LibGuides: Open Office Tips and Tricks: Formatting

Open Office

Open Office is a great free alternative to Microsoft Word. Open Office can do all the same things as Word, but finding all of the options are quite different. If you want to edit your paper later in a different program, make sure to save the document as Rich Text Format (.rtf), using the Save As option under the File tab.

Font and Paragraph Settings

Font Settings

Font settings are located on the bottom row of the Toolbar. When choosing your font, each name is written in that font, so you know what it looks like. Your font size is located right next to it. Most professors state that you must use size 12.

Paragraph Settings

Next to the font settings is the Paragraph Alignments. Most of your papers will be set to Left Align, though titles are usually Center Align.
To the right is the Bullets and Numbering options. To go to the next level of the list, you can hit “Enter” and then “Tab” or Click on the Promote One Level and Demote One Level options in the popup. All the way to the right of the popup, you can change how you want your bullets to look.
To change your line spacing, click on the Format tab, then click Paragraph. Under the Indents & Spacing tab, click the dropdown under Line Spacing.

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Hanging Indents?

Hanging indent is the paragraph format that both MLA and APA have you use for your citation list. To set hanging indents, click on the Format tab, then click Styles and Formatting, then Hanging Indent from the list.

Open Office Tips and Tricks: Formatting

Font and Paragraph Settings

Ask a Librarian!

Hanging Indents?

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