Category Archives: Life Hacks

Save Paper with OpenOffice Brochure Printing

OpenOffice can print with a “brochure” layout, so that you print your document with two pages to a sheet, then fold the resulting document in half, staple it, and all the page numbers are automagically in sequence.

Pretty cool if you have a duplex printer, which I don’t.

If you too have a printer which can only print on one side of the paper, here’s what you do:

  • Go to File -> Print
  • Click “Options”
  • In the “Pages” section, uncheck “Left Pages” and check “Right Pages”, “Reversed” and “Brochure”
  • Click OK to dismiss the Printer Options dialog
  • Back on the Print dialog, click “Properties…” and ensure your printer is set to print in landscape mode
  • Click OK, and make a cup of tea while it prints…
  • Now, take the printed stack and turn it so the blank side of the stack is uppermost. Take a peek under the top sheet, you should see it contains page 1. That’s good, as we’re about to print 2 on the back of it…
  • Pop the stack into your paper tray. On my printer, the side to printed goes uppermost, and the top of the sheet is towards the front of the printer. I’m hoping yours is the same, so the blank side of the stack should be uppermost, and if you take another quick peek underneath that first sheet, you should find page 1 is frontmost towards the printer. Good. You’re all set…
  • Run back to the computer, hit Print, go to the Options again, this time, check “Left Pages”, uncheck “Right Pages”, uncheck “Reversed” and check “Brochure”
  • Click OK to dismiss the Options dialog, then OK to print
  • Now dash back to the printer. By this point you will be giddy with excitement
  • Pick up the stack, reverse the order, then fold it over so page 1 forms the front cover
  • Staple it together and smugly hand copies to your colleagues. Job Done

I’m really writing this post so I can repeat this trick in future, but I hope someone else finds it useful!

Hassle Me

Not posted for a while, as have been rather busy! A few days ago I stumbled upon HassleMe a simple site for regular emailed reminders. So now I have one reminding me to post something.

One thing I don’t need HassleMe for is pastebin.com – there’s an army of real people doing that. I’ve not had as much time to devote to it as I’d like, as Geograph takes most of my spare time. Can’t promise when I’ll have more time for it, but hopefully soon. Maybe I will add a HassleMe for it after all…

Finally, my good lady has formed her own cottage industry of jewellery making, and it’s going down a storm locally. She even has a website, www.made-by-mrs-d.co.uk. Not much there yet, as I’m still getting set up to take decent pictures of her work!

London Geek Events Google Calendar

I’ve created a Google Calendar of London events of interest to software developers and web professionals. If you search for a public calendar called “London Geek Events” you should be able to add it, though it can take a few days for new calendars to appear in such searches. In the meantime, click “manage calendars” and “add calendar”, and use the iCal or XML urls for the calendar.

I’ll need some help maintaining it – if you’d like write access to it, or simply want an event adding, let me know.