Open Office Line Spacing- (Solved -Thanks!)

[sarahmarienc]

Okay, I'm not sure 100% about this so I'm asking for help.

I belong to a writers group and they all use Windows (Office 2003 or 2007) and I'm using Open Office. They're having difficulties reading my documents due to the formatting being undone, even though I'm saving my files as both .doc and .odt and sending as .doc to them.

Official formatting should be exactly 26 lines but I have looked EVERYWHERE to find this in Open Office and cannot find it. Per my instructor it should be near where you set "single, double, 1.5, or fixed" line spacing. In windows it says "exactly" and I'm assuming that's the equivalent of "fixed" in OO. But the problem is that on her windows office she sets it to 26 but in OO when I click "fixed" it asks for "inches?"

For clarity here are the steps:

1) Start Open Office & Open a New Document
2) Go to "Format"
3) Select "Paragraph" in the drop down Format menu
4) A tabbed window opens, and the first tab is "Indents & Spacing"
5) Under Line Spacing on the "Indents & Spacing" tab, select fixed
6) But rather than setting a specific number of lines it asks for a (x.xx inches (") setting) This is where I am confused... What would the equivalent of exactly 26 lines be in inches? Laughing as this sounds so ludicrous

Does ANYONE know what I'm talking about? PLEASE HELP me so that my group can stop being frustrated over the formatting being undone every time I have to send them a new installment of my book. Thank you in advance!

-Sarah

[sarahmarienc]

Someone on IRC helped me figure this out. Thanks guys/ gals

[emorrp1]

hi sarah, what was the solution?

[sarahmarienc]

hi sarah, what was the solution?

Well the easiest fix we found was instead of using the "fixed" option, using the "proportional" and setting it at 190% . If I turn on the line numbering and use 190% with Times at 12 pt, I've got exactly 26 lines per page. It's not a perfect solution but it will work for now. I tried the openoffice.org forums and other people have asked about this and pretty much that's the only solution that has been given.

[rivenathos]

Even though I rarely have to interact with any Windows users, this bit of info has been filed away for future reference. Honestly, I had never considered this approach. Any way to get those other poor souls in your group to detoxify themselves of their Microsoft habit? Ha, ha, ha...

[sarahmarienc]

Even though I rarely have to interact with any Windows users, this bit of info has been filed away for future reference. Honestly, I had never considered this approach. Any way to get those other poor souls in your group to detoxify themselves of their Microsoft habit? Ha, ha, ha...

Nope. Unfortunately they are stuck in their ways and need Windows for Dreamweaver and the link. I'm the odd man out so I am learning how to adapt my Open Office so that it mimics their specifications. The beauty of that is I still get to use my Linux and they still get to use their Windows. No feeling hurt, no messed up formatting, and no complaints