Pradeep Srinivas wrote:
On Saturday 21 November 2009 00:44:49 AG wrote:
In 3.1.1 version of OOo (core 1:3.1.1-2 Sept 16, 2009) Writer, on
Debian Testing, I have come across an irritating (and
counter-intuitive, to my mind) issue when using the (i), (ii),
(iii), ... numbering list.
The text placement following (i) and (ii) is as one would expect, a
few spaces indent. However, at (iii) the text begins a good tab
or more length away from the (iii) and there is no (obvious) way
that I can reverse this without deleting the numbering itself
which, IMO, is daft and not what I was expecting at all in writing
a list enumerated with small Roman symbols. I've managed to
adjust my current list, but only by trying to fool the
auto-correction function (which I am very happy to keep most of
the time).
How do I fix this so I *never* come across this again unless I
*deliberately* choose to do so (altho' why I would I haven't
grasped yet)?
Cheers for any assistance.
"AG" :
The issue is with the tabs settings and hanging indent settings at the
bullet levels. Since the "spacing" is font specific, there is no
magic incantation that would solve this problem for you forever (in
your words, "...so I never come across this again...")
What you may want to do is to play around with the settings on the
Bullets and Numbering page, look under the "Position" tab and play a
bit with the "tab stop" and "indent at" settings under that page.
What is happening is that the bullet is "offsetting" the text by one
tab stop. When the length of the bullet itself is greater than the
tab stop, then, the text gets offset to the next tab stop - which
often is set to the default (of possibly .5 inch : I am not sure about
the default tab stop)
Since the bullet length is dependent on the font, size and kerning,
you would need to set this on a per instance basis of "numbering".
May I suggest that you do this using stylesheets to save yourself
hassles ?
I trust this has addressed, at least in part, your query.
Cheers,
Pradeep Srinivas
Pradeep
Thanks for your explanation & suggestions. I was able to adjust the
indent and alignment options under the Bullets & Numbering menu. It
isn't apparent (to me at least) how one can make these settings the new
default, unless one - as you suggested - sets up a new style sheet. I
presume that that means using a page style? I did try setting up a new
template with my preferred indents & alignments, but as soon as I copied
over the text I had already written, the lay-out went back to what I had
earlier.
In any event, for now this issue is resolved, and now I know what to do
next time I encounter it. The default behaviour of bullets & numbering
in OOo is certainly not a favourite feature of mine, I confess and seems
to involve some dark arts sometimes to get "just right" (which of
course, is hugely subjective).
Anyway, thanks again.
AG
