OpenOffice Writer's Page Preview and MS Word's Print Preview

tiachopvutru · General User Joined: 24 Oct 2007 Posts: 7

Hi, I'm looking for a function of MS Word's Print Preview in OpenOffice Writer. The first one that strikes me is the OpenOffice Writer's Page Preview, except for that I can't seem to shrink the content of the page before printing, which I can do in MS Word. That option is useful for let's say, when I only want to print 1 page, and the document has 2 pages, the 2nd one with only 1 or a few lines, I can shrink the size of the content so that it fits to 1 page. I may have miss it, so I'm asking if there's a similar function in OO Writer, if it exists, or if there's a plugin available.

acknak · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 6:51 am Post subject:

Writer's Page Preview doesn't do any scaling (except in the display window), but you can print two (or more) document pages on each paper page by adjusting the preview window to show two pages at once, then clicking the "Print page view" button.

Hagar Delest · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 11:23 am Post subject:

See here : Merging two pages into one.
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tiachopvutru · General User Joined: 24 Oct 2007 Posts: 7

acknak · Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 7:03 am Post subject:

Sure:

1) File > Page Preview
2) Set the view for as many pages as you want on each paper page. Use the button on the toolbar just above the page view; the button has no label, but the tooltip says "Page Preview: Multiple Pages".
3) Click on the "Print Options: page view" toolbar button. You'll see a preview of how the pages will be laid out on the paper. Adjust the orientation and spacing for the best fit. Note: you can also use this in place of step 2.
4) Click on the "Print page view" toolbar button.

Just yell if you're still having trouble.

huwg · Super User Joined: 14 Feb 2007 Posts: 890

I usually adjust my margins slightly, or reduce the Text body style font size by half a point. So long as you are using styles this is simple.

acknak · Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 8:28 am Post subject:

Ha--you triggered an idea.

Writer does not have any page scaling, but Acrobat reader does. You can temporarily set a custom page format in Writer (make the page an inch longer, e.g.), export to PDF, and print from Acrobat reader using the "fit to printer margins" option.

It's a shame: OOo has all this capability already (Draw and Calc can already do this, but I can't think how to get there from here), there just needs to be a way to access it.

It would also be nice if Writer could apply the same tweaks huwg mentioned (including also shrinking the line spacing a hair) in order to achieve a certain number of pages.

As always, enhancements can be requested at: Open Office Quality Assurance - Report Bugs.

Hagar Delest · Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 11:00 am Post subject:

acknak · Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 11:17 am Post subject:

Ahh, very good! I actually checked for such an issue but missed it. Thanks for the link.

tiachopvutru · General User Joined: 24 Oct 2007 Posts: 7

Alright... I just tried it. It was interesting but, when I set 1 row and 2 columns in "Print Option: Page Preview," it only shows to cover the half upper portion of the page...

acknak · Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 2:37 pm Post subject:

You have to use the "Print options: page view" dialog to select the optimal paper orientation for the pages you want to combine.

Click the options button on the toolbar, change the orientation to landscape and set the spacing as you like.