I'm trying to learn how to block quote paragraphs in OpenOffice. I've never ever found a satisfactory way to do this.
Here's a post by someone who has the same problem that I have:
How to create block quotes indented on both sides?
OK. I've used the above to link to get a result I am happy with. Here are the steps:
- Hightlight the quoted paragraphs in OpenOffice
- Since I like my quoted paragraphs to stand out, I'm going to bold them by hitting the gigantic B just above the window where my document resides in OpenOffice
- Having bolded the block of text that is being quoted, I get ready to indent paragraphs on both sides next.
- In OpenOffice, I choose Format > Paragraph from the overhead menu at the very top of my screen
- The Indents and Spacing tab opens up by default
- I look for the words Before text and After text
- I set the before and after text for the my block quote to .20 inches (point two zero inches)
- I click OK at the bottom of the dialog to make my .20 inch indent on either side of my block quote go into effect.
- To further emphasize the fact that this is a block quote, I choose Format > Styles and Formatting from the pull-down menu at the top of my screen that I used previously
- I look for the word Quotation in the alphabetized list
- I double-click on Quotation to make the quotation go into effect
Overkill? Perhaps. I'll admit to being a clarity fanatic. In the interest of clarity, I've set my blockquote apart from my regular text in 3 different ways:
- I bold the block quote first
- Next I indent the block quote on both the left and right
- Next I ask OpenOffice to apply its own quotation treatment to the block quote. OpenOffice then takes the block quote and italicizes the already bolded text.
This might be overkill, but it does make it very very clear that I'm quoting another document. If something breaks the flow of my document, I like the break in flow to be very very clear. Block quoting in this manner is very very clear.
Ed Abbott
