On 09/25/2009 08:03 AM, John Kaufmann wrote:
...
What is desired is that a paragraph with embedded list look overall like
a paragraphs without embedded list. This means, for example, that
between the list description and list elements there be no
end-of-paragraph spacing, while the last list element should contain the
default end-of-paragraph spacing. To say no more, this is a messy
affront to the concept of paragraph styles: for example, what happens if
you decide to extend the list?
There's no sugar-coating it: Writer simply doesn't provide formatting at
the level you want, or even a solid workaround.
Writer does not support any sort of "list object" that you can apply
formatting to, and list items are always separate paragraphs. In other
words, Writer's "paragraph" object is structural and much more
narrowly-defined than the semantic "paragraph" that you're describing.
More practically, to fully style your "paragraph with embedded list",
you may need separate paragraph styles for:
* the text above the list,
* the first list element,
* the interior list elements,
* the last list element,
* and the paragraph after the list.
You can see an example if you look through the pre-defined styles that
come with Writer: some of the styles have been factored like that, e.g.,
"Numbering 1, Cont, Start, End".
If a document has only a few lists, I generally don't bother with all
the styles. I just add or remove some direct spacing as needed, at the
final draft stage. There's no crime in using some tweaks like that.
If you have a complex document, like a manual with a lot of lists, where
you can really benefit from styled formatting around the lists, you can
go with the full set of styles, or you could try a workaround of putting
the list inside a frame: You can control the frame's spacing with a
style, and it can be literally embedded inside a paragraph (anchored "as
character") to avoid the paragraph above/below spacing.
You can try a sample here:
http://martnet.com/~jes/temp/List_in_frame.odt
It looks ok, but it requires some ugly hacks like using white borders to
control some of the spacing, and it all falls apart if you change
certain parameters. Try changing the text body style to use justified
alignment, or a line spacing other than "single". Try line spacing
"fixed" for a chuckle.
As I said, I think this is probably an abuse of Writer's design and not
a general solution.
I could only find one request for this, but I'm sure there are more:
http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=34083
<Joe
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