Re: [libreoffice-users] Character Styles

Interesting point, Virgil. I think we need to weak a fine line between
providing a tool that we can use intelligently, and forcing people to
do something they don't understand. Using styles the right way is
something you have to be educated about. Like you, I started by
getting the idea that I could change styles throughout the document if
I used them consistently. But it took longer for me to really
appreciate the need to do functional style definitions. Any character
can be bold for a variety of reasons, and the key is to create and use
styles based on the function of that element in a document. That way,
you can change a subset of all of the bold characters without changing
others. But that requires starting to really think about the
architecture of your information.

Regards,



On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 2:06 PM, Virgil Arrington <cuyfalls@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I've discovered another neat reason to use character styles instead of
> direct character formatting. We've already discussed the advantage of
> changing character formatting document-wide by just changing the style.
>
> I've always used Ctrl-B for boldface and Ctrl-I for Italics in providing
> direct character formatting to my text. I didn't want to be bothered by
> character styles. But, on occasion, I want to clean up a document by
> removing direct paragraph formatting (Ctrl-M). When I do that, it clears
> *all* direct formatting, whether paragraph or character, so I end up losing
> all my bold and italics.
>
> But, I've now learned to use the character styles Emphasis for Italics and
> Strong Emphasis for boldface instead of the direct bold and Italics
> commands. Then when I hit Ctrl-M to clean up formatting, then my boldface
> and Italics are preserved, because they are controlled by character styles
> rather than direct formatting.
>
> This has been a major change in the way I've worked over the years, but I
> think as I get used to it, I'll really like it and the greater control I'll
> get over my work.
>
> What's interesting is that this is the way LaTeX editors like LyX work by
> default. It's second nature in LyX, because that's the *only* way it works.
> But because of LO's open model (a billion ways of accomplishing the same
> task), I've had to adjust how I work with the office suite.
>
> Virgil
>
> --
> To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscribe@global.libreoffice.org
> Problems?
> http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
> Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
> List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/
> All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be
> deleted



-- 
Kevin B. O'Brien
zwilnik2@gmail.com
http://google.me/+kevinobrien
Facebook is Evil. Cancel your account.

-- 
To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscribe@global.libreoffice.org
Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted