On Saturday 28 October 2006 18:23, William Case wrote: > Hi All; Hi Bill,
> > I didn't want to write this post. I have been using OOWriter for over > two years and I still haven't figured out how to use styles. I have > just read the help manual one more time. I got no elucidation; I do get > frustration. At the risk of telling you what you already know, I'll just outline the way I use styles, and let you do the comparison. When I have a new type of document to produce, I first plan the content of each part of the doc in terms of paragraph types and define the styles for each. I'll also define suitable character styles where necessary too. This is done in an empty document, which is then saved as a template. When the template is opened (File -> New -> Template and Documents, select Templates and the folder and file) OOo creates an Untitled document with the styles defined as specified earlier, which can be saved in the usual way. If, as is usual, I find that there is something I've forgotten, I must go back to the empty template to make the changes and re-save to make it available for each subsequent document; it cannot be done just by saving the working doc as a template. Perhaps there is a better way, I don't know. One way of extracting the template from a doc would be to open the doc, select all the text (ctl-A), delete, and save as a template. After a few iterations it stabilises. If one of the new templates is common enough, then it can be made the new default (File -> Templates -> Organize) > > Here are a set of questions that, if answered, might help me. > > What am I doing? This is not a joke. I understand and can make changes > that I want at the category level, but I am left with the feeling that I > have just participated in a lucky accident rather than having > accomplished what I set out to do. > > For example, I want to create an overall style called 'Speeches' that I > can use to replace 'default' when I first start a document/speech. > > In fact, I would like to set up a special OOWriter template in the Gnome > context menu (right-click) that would start blank with the 'Speeches' > template and styles pre-selected. But this is a side issue. To start openoffice for a new doc using a template you need to set your desktop reference to start up with the command: openoffice.org-2.0 -writer <template> where <template> is the name of the template you want to use. On Linux, they are usually stored in ~/.openoffice.org2/user/template/ I don't use Gnome, so I don't know the details. > > Whenever I create a style like 'Speeches' I end up changing my 'default' > or losing the new style. I have tried to I set my speech configuration > as a template. When I reopen the template I always seem to end up with > text or some special formatting from a previous speech. > > Perhaps, a bit defensively, its because I really haven't grasped what I > am trying to do, or grasped what OOWriter can do, or grasped what > OOWriter can't do. > > I expect that 'default' in the upper left corner of OOWriter's format > bar will be replaced with 'Speeches' or whatever; that the drop down > menu will show things like 'Title' a style which I can create and then > select; 'Release Date'; 'Body' in small and large caps; 1.5 line > spacing; new margins etc. > > F11 gives me a long list of the 'default' style components or > categories. Where did my 'Speeches' style go? I've noticed that if you select from the drop down list at the bottom of the F11 dialogue box the value Custom Styles, then you should see the ones you have defined. I've also noticed that the top left drop down only seems to show a selected set of styles plus those actually used in the doc. This is from observation and could be wrong. > > Therefore, what am I doing and what am I doing wrong? -- Andy Pepperdine On this mailing list help is provided by volunteers. Please subscribe to the mailing list to see all the replies to a query, and reply only to the mailing list. For FAQ, userguide, see: http://documentation.openoffice.org/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
