Better writing with OpenOffice.org and Writer's Tools
Disclaimer: I’m the author of the Writer’s Tools extension, and the article describes how to use the extension’s tools which I created specifically to help me to write more efficiently. I hope you’ll find Writer’s Tools useful, too.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom that a word processor can’t help you to become a better writer, you can use OpenOffice.org Writer with the Writer's Tools extension to improve your writing skills and make the writing process more efficient. The extension provides an assortment of writing tools, including Writer’s Basket, Word of the Day, and Writer’s Notes.
Despite certain similarities, the Writer’s Basket and Notes tools serve different purposes. Writer’s Notes is designed to store useful language snippets such as useful phrases, idioms, unusual words, etc. Writer’s Basket, in turn, is designed to store all sorts of text snippets, which can be categorized and tagged.
A part of improving your writing skills is taking notes of how other people write. This is where the Writer’s Notes tool can come in rather handy. To open the Writer’s Notes form, choose Writer’s Tools → Database. This opens the WriterDB database, and you can open the Writer’s Notes form by double-clicking on it in the Forms section. Using the form, you can easily view, add, and delete records.
Figure 1: Writer’s Notes form
Storing useful expressions is not all that difficult, but keeping them active in your memory is another matter. The Word of the Day (WOTD) tool is designed to help you with this. It’s a rather simple tool that picks and displays a random entry from the wnotes database table (this table stores the language snippets which you entered via the Writer’s Notes form). The WOTD tool can be used in the following exercise which can keep your writing skills in good shape. Run the Word of the Day command by choosing Writer’s Tools → Word of the Day, and try to use the randomly picked expression or phrase in the article you are currently working on.
Figure 2: Word of the Day tool in action
Instead of running the WOTD tool manually, you can configure it to display a random expression when a specific event occurs: for example, when you launch Writer or open a document. To do this, choose Tools → Customize, click on the Events tab, and select OpenOffice.org from the Save in drop-down list. If you want the WOTD tool to run when you open a document, select the Open Document event, press the Macro button, and select My Macros → WriterTools → WordOfTheDay → RandomWord. Press OK to save the settings and close the window.
You can use Writer’s Basket tool to store pretty much anything else, which makes it a useful research tool. The Writer’s Tools → Add to Basket command allows you to quickly add a new entry. To keep tabs on the entries, you can assign a category and tags to them using the appropriate fields. The Writer’s Basket form in the WriterDB database lets you easily browse and delete existing records.
Figure 3: Adding a text snippet using the Add to Basket command
Writer’s Basket also makes a useful “prototyping” and jotting tool. For example, when you have an idea for an article, you don’t need to create a new Writer document. Instead, choose Writer’s Tools → Add to Basket and jot your idea. This allows you to keep all your ideas in one place instead of having separate documents scattered all over your hard disk. Another example: Let’s say you have several ideas for an introduction for an article. In this case, you can use the Add to Basket command to create entries for each version of the introductory paragraph.
Figure 4: Data Sources window
The clever part here is that you can insert records from the basket database (which stores data entered using the Writer’s Basket form) in the currently opened Writer document. So you can easily insert the introduction you like most in the text of the article. To do this, open the Writer document and place the cursor where you want to insert the desired version of the introductory paragraph. Press F4 to open the Data Source window. In the left pane of the Data Sources window, select WriterDB → Tables → basket. You should then see all records stored in the table in the browser pane to the right. Locate the record you need, and select it. Press the Data to Text button, select the Insert data as → Text radio button, and add the <Snippet> field to the right window. Press OK to insert the text of the current record in the document.
Figure 5: Inserting database entry in the text document
Writer’s Tools also comes with a few creature comforts that can help you to make your writing process more efficient. The Writer’s Tasks tool, for example, lets you keep track of your assignments. To quickly view your tasks and their deadlines, choose Writer’s Tools → Tasks. This opens a simple task viewer which provides you with a quick overview of all active tasks and their deadlines.
Figure 6: Task viewer
To add a new task or manage the existing ones, press the Open Database button, and double-click on the Writer’s Tasks form. When you’ve finished with a particular task, tick the Done check box. This also removes the tasks from the Task viewer.
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