> > I have not read the chapters, but on the basis of your outline as > described, I think this reorganisation needs rethinking. To me an > intro to styles chapter should be aimed at the person who doesn't > really even understand what the purpose of the styles is and why > they should be used. I agree that the introduction should be gentle, but on the other hand we have to start also discussing contents at some point. I left in chapter 6 all the previous introduction and the rationale for using styles. > As part of that, the topics covered should be related to the most common > *tasks* that people want to do. > This does *NOT* include assigning styles to shortcut keys (which > should IMO go into the Keyboard Shortcuts appendix) or working > with conditional paragraph styles -- those are, IMO, advanced > topics. OTOH, using page styles to set up a sequence of pages > *IS* a common requirement, and so are simple lists. I also had in mind a structure that would not require readers to open chapter 7 and in fact all chapter 6 deals with the predefined styles as well as with simple methods to create new styles (drag and drop, create from selection). For the same reason I left in chapter 6 the example of modification of the heading 1 and heading 3 as they are fairly simple and people who use manual formatting can quickly relate to these operations. As I wrote to Gary, I agree that Keyboard Shortcuts would belong to an annex (but it is good they are in chapter 6 as they are another method to apply styles and applying styles is discussed in chapter 6). Conditional styles can be anywhere as they are a self contained topic. I did not put them in chapter 7 because chapter 7 was becoming very long.
> > I am also very dubious about moving nested lists into Ch3, > because they depend on styles, which are not discussed until Chs > 6 and 7. The example of nested lists I copied in chapter 3 is independent of styles. Another complex example using styles is given in chapter 7. It is true that in the discussion leading to the example there are several ideas that require some understanding of styles, but they can be removed and placed back in chapter 7 if so desired. I though it was good to discuss nested lists as part of the basic text formatting skills. > > Oh well, I'm doing other things now, so perhaps I should stop > reading this list and getting sucked into thinking about the > structure of the chapters. > I really value your opinion, so if you have time, your suggestions are very welcome. Cheers, Michele > --Jean > > > >
