Re: [libreoffice-users] LO text

Hi :)
You were nearly there but just missed slightly!  There are 2 ways, one
is a bit different from what you are doing but is more elegant.

Your way, because you are nearly there already.  Do the back-space at
the end of the list to get rid of the new number and press enter
again.  That drops you back to the far left so you can carry on
without the indent.  After you have finished typing a few more lines
then go back and select the whole of the numbered area and use the
ruler-bar at the top of the document to adjust the amount of indent.

The other way (well, one of the other ways) is to leave numbering
until the end.  Do the typing first until you have gone past the area
you wanted to number.  Then go back to select that area to apply
numbering and do all the adjustments you want all in one go.


In general LibreOffice is designed with a different ethos from Word.
If you try to use it as you would use Word then you miss out on many
of the things that makes it more efficient and faster to produce far
better quality documents than you would to produce comparatively
rubbish ones in Word.

In Word the whole idea of styles is a pain that you have to fight
against all the time.  You constantly have to stop typing in order to
reach for the mouse and make some stupid little change or apply
formatting directly.  It reduces great typists from upwards of 75wpm
to as slow as me!

In Writer it's better to just do lots of the typing first and then
apply headings or any of the different formatting bits&bobs
afterwards.  Generally you do this by using styles.

Say you type all your document in the style called "body" or
"default".  When you do headings you apply style 1 for the main and
then 2 for sub-headings and so on.  You can then edit/modify the
settings of the styles and the changes you just made to the style
ripples through the whole document.  So lets say you were typing most
of it in Arial 10 point but 3/4 the way through decided to change it
all to Times New Roman 11pt.  All you need to do is edit the style
called "default" without even needing to select any of the text in the
document.

In Word after you have finished typing you generally notice some areas
where the font changed randomly without you telling it to, perhaps
even switching from English (Uk (or whatever)) into English (US) and
back again at random.  It takes a bit of messing around to try to get
all the text the same and usually people give up resulting in quite
odd changes mid-way through.  Bullet-pointed lists where the size and
shape of one of the points is different.  Numbered lists that
mis-count.


Tbh i didn't take much notice of styles for ages either and just used
Writer the same way i had used Word.  When i did read-up the chapter
in the guides i found my efficiency rocketed even though i didn't
understand it all or do all of it.  Later i re-read that chapter and
each time found another boost in productivity for each new thing.

See the "Getting Started Guide" Chapter 3
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Publications
but don't try to understand it all.  Just skim it first time.

Regards from
Tom :)









On 18 November 2013 14:02, Helen <etters.h@gmail.com> wrote:
> L) frustration -- trying to write a letter for the national office of an
> organization.   I have five items that I want to number.  LO insists upon
> giving me a number I don't want every time I hit "return" and it also
> insists upon indent in places I don't want.   I backspace to remove the
> indent and it then won't let me have a return-line space.   How can I turn
> off all automatic  formatting?
>
>
>
> --
> Helen Etters
> using Linux, suse12.3
>
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