At 17:18 21/10/2019 -0400, Linda Hull wrote:
I'm a Windows and Linux user. Should the background of the margin
area as well as the area where the text is, change?
That's an odd question, mainly because trying it out will show the
answer in a matter of seconds - probably in less time than it takes
to compose the message.
But there is probably a confusion here, since there are two separate
concerns. The original questioner has confirmed that correcting Tools
| Options... | OpenOffice | Appearance | Document background solved
his problem. This setting creates a coloured background on the entire
page area, but this is not reflected in any printed output; instead
it is merely intended to create a different appearance and experience
in the editing screen. Users may find it easier or more comfortable
to work with a different display from the black-on-white that is
probably desired and expected for the final printed output.
If you are concerned about the area outside the page margins, you may
instead be thinking of how to create a coloured background on the
printed page. And now you have a different problem, since most
printers you are likely to be using will not print to the edge of the
paper, so - although your document may appear with all-over colour in
the editing screen, the final output will have messy unprinted
stripes along its edges. (Professional printers print to the edges of
their documents by printing on oversize paper - but still not to the
edges - and trimming the document after it is printed.)
If your reaction to that is to say that you are not going to print
the document but view it on screen, then you probably shouldn't be
using a text (word processor) document anyway. Text document are
structured in pages of the sizes that paper comes in precisely
because they are intended for printing. If you want something to view
on screen, you need something more like a web page, which can extend
downwards indefinitely without breaks; alternatively, a presentation
slide may fit the bill.
Could someone cover how to do that?
If you want the background to print, you need to use Format | Page...
| Background instead. You will notice that any such coloured
background extends only over the text area - within the margins. So
as long as you have set sensible margins, the result can be printed
faithfully. If you want to extend the background colour beyond the
text, you need first to set the page margins to zero to achieve this.
Now you need to restrict the text to the area inside the margins that
you would have set; you can do this is various ways:
o Set indents and spacing in paragraph or paragraph style formatting.
o Put your text in a suitably sized and positioned frame.
o Put your text in a section.
o Use three columns, with only the middle one containing your text.
o Similarly use a three-column table.
I trust this helps.
Brian Barker
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