Re: [libreoffice-users] Paragraph styles

       Same experience here;
           the rules keep changing, so I stick with the Keep It Simple
system  ;-)



On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 6:47 AM, Kracked_P_P---webmaster <
webmaster@krackedpress.com> wrote:


> I no longer need to write in any "required style or page format. SO, I
> never got into using styles.  But you have a valid point in needing
> students to learn how to use it.  The fact that writing "style"
> requirements change every so often.  I went to 4 colleges and received 3
> degrees.  The problem I had was that every time I went back to college, the
> "standards" for foot notes, indexing, bibilography, and many other things I
> learn in one college English/Writing course changed.  I ended up taking
> English and Writing courses several time to learn the new standards that
> the colleges were teaching and required for any paper to be turned into the
> professors.  Then there are those classes that require specific formatting
> and styles for their paperwork.
>
> If you create a set of styles, one per class/course/teacher, then you can
> write the documents and then apply the styles needed by the professor, or
> even the business reader.
>
> I myself have run across times where using styles would work for me, but I
> never really learned how to use them correctly.  Never took the time.
>
> Tom's and other postings about getting students to "compete" in how fast
> it would be to format a "mangled" text to a predefined style and the others
> doing it the "hard way".  Then having the students "compete" in a race to
> see who can create a style from scratch for the document.  I bet there
> would be different version created that do the same end results.
>
> The only problem I see with styles is some people may go and make a
> document so complex with styles for "everything" that it creates problems
> for an new user to edit/modify the document with new information or
> reorganize the flow of the document.  I had to do that a few months ago and
> it was not easy.  It seemed that every possible portion of the document,
> i.e. paragraph text and titles, columns and frames, images and headlines,
> were all defined in such a way that when moving text and images around the
> document, the styles setup would try to define the wrong text or document
> element.  The editing and moving of text and images broke the very complex
> styling of the document.
>
> The point is, styles are great in concepts, but some people can get
> carried away with their complexity.  I have a book editor friend that I
> email back and forth with.  She has some real horror stories trying to edit
> manuscripts that the author wrote using a complex set of styles.  So if you
> teach and/or use styles, kept them simple enough that it does not get in
> the way of the next person needing to modify the document.
>
>
> On 04/30/2013 06:56 AM, Tom Davies wrote:
>
> > Hi :)
> > I am a bit bitter about this sort of thing too.  Even back when i was in
> > school i could see teachers clearly trying to help people.  Unfortunately
> > general attitudes of the kids in the classroom meant that even those of us
> > that were interested in learning the skill had a tough time.  It didn't
> > improve at Uni.
> >
> >
> > There have been some excellent suggestions in this list.  Perhaps set a
> > mini-competition half the class using 1 technique. Perhaps ask for hands up
> > if  they can't cope with using styles, in order to play to the machismo of
> > some.  When the results are in ask who can change the formatting of their
> > document fastest.
> >
> > Another idea is to get a horribly mangled paragraph and challenge them to
> > insert it into their document to fit the style of their own work.
> >
> > I frequently have to do this for my company's newsletter and at first
> > found it took hours to try to fix people's messes in Word.  In LibreOffice
> > i just pasted as unformatted and then applied styles taking just a couple
> > of minutes at most.
> >
> > However i still think it's easier to teach people things they want to
> > learn.  Trying to trick them into wanting to learn about something else is
> > a tough challenge.
> >
> > Regards from
> >
> > Tom :)
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > From: T. R. Valentine <trvalentine@gmail.com>
> > > To: LibreOffice-list <users@global.libreoffice.org>
> > > Sent: Tuesday, 30 April 2013, 4:08
> > > Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Paragraph styles
> > >
> > >
> > > On 29 April 2013 20:48, Virgil Arrington <cuyfalls@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >  It pains me to watch people mouse around a document going from
> > > > paragraph to
> > > > paragraph trying to get formatting consistent when all they need to do
> > > > is
> > > > make one change to a paragraph style and "voila", every paragraph having
> > > > that style is automatically changed. Just today, one of my students was
> > > > stunned to watch that work. "You mean I don't have to make the same
> > > > change
> > > > to every paragraph?" she asked.
> > > > There is a better way, and since a university pays me to teach students
> > > > how
> > > > to take advantage of modern technology, I feel it my duty to at least
> > > > give
> > > > it a college try to find a way to explain it to them.
> > > Virgil, I think it is great that you are trying to show your students
> > > a better way. I don't understand why there was an accusation (using
> > > 'Nazi' no less — that post seemed full of bitterness) that anyone was
> > > trying to force anyone to use styles.
> > >
> > > Styles are a better way, but some people are resistant to change,
> > > preferring to use a word processor as if it were merely an electronic
> > > typewriter. As the saying goes, 'you can lead a horse to water ....'
> > >
> > > --
> > > T. R. Valentine
> > > Your friends will argue with you. Your enemies don't care.
> > > 'When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food
> > > and clothes.' -- Erasmus

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