On 11/28/2010 11:03 AM, Harold Fuchs wrote:
I've read some of the documentation on Sections in OOo Writer but I've
decided I don't understand the thinking behind them. Perhaps some would
explain it to me:
If I create a new blank Writer document, type a few lines and then
insert a section, a few things are puzzling:
1. The new section is named "section 1". Why not "section 2"? Why isn't
the text *before* the new section considered to be Section 1?...
I think you can add sections to the list of things in OOo with confusing
names. I say this because most people naturally associate the word
"section" with document sections, but Writer's sections are not document
sections at all.
A section in Writer is merely a container for some arbitrary document
content; it might contain one word, one line, one page, or the entire
document text.
The default names, e.g. "Section 1," also suggest document sections, or
at least some ordered sequence, but that's also misleading. A section
named "Section 100" could come first in the document, and "Section 1" at
the end: the name is purely an identifier. You could just as well call
it "Section Fred".
There are two distinguishing uses for sections that I can think of off
the top of my head: a text layout change that occurs somewhere within a
page (i.e. not at a page boundary), and for repeating some content
multiple times (cloning).
For example, you need two-column running text, but the first page should
have a full-width, single column title and first paragraph above the
two-column text. You can make the page layout single column (just for
the initial title and first paragraph), then put all the remaining text
into a "section" that provides two-column layout.
The division has nothing to do with the document sections; it's just an
arbitrary container that provides a defined region that is to receive
some specific content and formatting.
I guess sections are similar to frames, but they don't float; they're
part of the text flow.
<Joe
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