Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
The template files for this tutorial can be downloaded from: http://goo.gl/6mhQ7 http://goo.gl/uehRw Several years ago, I created two templates for creating cards and posted them on the Open Office website. While they weren't perfect, they could be used to make a relatively nice looking birthday or general purpose card. The main portion of the card was made in Microsoft Paint, then moved over to Open Office Writer. Recently, I decided to revisit the greeting card, and attempted to make an entirely new card in LibreOffice Draw. The results are a better, more usable card. Using the Card Load the card by double clicking on it. The card will load LibreOffice Draw. Go to the front page section (lower right side), and place the cursor at either the top or bottom of the text. Then drag across the text. (If you prefer, you can triple-click on any word in this section to highlight all the text.) Type in your message, then format the words. There are a number of ways to format the words. Start by highlighting the text. I suggest that you use either the Format Menu, then select Character, Fonts…. or just right click on the highlighted text box, then select Character, Fonts. Pick a Font, a Style, and a Size. Clicking on the Font Effects tab, then Automatic, will allow you to change the color of the text. The checkoff boxes below allow you to add outlines and shadows. Be sure to click OK to apply the changes.
Changing the color of the box is relatively easy. Be sure that you have your Drawing toolbox open. Under View, Toolbars, make sure that Drawing is check-marked. It should be the default when you load the template. Next, you must look for the tab marked Layer 4. There are several tabs located along the bottom of the template. Layer 4 is hidden, but is next to Layout, Controls, Dimension Lines, Layer 5. Use the arrow to the left of the word Layout to move the tabs to the right. Then click on Layer 4. After clicking on Layer 4, select the blue rectangle from the drawing tools. Move to the front section of the card and start at the bottom right corner. Drag the mouse across the entire Front section. Right click and select the word, Area. In this section choose the color that you would like for the Front of the card. Click OK to apply the color. (Select white for your area color if you have a black-and-white laser printer.) Lines are made in a similar manner. Right click on the Front box. Choose Line. Then pick the Color, Style, and Width of the lines. Keep the line width to .06 or less for best results. Click OK upon making your selections. After adding color to the text area and lines for the Front section, you will notice that your text has disappeared. It is actually in the layer below. The easy fix is to right-click on the highlighted Front section, then select Arrange. Send Backward will move your text above the color and lines. Click OK to set this section.
Completing the Inside of the Card is done in a similar manner. There are a couple of things to keep in mind, however. Triple-clicking will not highlight the text area. Click on the area around the words in the inside text box. You will have to start at the very top or very bottom of the text, then drag across to highlight the text. Type your message over the highlighted text. Format the text using Format, Character as you did before. Also, after you format the text, you will have to rotate the text in both sections of the Inside of the Card. To do this, highlight the text box by clicking on it once. Make sure that you are on the outside of the text box and not on the text itself. This is the area right around the text. A little box will surround your text. Right click, then select Position and Size. Go down to Angle and type the number 180 for the number of degrees. That will flip the text box vertically. When printed out, the text boxes on the inside will appear in the correct position. Always click OK to apply the changes. To complete the card, just highlight the created-by section in the lower left hand corner of the card. Click to the right of the words, Created by. Next enter your name. At this point you should save your card. The card is very basic at this point. It contains only text boxes and some colored backgrounds and lines. You can add symbols from the Drawing tools section like stars and symbol shapes if you desire. If you are using a black-and-white printer, you may want to print off your card. After you print the card, fold the card in half horizontally, then vertically, to complete your card.
ClipArt If you would like to spice up your card even more, you can add clip art from the Internet. I have found that the easiest way to add clipart to the cards is first create a separate page in LibreOffice Writer. On that page you can paste your clipart. That gives you a place to store clipart for later use. First, Open LibreOffice Writer. Keep it open. Then open your web browser and do a search for free web art. I located a site called All Free Clipart at: http://www.allfree-clipart.com/. There are a number of websites that allow an individual to download free artwork and use it free-of-charge. Select a piece of artwork, then right-click and copy the image. Then click on the LibreOffice Writer tab in the taskbar (bottom of the screen). That will bring LibreOffice Writer up in front of your browser. Paste the selected artwork onto the Writer page. I like to give the Writer page a name right away, so that it is easily identified after saving it. Notice the Writer tab at the bottom will be renamed. Click on the browser tab in the taskbar. That will bring your browser back to the Internet artwork. Make another selection and paste it onto your Writer artwork page. Continue doing this until you have built up a small artwork collection. I choose clipart that can be used for birthdays, holidays, and other special occasions. Be sure to save your art collection.
Using the clipart is simple. Close the browser and launch LibreOffice Draw. Keep the Writer page with the clipart open. Once a greeting card is created, just click on the artwork page. Click on a piece of clipart and copy it. Then click on the Draw tab in the Taskbar, and paste the artwork onto your greeting card. Be sure that you are working on Layer 4 before doing this. Move the clipart into place and resize it. If you are using the clipart on the inside of the card, be sure to invert the artwork. That means it has to be highlighted. Clicking on it once will allow you to highlight the clipart. Then right-click and select Flip, Vertically. Click outside the clipart to set it in place. This will complete the inverting process. After you have inserted various pieces of clipart, your card is ready to print. ClipArt Sites: http://www.openclipart.org http://www.clker.com