agilebrit: (Urge to bitchslap)
agilebrit ([personal profile] agilebrit) wrote2009-11-11 12:11 pm

(no subject)

OH GOD I HATE WIDOW/ORPHAN CONTROL WITH THE FIRE OF A THOUSAND SUNS AND WISH TO KILL IT WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS. WHY WHY WHY CAN I NOT TURN THIS SHIT OFF AND HAVE IT ACTUALLY STICK???

I thought OpenOffice was supposed to NOT SUCK. Why can I not highlight an entire manuscript and turn that off??? WHY WHY WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

And, yes, I've tried copy/pasting the thing into a fresh doc. It saves the formatting, including the ever-cursed widow/orphan control. When I copy/paste as raw text, it strips my underlining and left-justifies my centered scene break thingies. This is BAD in a 121K-word document.

I can't win here, can I?

Maybe I'll load Wordperfect and see if I have better luck with that. Because this is driving me crazier than, probably, it should. Behold my OCD. ARGH.

Also, in case anyone missed it last night, the new issue of Darwin's Evolutions with my story in it is available for purchase or download. /pimp

[identity profile] agilebrit.livejournal.com 2009-11-12 02:04 am (UTC)(link)
*sigh* I thought all this word processing stuff was supposed to make our lives easier, not give us multiple aneurysms.

[identity profile] gates-end.livejournal.com 2009-11-12 04:56 pm (UTC)(link)
LOL I sometimes think they do it just to frustrate us to no end! ;-)

[identity profile] mela-lyn.livejournal.com 2009-11-12 01:25 pm (UTC)(link)
In Word there is a way to turn off Widow/Orphan control which means there must be in OpenOffice. I don't konw where it is, but it HAS to be in there. It will be up in your formatting options most likely. Dig, girl! Dig!

And copy/pasting won't fix it b/c Widow/Orphan being ON is the standard formatting now so it will be in any new doc.

[identity profile] agilebrit.livejournal.com 2009-11-12 06:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, I know where it is. It's just that multiple attempts to highlight the entire document and turn it off have been fruitless. I finally went in and did it page by page and that seems to have done the trick, but it's a 206-page document at this point, so it was time-consuming and frustrating.

It should not be this hard.

Also, it's STUPID that widow/orphan control is "standard formatting." We should have to turn all that extra crap on, not off. Is it too much to ask for a word processing program that just enters what I type instead of thinking it knows best?

[identity profile] mela-lyn.livejournal.com 2009-11-12 07:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Unfortunately, yes... b/c everyone wants the 'standards' turned on.

I can't believe it made you do it page by page. That's... that's... terrible!!

[identity profile] agilebrit.livejournal.com 2009-11-12 07:13 pm (UTC)(link)
It seems to have worked. I guess I'll see once I start inserting stuff in the middle. :-/