Productivity Sauce

Although OpenOffice.org Writer can't replace a dedicated outlining application, there are two ways to turn the word processor into a lightweight outliner. The easiest one is to press the Numbering On/Off button in the main toolbar or the F12 key. This turns the current line in the documents into a numbered entry and displays the Bullets and Numbering context toolbar which offers basic outlining tools. The Promote, Demote, Move Up and Move Down buttons in the toolbar allow you to easily rearrange outline entries, while Bullet and Numbering opens the dialog window which lets you tweak different settings such as Numbering type, Outline, Position, etc. You can also create a custom outlining style or modify an existing one using Stylist. Press F11 to evoke the Stylist panel, switch to the List Styles section, right-click then on the style you want to edit and choose Modify from the context menu. If you want to create a new style from scratch, choose the New item from the same context menu or press Shift+F11.

Another approach requires a bit more work, but it allows you to use OpenOffice.org Writer as a two-pane outliner. This solution is based on the Outline Numbering feature which lets you specify a hierarchy of heading styles and then manage them using the Navigator. By default, OpenOffice.org Writer uses the built-in heading styles (i.e., Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, etc.) for each level, but you can easily change that using the Tools -> Outline Numbering dialog window.

Using heading styles to structure your outline is easy: apply the Heading 1 style to the top level of your outline and other heading styles to sub-levels, for example:

Primates (Heading 1)
Monkeys (Heading 2)
Capuchins (Heading 3)
Japanese snow monkeys (Heading 3)

The fastest way to apply styles is to use keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl+1 for Heading 1, Ctrl+2 for Heading 2, and so on. To make Writer look like a more conventional two-pane outliner, open the Navigator panel (press F5 or choose View -> Navigator) and dock it to the right or left of the main window. To do this, drag Navigator close to the right or left side of the screen, and release the mouse button when you see a gray window outline. In the Navigator panel, expand the Headings section, and you should see the outline as a hierarchical tree containing the specified headings:

Primates
    Monkeys
        Capuchins
        Japanese snow monkeys

You can quickly navigate to a specific heading by double-clicking on it in the Navigator. But that's not all: the Navigator also offers four buttons that allow you to promote and demote levels as well as move them up and down. Using these buttons, you can rearrange your outline and move headings around as you would in a traditional outliner.

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