How to Crop Images in OpenOffice Writer

Many users have decided OpenOffice Writer is everything they need in a word processor versus Microsoft Word. However, there are differences. Unlike Word, cropping an image isn't as easy as simply selecting the crop icon in the picture toolbar and moving the crop box where you need. Many users actually believe they have to use a separate program to crop images in OpenOffice Writer. This simply isn't true. While it isn't quite as easy, you can crop images in OpenOffice Writer.

Locating The Crop Menu

Start by actually adding an image to your OpenOffice Writer document. If you're not sure how to do this, see the following steps.

Go to the Insert menu and select Picture near the bottom of the menu. Choose From File to choose an image on your computer or choose Scan to scan an image into Writer directly. The image will appear wherever your cursor currently is so be sure to place your cursor appropriately before adding images.

The picture toolbar which displays to the side does not include a crop icon. Instead, you must double-click on the image to bring up additional options. Alternately, select the image and go to the Format menu. Select Picture to display the same options.

Select the Crop tab to display cropping options. As you can already tell, cropping is a much more hands on task than it is in Microsoft Word. However, with a few tricks, it suddenly becomes easier.

Deciding How Much To Crop

Before you even open the Crop tab, determine how much needs to be cropped from each of the four sides of the image. Notice the rulers on the top and left side of the Writer window. These will serve as your guide. Look carefully at how much of the image you want to remove from the top, if at all. Notice how it corresponds with the ruler on the left side. For instance, you may notice you want to remove part of the background and it lands between the 4 inch and 5 inch marks. This means, you would remove approximately 1 inch from the top of the image. Repeat the process on all four sides to see how much space to remove in inches.

Please note, you can remove any portion of an inch, such as 0.9 inches or .25 inches.

Cropping

If you want to keep the original scale, meaning if you start with a square, you will end with a square no matter how you crop it, select Keep Scale. The four boxes below this option are Left, Right, Top and Bottom. Enter the amount you wish to remove from each side. Take careful note of the preview to the right side of these options. This is how your image will look. No changes will be made to the actual image until you press OK at the bottom of the screen.

The more images you crop, the easier it is to simply "know" how much to crop. The preview is your best friend. If you do make a mistake and press OK, immediately press Ctrl plus Z to undo the last changes made, which would be the image cropping.