Cross-Linking and Text Embedding

[Rebes]

Hello,

I was wondering if there is a way within OOo Draw to do the following two things... I am drawing an assembly breakdown, where top level items have subcomponents, and those subcomponents may or may not have different subcomponents. I put each assembly on a separate page, so that Final Item A will have certain sub items, and Final Item B will have it's own sub items. In some cases, subitems for one product might be the same as sub items for another product.

Is there some way that I can create that subitem just once (On say, a separate components page), and then link that into each of the products? IE, it would be a hierarchial view with the product at the top, and sub items listed under it. The subitems are actually just boxes with text in them, so ultimately, could I have a box with text in it linked from a components page into separate product pages, so that if I change text on the component page, it also changes the text in those boxes on the product pages?

Secondly, would it be possible to create an embedded spreadsheet for keeping track of production, where the numbers from that spreadsheet show up in the subcomponent boxes, and then get propagated to the same boxes on the product pages?

This would be very helpful in the drawing I'm doing...

Thanks for any insight!

Dallas

[acknak]

The linking in Draw is very primitive and I suspect it would be more trouble than it's worth for your project.

You can use Insert > File, then link to individual sheets in that file. If you choose to insert named objects from the file, they are simply copied--no linking at all. If you link an entire page, it can be linked, but the link is only updated manually, so it will be rather painful for multiple levels of linking.

I don't think there is any way to combine data from a spreadsheet with a drawing--definitely too bad--but I could be wrong.