Changing the beginning or end of selected area

trefoil · General User Joined: 09 Sep 2007 Posts: 11

Is there some way in openoffice writer to correct the position of the beginning or end of a selection, short of repeating the whole click-and-drag-mouse thing to select the block again? It is easy in every other editor I've ever used (from Wordstar on) but I've just spent an hour pouring through the ooffice documentation and googling without finding how to do it in ooffice.

foxcole

trefoil · General User Joined: 09 Sep 2007 Posts: 11

That just moves one character at a time. I want to be able to move the end of a multi-page selection by several pages in a reasonable time. In Wordstar it used to be exactly two keystrokes at the point where one wanted the new end to be; in emacs it is one keystroke.

Analog Man · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 1:37 pm Post subject:

On my WinXP machine with OOo 2.2, if you click at the beginning of the block of text, then get to the end of the block by cursor down, page down, click in scroll bar down, to the end of the block you want to select - hold down the shift key and click at the end, the whole block is selected.

foxcole · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 1:41 pm Post subject:

Bhikkhu Pesala · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:14 pm Post subject:

Yes, in Wordpad it is much easier. In Open Office you can extend a selection very easily with Shift + Left-click, but you cannot reduce the selection in the same way, which you can do in Wordpad.

In Open Office, using just the keyboard is easier, as people have suggested by holding shift, and using page up, etc. With the mouse, you can only scroll up one line at a time or drag left and right. If you hold shift while doing this, you won't lose the beginning of your selection, but you cannot just click at the new end as you can in Wordpad.
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trefoil · General User Joined: 09 Sep 2007 Posts: 11

Thanks Analog Man -- that sounds closer to what I want.

How it can be just one or two keystrokes: older editors allowed you to set begin of block or end of block at a point in the file with a single (or double) keystroke. You can set one. Then move around in the file, set the other, then change your mind about either one by setting a new begin-block or end-block. Much more convenient than all that mopusing around.

Analog Man · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 3:22 pm Post subject:

I remember WordStar very fondly. I first used it on a CP/M machine way back when my computer had 2 90k floppies for storage - no hard drives around back then. The entire program fit on one floppy and the other floppy was used for data.

foxcole · Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 8:12 am Post subject: