Re: [libreoffice-users] Master Documents, Office Suites, and the Underwood

Hi, Tom and others.

I am finding this discussion to be intellectually stimulating though I have no idea as to the 
mechanics involved in developing or using master documents. 

What you write about saving time is most likely very true. However I have probably never written a 
document with more than about a dozen paragraphs and I have no idea where to look for the study 
materials that you say can be read in ten minutes thus immediately saving twenty minutes to an 
hour. 

I think that my only contact with the concept of master documents in Writer is what I've read in 
various threads on this mailing list. The same applies to the concept of pivot tables in Calc. Both 
are clearly good concepts to understand and employ.

At least 90% of my use of LO involves Calc. "Styles" are also employed in Calc but maybe that's 
comparable to comparing apples and elephants (both begin with a vowel). I have made very clumsy use 
of conditional formatting in Calc. I am sure there are more efficient techniques available than I 
use to format spreadsheets but again I don't know what to read and I don't have funds to purchase 
technical books.

One participant in this discussion says he learned to type on a typewriter and to program on 
mainframes before personal computers came into being. I also fit this demographic category having 
learned to type in high school the mid '50s and to program on IBM and Univac mainframes in the mid 
'60s. This old dog _is_ willing to learn new tricks but needs guidance finding how.

-- 
Jim

On March 25, 2014 7:40:29 AM PDT, Tom Davies <tomcecf@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi :)
> +1
> I didn't think i had time to learn styles either but found that just
> reading the first few paragraphs in the Published Guides took me about
> 10mins and immediately saved me at least 20mins, maybe an hour!  I
> still don't know much about them but each time i learn a little more i
> find it saves me tons of time.
>
> I've vaguely heard of cost-benefit analysis but saving time is
> relevant too.
>
> If you don't want to save yourself tons of time then don't spend a few
> minutes reading up on styles [shrugs].  It's only yourself that is
> losing out.  None of the people advising you to use the easier ways
> gain anything by doing so.
>
> wrt problematic documents with tons of styles buried inside of them
> they were probably using styles as implemented by MS Office.  The
> LibreOffice styles can quickly clear away all that junk.
> Regards from
> Tom :)
>
> On 25 March 2014 13:48, Cley Faye <cleyfaye@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 2014-03-25 14:33 GMT+01:00 Kracked_P_P---webmaster <
> > webmaster@krackedpress.com>:
> >
> > > I was taught K.I.S.S as a programmer, and I have not removed that
> idea in
> > > my documents.
> >
> >
> > A small comment on the KISS concept: "simple" does not necessarily
> mean
> > minimalist, or immediately accessible, it can mean "easy" too. Even
> simple
> > things like keeping headings formatting consistent is not simple to
> do by
> > hand: you have to give every heading the same formatting (font size,
> > characters modifiers...), and if you need to change them for some
> obscur
> > reason, you have to loop over all your headings by hand to do so.
> Surely as
> > a programmer you can see the problem here :)
> >
> >
> > Now, if you're not familiar with styles, you'll see them as "hidden"
> > formattin aide, or think they have changes "buried" deep down. And
> indeed,
> > it is possible to do extremely complicated things (know that styles
> are
> > cascading, can inherit from their parent, and the final formatting
> of a
> > character is a combination of page style, paragraph style, character
> style,
> > paragraph formatting and character formatting).
> > But it doesn't mean you have to go all out with this. You can have a
> flat
> > list of two-three styles and stick to them. They will sit there, on
> the
> > right of you screen (or wherever you've put the style toolbar).
> Nothing's
> > hidden, nothing's buried in the depth of style micro-managing... and
> *that*
> > is what some peoples (including myself) see as the "simple" part of
> KISS :)
> > If you're mixing style and direct formatting though, there you're
> asking
> > for trouble. It's possible too, but at this point you have to
> remember too
> > many layers of formatting (in my opinion).
> >
> > But, LO was made to be a office suite.  Writer was made to be a word
> > > processor.  Sure you can go "all out" and use it as a desktop
> publisher and
> > > other document formatter that does strange an wonderfully
> eye-catching
> > > things to the text, but do we all need to learn how to do those
> things?  Do
> > > we all need to use them to create and format our documents?  No, I
> should
> > > hope not.
> >
> >
> > You point out that LO is an office suite, and not a desktop
> publisher...
> > but the thing is, it is. As with everything you don't have to use
> all these
> > functionalities, but they are present, and used by many (even on
> this list
> > we get every once in a while someone with some questions regarding
> > publishing with LO). But, if you don't have to learn how to use
> them, you
> > have to know they exist to avoid misusing them. If one keep all it's
> typing
> > in the "standard" style and does everything by hand, it's fine, but
> if you
> > start mixing both, and then push them in a master document, you
> should know
> > what to expect, even if you don't want to use this.


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