I have a personal goal to put together about 15-20 recipes that can be made using a core set of ingredients that I can keep in the pantry and fridge. I have aimed for such a large number so that I can avoid me and my dearest being bored with food, ensuring we don’t resort to take-away and continue to eat in a healthy way. I’ve only just started collecting the recipes, but the idea of translating this into an eBook has certainly occurred to me.

As a result, I thought it would be nice to have a background image behind the text on the title page. Fortunately, OpenOffice Writer allows you to do this using the Format > Page menu.

Step 1: Click on Format > Page, then click on the ‘Background’ tab.

Format the background of your document

Step 2: From the first drop down that appears in this window, select ‘Graphic’ (see above).

Step 3: Choose the image file by clicking of the “Browse…” button under ‘File’ and selecting the graphic that you wish to use.

Step 4: Under type, select how you want it to fill the page:

• Position will put the image in a specific part of the page – use the dots in the square to position your image in the corners or at the sides, or at the top or bottom.
• Area – fills the whole page
• Tile – will repeat the image to fill the whole page (like tiles on the floor)

Click on OK and your image will appear as a background in your document.

Layout for a recipe eBook

Note: I often change the page margins to reduce the white border around the edge of the page (click on the image above and refer to the left most page for how I’m implemented it in this eBook Layout). This layout has margins on the ‘Default’ page style of 0.5cm. All the other pages use a different page style.