Re: [libreoffice-users] Libre Writer - Opening plain text documents to desired font

At 11:25 21/10/2012 -0400, Charles Meyer wrote:
> Yes, you got it. My goal is to open (not paste in) saved plain text 
> files in a blank, newly opened Libre Write document.
>
> I've visited Preformatted Style and change the style to Bookman Old 
> 12 point, clicked Apply and then saved it (or so I thought) only for 
> it to always default back to Courier New 10 point when I open any 
> plain text file.  I've created a Default font with Bookman Old 12 
> point but Libre Write automatically opens all *saved* plain text 
> files to Preformatted Style not Default.  I just wondered if there 
> was any way to change which style Libre Writer will open *saved* 
> plain text files automatically to since Libre Writer does not seems 
> to save changes to the Preformatted Style?

Writer will save changes to paragraph styles, but only in the current 
document.  If you save your document in Writer's native .odt format 
and reopen it, you will see that any modifications to styles have 
been preserved.  The point that you are perhaps missing is that 
saving as plain text is very much an export option, not a way of 
saving a word processor document.  (Think of it like creating a PDF 
version of your document - which function Writer helpfully includes 
as "Export" in the File menu, not as a Save As... option.)  As 
already mentioned by others, style changes cannot be saved in a plain 
text file - which is just that: the plain and unvarnished text.  So 
when you reopen such a file, you are creating a fresh document as far 
as Writer is concerned and any changes you made to its now-discarded 
alter ego are irrelevant.

If you need to save a document and later to re-edit it, plain text is 
useless.  As always, the best way to proceed is to save your 
documents in Writer's native format.  If there is any need for a 
plain text version of your document, first save your most recent 
changes to the .odt file (for future use) and then save the plain 
text version separately.

> The key seems to be inducing Libre Writer to open Text Encoded 
> and/or Plain Text files to either Default (where I have it set to 
> Bookman Old 12 point) or another style which does not require 
> Courier New 10 point.

I don't see any way to do this.  If you follow the scheme above, you 
will need to apply the style or font you prefer only once for each 
such document - which is hardly a penance.  After that, the .odt 
version you are working with will preserve its appearance faithfully.

> Has anyone on the list successful changed the style Text Encoded or 
> Plain Text files open to?

I wish you luck.  But - as I say - the expected method of modifying 
the Preformatted Text paragraph style in a new template and then 
setting that as the default template does not work.  When opening 
plain text files into new documents, Writer uses the "default" 
default template ("Text Document"), not your newly defined default 
template, and relies on the unmodified style in that template.  This 
is unexpected (by me, at least) but true!

Brian Barker


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