by Dmitri Popov
In many respects, OpenOffice.org Writer looks like any other word processor. But behind its unassuming interface hides a slew of powerful features, which can help you to create and manage even the most complex documents with consummate ease and efficiency. One such feature is Styles that lets you work with character, paragraph, page, and list formatting properties. While other word processors have a similar feature, Writer is the only application that makes extensive use of styles and encourages the user to use them.
So, what is this Styles feature and how can it help you? The basic idea is simple: instead of using the formatting options available in the Formatting toolbar, you can define a style containing the desired properties. For example, if you want the headers in your document to use Bitstream Vera Sans 15pt font in bold and left-aligned, you can create a style that includes these properties instead of applying them manually every time you add a header. While using styles won’t save you much time and effort when you are working with short documents, they come to their own in long and complex documents like books and manuals.
Figure 1: The Stylist tool is designed to help you manage styles.
To better understand how styles work, let’s take a look at Stylist — Writer’s built-in style management tool. To evoke it, choose Format -> Style and Formatting (or press F11). Stylist’s main window is divided into five sections: Paragraph Styles, Character Styles, Frame Styles, Page Styles, and List Styles. As you might have guessed, each section allows you to add and manage specific types of styles. Each section already contains a few default styles, and to learn what makes them tick, you might want to tweak an existing style. For example, let’s take a look at the Quotation character style. Switch to the Character Styles section, right-click on the Quotation style and select Modify. This opens the style properties dialog window, which you can use to tweak different aspects of the current style such as its name, font properties, and font effects. Most of these options are pretty self-explanatory, so you should have no problems figuring out how to use them. The Font section, for example, lets you change a font and the size of the style as well as choose a language for spell checking. When you are done, press OK to save the changes and close the window. Creating a new style is equally straightforward. In the Character Styles section of the Stylist, right-click somewhere in the window, and select New. Give your new style a name and specify other properties. Press OK when you are done.
Figure 2 Tweaking style properties.
In a similar manner, you can work with paragraph styles. However, paragraph styles in Writer have a couple of useful properties tucked under the Organizer tab. Here, you can specify which style should follow the current one (the Next Style option) and which style inherits its properties (the Linked with option). For example, you can create a special style for the document header and set the Next Style option to the Text body paragraph style. Next time you type a header in your document and press Enter, Writer automatically switches to the Text body style. Using the Linked with option, you can link several styles together. For example, you can link the Heading 1 style with Heading 2, so the latter style inherits the properties of the former. If you later change, for example, the font in the Heading 1 style, this change will be automatically applied to the Heading 2 style and any style linked to it. This way, you don’t have to go through each style and change its properties manually.
Figure 3: The Organizer section.
While getting to grips with styles can take some time, the following tricks can speed up the learning process and help you to get the most out of this powerful feature.
Creating a style by example
The quickest way to create a new style is to use an already formatted text segment as an example.
1. Start by formatting some text.
2. If the style list is not open, press F11 or use Format -> Stylist.
3. In the Stylist, choose the type of style that you want to create (for example, click the Paragraph button if you want to create a paragraph style).
4. Select the formatted text segment and drag it onto the Stylist (alternatively, click on the New Style from Selection button).
5. In the Create Style dialog box, type a name for the new style.
6. Click OK.
Copying styles between documents
Suppose you have a style in a file that you want to use in your current document. You can copy the style in the following way:
1. Open both documents and choose File -> Templates -> Organize.
2. At the bottom of the Template Manager dialog box, choose Documents from both drop-down lists.
3. In the left window, double-click on the document that contains the style you want.
4. Double-click on the Styles item. This displays the list of styles available in the document.
5. Select the style you want to copy and drag it onto the target document in the right window while holding down the Ctrl key.
6. When you see a horizontal line under the file, release the mouse button.
7. Press the Close button when done.
Loading styles
OpenOffice.org offers an easy way to copy styles from one document to another.
1. Open a document and long-click on the last button on the right in the Stylist.
2. Choose Load Styles from the pop-up menu.
3. Click on the From File button and locate the file with the styles you want to copy.
4. Tick the Overwrite check box if you want to replace the style definitions for styles with the same names.
5. Press the Open button, and the styles appear in the Stylist.
by Dmitri Popov of Nothickmanuals.info
Posted by FA Editors at 9:41 PM PDT
