On Mon, 20 Oct 2008 23:52:27 -0400, Andrew Douglas Pitonyak wrote: > You appear to be an advanced user, so I will make this assumption while > answering...
I guess you are right. > You discuss styles. If you have a document, and a series of steps that > will reproduce the problem, please file a bug report and attache the > document in question that is used for those steps. I really try to, but the history of the case is long and complicated, and I have not been able to reproduce it. For the time being, I do the following description in case others run into similar problems. They might Google. I started the document in OOo 2.4, and pasted in sections from other documents that had been through round-trips OOo -> MSO 2000 -> OOo; a frequent source of problems. At one point, I had a bulleted list, followed by a paragraph that was even more indented than the list items. No matter where I looked, I could not explain why it was so indented. It had the same margin settings as the bulleted list and the paragraphs before the list. The text body of the bulleted items were more indented than the margin settings (as usual, but I had not yet seen any explanation). Yet the next paragraph was even more indented. I tried turning bullets on and off; no change. In fact, this made me contemplate switching to other tools all together. Then I discovered that OOo 3.0 was about to be released, and I downloaded it and I opened the document in OOo3. I still have the 2.4 version of the document, and when I now open it in 3.0 again, I notice that the Bullets toolbox dialog shows up when I place the cursor in that mysterious paragraph. Also, in 3.0, the paragraph is not more indented than the bulleted list, it is just indented like it. That is, like the text body of the list items. (This paragraph is not the one that carried a stray <LI> when saved as HTML.) But the first time I opened that document with 3.0, I decided to clean up all formatting using styles. Originally, in 2.4, I had avoided styles and just applied manual formatting, hoping to avoid complications. However, when pasting from other documents, all sorts of phenomena had showed up. Obviously, the styles were imported along with the text. Now, in 3.0, I used search and replace to replace styles until only the recently defined custom styles would show up in "Applied styles". (Actually, there is still an empty one with Default style near a table at the top of the first page, but the cursor will not go there as I use left or right arrow keys. I can only access it using search for styles.) Anyway, I "swear" -- "swear" means that I am aware of the fragility of human memories, but... -- that when I first had linked the paragraph style to the numbering style, I was so surprised that the paragraph would not become bulleted, that I tried repeatedly to double click the paragraph style as if to reapply it. I also believe that I thought the program may do nothing if the paragraph already has the style I am double clicking, so I double clicked a different style and then again the one with the numbering style defined. Still no bullet. I decided to save, in order to unzip the file and inspect the xml. I could not save. After I had saved as MSO, then as HTML, I tried to save as odt again, but it still gave the same error. Having found the <LI> in the html version, I again tried to apply a different style and then again the style with numbering style, and this time, hey, the paragraph became bulleted. What had I done different? I'm unable to keep track of so many details. Perhaps this time the "different style" was the one named "Default", while the original attempt almost certainly was with another of the custom styles, because I had had "Custom Styles" selected, so only custom style were easily available. Yet, trying to reproduce, when I now open a new document, apply a style to a paragraph, the style not yet having a numbering style, then set the numbering style of the style, the paragraph immediately become bulleted as per the numbering style. This is how it should be, but it is not what happened in that document. > They really do fix > these problems. There is a learning curve on how to do this, but take a > look here and see how it goes > > http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/query.cgi Thanks! I shall keep that link, and I manage to reproduce it, I will use it. > On Mon, 2008-10-20 at 23:20 +0200, Enrique Perez-Terron wrote: >> (I have to say I find the help in the application lacking, because it >> never explains the *architecture* of the system of styles. E.g, if I >> apply a list style, will that remove the paragraph style? > > No, applying a list style will not change the paragraph style. Thanks. It was just an example. The Help text makes more sense once you have the picture. Unfortunately, those who need help most, do not have that. > I can set many things in a paragraph style, including character > formatting, and list styles. I can then manually change formatting, or > apply other styles on top of the paragraph style without affecting the > paragraph style. There, "other styles on top of the paragraph style", do you mean manual formatting, or other *named* paragraph styles? Or named styles of other categories, like numbering styles? I have the impression that applying a *named paragraph style* removes all manual formatting except possibly numbering/bullets -- that is a different set of attributes. (Perhaps if the named paragraph style has a numbering style set other than none, manual numbering or bullets on/off are removed.) Yet you can apply manual formatting *after* having applied a named paragraph style. I do observe that styles may set only some attributes and leave other attributes as they are. However, it seems that if you double click a named paragraph style in the Styles and Formatting window, all formatting is first removed from the current paragraph, all attributes are set to some default state, and then the chain of parent styles of the named styles are applied in reverse order, each attribute being either set by the style or left as is. > I can also select text and choose to set it back to > default formatting... This applies to the character properties, not? Font, size, language, background & foreground color... Still it is not clear which default formatting. The paragraph default? I mean, you can set the paragraph's character attributes in the style, then you can select a run of text and give it different character attributes, then you can select all or parts of this run and revert to "default". >> In other >> words, is a "list style" just another paragraph style that happens to >> have the bullet and numbering properties set? > > I can set a list style inside a paragraph style, but that is different > than applying a list style manually. Agree. Yet, where is that described? I never bothered until I ran into problems. Then I tried to *understand*. One day I could not remember where I had found the Tools->Outline Numbering. I found Bullets and Numbering / Outline, but that was obviously different. At one point it becomes very confusing. So many things being "different", which things are not different? Context menu -> Edit paragraph Style, is that the same as the applied named paragraph style? It takes a while before the picture once again becomes manageable. > I have never bothered to do that, > but I understand why you would want to. Yes, I wanted to be able to change my mind and set, e.g. all serif fonts to one I liked, and hope, hope I could redo that each time I got the document back from review by others using MSO. Also, be able to scale up all fonts easily if somebody complained that I used too small type. Have titles grow accordingly. Paragraph style names show in the toolbar. That gave a sensation of control. I can live with applying list styles "orthogonally", I had just not gotten there. > I create paragraph styles, > character styles, frame styles, numbering styles, etc.... I then apply > them individually. Why? > > 1. I create a table of contents using paragraph styles. > > 2. I have reasons for wanting to use their standard outline styles > (heading 1, heading 2, etc...), but wanting to set my own numbering so > that I have sections such as > > 1. hello > 1.1 hello sub thingy > 1.2 another sub thing... > . > . > 2. Hello again > . > . > Appendix A. Explaining hello > > I do this by manually applying a _chapters numbering style for regular > chapters, and _appendix to the appendix headings. Works great. Great. Also, the navigator is wonderful. Move sections around just dragging the titles, and everything that belongs moves along. When I am still struggling to understand the structure of my subject, it is a great relief. I was amazed to notice the effect of being able to move things around and see if it felt right. >> I did find something >> about this at openoffice.org. Why has nothing of the stuff on the wiki >> pages been incorporated in the help? Even the wiki was just a >> beginning, and I now have problems finding back to it... Perhaps users >> on this list (myself included) can team up to help here. If we try to >> generalize from our experiences, and others point out counterexamples, >> we should arrive at a description that works. Or, does this already >> exist? > Start here: > > http://documentation.openoffice.org/ Ah, thanks. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
