How to Insert FIELDS into an OpenOffice Writer Technical Document

© Ugur Akinci
OpenOffice Writer is the free equivalent of MS Word. Unless you have very particular needs, you can do a lot with OpenOffıce.
One sophisticated feature OpenOffice shares with MS Word is the ability to insert FIELDS (variables) into your technical documents.
Here are the basic steps:
1) Launch your OpenOffice Write document.
2) Select File > Properties to display the Properties dialog box.
3) Enter the basic information about your document such as Title, Subject, Comments, Keywords, etc. Such information will come handy when you start inserting fields into your document.
4) Click OK to save the basic document info.
5) Select Insert > Fields > Other (or press Ctrl + F2) to display the Fields dialog box.
6) Select one or more of the six tabs available and insert the fields you like where you think they belong.
For example you can insert DATE and PAGE NUMBER to your footer and AUTHOR and TITLE to the header. There are hundreds of different ways in which you can make use oıf fıelds, depending on your documentation needs.