Using OpenOffice Draw (sdraw) to Annotate Received Faxes

HOWTO make a macro to rapidly apply annotation formatting to a received fax:

The following includes a series of annotated screenshots to illustrate the steps.  I was using OpenOffice version 2.4.0 on Windows 2000.  The sample fax .tif file was received on my ubuntu 8.04 LTS hylafax server, and saved to the Win2k box using Graham's Fax Portal, which I might add works very well.


1.  Use the "Record a Macro" function in OO Writer (can't record macros in Draw).  Open a new writer document to do this.

2  Make sure the "Drawing" toolbar is displayed (View-->Toolbars-->Drawing) OO Tutorial Screenshot#1.gif

3.  Start macro recording (Tools-->Macros-->Record a Macro), should see a small control box with text "Stop macro recording" to click on when you are finished with macro. OO Tutorial Screenshot#2.gif and OO Tutorial Screenshot#3.gif

4.  Click on the big "T" on the drawing toolbar, then click somewhere in the blank document, click and hold left mouse button down and drag a text box.

5.  Place cursor in the box.  If you want a different font, font color, or font size than the default, right click before clicking out of the box.  Select "character".  A dialog box will come up to select font, font size, and color.  Make your selections.  When done, click on "Stop macro recording" (refer back to step 3).  OO Tutorial Screenshot#4.gif

6.  A Macro organizing dialog box should now pop-up.  Save the this macro to "My Macros-->Standard-->Module1-->your_macro_name" so it will be available to all OO documents including drawings.  OO Tutorial Screenshot#5.gif

7.  Once this macro is saved, you can add it to the OO Draw (i.e., sdraw) Drawing Toolbar by do this: Tools-->Customize-->select "Drawing" on the Toolbar tab-->and "Add".  In the "Catagory" list, navigate once again to OpenOffice.org Basic-->My Macros-->Standard-->Module1-->your_macro_name, then click on "Add" to add it to the Drawing toolbar.   OO Tutorial Screenshot#7.gif

8.  Unfortunately, swriter and sdraw don't share all of their settings and you have to add this macro to OO Draw (sdraw).  If you have added it to OO Writer (swriter) , just review and do step 7 (again),  so that the macro will be available on sdraw's Drawing toolbar.


NOW, wasn't that easy??

To use the macro for annotation of a fax:

1.  Launch the fax file with sdraw that you want to annotate.
2.  Click on the big "T" on the drawing toolbar, click and drag a box where you want it.  The cursor stays inside by default.
3.  Click on whatever name you assigned to "your macro name" on the Drawing toolbar, and your formatting will be applied to the text box.
4.  Type your annotation.  That's it.
5.  If you want to save the file to PDF for storage or re-faxing, OO has a little PDF icon right next to the printer icon to immediately save the file to PD

OO Tutorial Screenshot#8.gif

OO Tutorial Screenshot#9.gif