DeskTop Publishing with OO.org's Impress/Presentation
Posted 10-08-2010 at 11:43 AM by SrDorothy
Well, it has taken me 7 months (since I last posted--on migrating from Win XP to Ubuntu 9.10)--but by gum, I think I've got it!
For a couple of months now, I've been doing my computer user group (OMUG or Olympia Microcomputer Users Group) newsletter using Presentation (OO.org 3.1.1) (running Ubuntu). I decided to give it a try because it seems much easier to place things on the page than in Writer. One thing that is missing in Presentation is the function of connecting text boxes to flow text from one to another. Maybe later I'll try Writer again just to get that function back. But for now, Presenatation works for me.
It did give me some trouble...how to print it using 11x17 paper? When I used Publisher and printing to pdf via PrimoPDF, I had the option of "print as booklet" which gave me the right print formatting for double sided printing of an 8 page newsletter. Since I couldn't figure this out in Presentation, I laid the newsletter out in an 11x17 format, two pages per sheet. That worked for printing.
But I then needed to delete some pages for our web version of the newsletter--and that got tricky. I ended up copying each page I needed (laborious) and pasting it into a new 8 1/2 x 11 Pres. document, then exporting to PDF.
And I found that sometimes my pdf export from Presentation was strange: the print was smaller than usual and the margins way bigger...in other words, unusable.
Finally I did some more research and found where someone said they installed cups-pdf and printed to pdf-- well, I knew that! But had forgotten. Ubuntu 9.10 doesn't have it by default, but I installed it and was able to print the pdf I needed by using File-Print and choosing the PDF printer. This one turned out perfect, yay!
By the way, I also looked in Printer Options when printing to PDF via cups, and there is a choice to print as Brochure plus a Front and Back option; when I chose these 3, I got the right format for printing our newsletter.
It has been quite a while since I booted into Windows, so I'm happy. And if I finally figure out Writer or Scribus for DT Publishing, you'll find it here.
For a couple of months now, I've been doing my computer user group (OMUG or Olympia Microcomputer Users Group) newsletter using Presentation (OO.org 3.1.1) (running Ubuntu). I decided to give it a try because it seems much easier to place things on the page than in Writer. One thing that is missing in Presentation is the function of connecting text boxes to flow text from one to another. Maybe later I'll try Writer again just to get that function back. But for now, Presenatation works for me.
It did give me some trouble...how to print it using 11x17 paper? When I used Publisher and printing to pdf via PrimoPDF, I had the option of "print as booklet" which gave me the right print formatting for double sided printing of an 8 page newsletter. Since I couldn't figure this out in Presentation, I laid the newsletter out in an 11x17 format, two pages per sheet. That worked for printing.
But I then needed to delete some pages for our web version of the newsletter--and that got tricky. I ended up copying each page I needed (laborious) and pasting it into a new 8 1/2 x 11 Pres. document, then exporting to PDF.
And I found that sometimes my pdf export from Presentation was strange: the print was smaller than usual and the margins way bigger...in other words, unusable.
Finally I did some more research and found where someone said they installed cups-pdf and printed to pdf-- well, I knew that! But had forgotten. Ubuntu 9.10 doesn't have it by default, but I installed it and was able to print the pdf I needed by using File-Print and choosing the PDF printer. This one turned out perfect, yay!
By the way, I also looked in Printer Options when printing to PDF via cups, and there is a choice to print as Brochure plus a Front and Back option; when I chose these 3, I got the right format for printing our newsletter.
It has been quite a while since I booted into Windows, so I'm happy. And if I finally figure out Writer or Scribus for DT Publishing, you'll find it here.
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