and fields already selected.

But if you use File>New> Label, and then select as your label, one of the
Business Card templates (e.g. Avery Letter Size; Avery 5371) you will get a
blank template of the proper size with no preselected fields or formatting. You
can then design that space any way you like. And then generate the sheet of
cards with the synchronize button.

This still has some quirks I need to work out, but it is the best solution so far. Thanks! I can now also see how the mirrored frames are actually set up and can how to tweak it myself.

Don't you have to conform to the business card templates in terms of size and
margins in order to get them to print properly? This just seems like the easiest
way to do it.

The table I had set up was easy because the margins were nice numbers within any printer's margins. Its 10 3.5x2 cards on a 8.5x11 paper. So I set the margins to be .5 top and bottom and .75 left and right (-.1 on the bottom for that extra paragraph). The table then fit perfectly with 2x3.5 cells.

#12

Matthew Monaco wrote:

As a secondary issue, the 5 cell rows are 2 inches high. The document is US
Letter (11 inches long). And the top and bottom margins are set to .5 inches
each. Therefore, everything should fit exactly. However, there is a blank
second page which I cannot get rid of. Any suggestions?

You can remove the "extra line" after the table: Place the caret (the
blinking vertical thing) at the end of the text in the last cell of
the table. Then press Ctrl + Shift + Delete. If you want to add the
extra line again, press Alt + Enter.

Regards
Stephan

#13

Hi,

On Saturday I promised I would get back to you relative to the labels. I had two issues, with one being the blank page between sheets, and the second being that if I was pulling the label information from a data base (Base), between sheets, one record would be missing. Here is what I wrote to another [post about 6 months ago:

Hi,

I don't know if this might help anyone or not. I had an OpenOffice form problem using the table template with a standard 30 label sheet (3 x 10). I have all of our Christmas card addresses in an OpenOffice database. I have the form setup, etc, to automatically pull the address information in when I click print and select the database, etc. It works great with one exception. Last year my wife said I missed having a few addresses included. I didn't think anything about it, and honestly, didn't think that was possible. This year before giving her the printed labels I thought I would check that everyone was there. I set the printing so it is sorting to print A_Z based on the last name. It takes three sheets. I have 78 names in the database, but only had 76 printed labels. What happened was when the printing went from the first sheet to the second sheet, it misses one record. The rest of the second page is fine. When I went from the second sheet to the third sheet, once again, it skipped the next label, then printed fine for the balance. When I say it skipped it, the missing record just disappears. It isn't that I end up with a blank label at the top of the sheet. The next one in line to be printed on the first label on Page 2 vanishes and the one that should be the second one on the second page becomes the first one on the second page. The same with the third page. A person would never pick this up unless checking the database against the printed labels.

The solution!!!!!!!! I had one full page of labels with the fields in. I read on-line that you need one complete page with fields in for each page of labels. So I added two more pages so I have a three page template. When I created Pages 2 and 3 and by pasting the complete page 1, then scrolled up, I found there was a blank page between each label page. I deleted those pages, and I now have a perfectly working label template printing all of the address!!!!!!!!!

Don

Don