I use OpenOffice to make my tabs, and have templates I have set up for 4- and 5-string bass, in both 8th and 16th note versions. I tried pasting one of them in this message, but formatting and characters get messed up.
The easiest thing for you would probably be to go to a ‘Reply to this thread’ box and click on the bass clef (tabs) formatting button. That will get you this staff:
Copy and paste that (minus the text in brackets) into a blank OpenOffice document making sure you have the font set to Courier New at 10 point size. I like to break the staff into measures - it helps a lot with timing. For an 8th note template, I have eight dashes between vertical lines (| - above the shift key); sixteen dashes between the verticals for a 16th note template. I get 8 8th note measures across a page or 4 16th note measures. Once you have a full, across the page staff, paste half a dozen copies of it down your page, then save your template.
Be sure to include a key to the symbols you use in your tabs on the template so folks can figure out what you mean by > or ~ or whatever. Have a look at tabs posted here to get an idea of what you want your template to include and look like.
