(Be advised: For this system to work you need Webdings, or another font that features a hollow square, on your system. Also, I created this on Ubuntu GNU/Linux so your mileage may vary on option placement within menus)
Checklists can have a big impact on your ability to get large numbers of people to do things more precisely and effectively. I wanted to make some printable checklists for Green Party tabling, event production, you name it.
I tried creating a bulleted list in LibreOffice but found that, absurdly, it was missing a “hollow square” bullet graphic. They have solid squares:
…which are not helpful. They even have “checkmarks”
which create, of course, the opposite of the psychological effect I want to achieve with this list. What about the provided “graphical bullets?”
Absolute garbage. So what do we do? I hunted around, and if you click on that “Options” tab you find a screen that allows the selection of a character as a bullet:
Click on that strange, sad little ellipsis box next to “Character” and a pop-box appears:
Select Webdings as your font, and scroll down until you find that lovely Hollow Square. Select it, then select “Ok”, and start making a template using a bulleted list:
Make note that I’ve adjusted the indent of the list. Your team will thank you. Ok, maybe they won’t, but take some pride in your work, dammit! Are you worried you’ll have to go through this song and dance every time you want to make a checklist? Put your fear in my mind-vise so that I may crush it, as we save your work as a template!
Ahh, but templates can be such a pain to find amid your myriad drafts of WALLANDER fan-fic, right? Then we’re going to Import your template file into LibreOffice’s gallery. First go to File -> New ->Templates and Documents. Now you have a new window:
In the pop-up shown above, click “Templates” and then “Organize.” That gives you another pop-window. Click the “My Templates” folder, then “Commands”, and select “Import Template.”
To access this template in the future, select File -> New ->Templates and Documents, then click the Templates icon…and there it is:
Happy checklist-making.
