Recently, I was asked to help make a graduation program. The teacher wanted to have a text box in the document to highlight people she wanted to thank, but didn't know how to do it. I thought it would be a good idea to write the process here and check and see if it worked similarly with Open Office.
First, we changed the orientation of the page to landscape, not portrait. You do this by going to File - Page Setup - and changing the page orientation. Then we went to Format - and added two columns to the page.
We typed in the information, but then, wanted to add the box of information. You go to insert text box and the cursor will change to a cross hairs. This will allow you to draw whatever size of box you want. You can then put any information you want into the box.
In Open Office, my first problem was finding out where to change the orientation of the page. You can do this, but it is found in a different place. You go to FORMAT - Page and then can set the landscape piece there. The Columns were found in Format exactly as in Word. The text box is called a FRAME - You go to insert a frame, it will put a box on the page that you can resize to exactly what you want. If you go through all the options, it will allow you to change the look of the box.
The other amazing feature about OpenOffice is that while I was using it, it let me know that it had an update available to another version. I will soon be using 3.1.0 for Open Office!
