LibreOffice to LyX

users
#1

I haven't dealt with long wordprocessing documents on LO,
but I have in MSWord.  And I have seen the exact same
whack-a-mole behavior.  Going through the whole document
and explicitly setting each section font size and style.
Numbered lists seem to cause the most problems.

Mike

#2

I don’t know your particular situation, but it seems to me that most common whack-a-mole problems come from mixing formatting-by-styles and direct formatting. This is especially common in collaborated documents. One co-author works with styles and the other works with direct formatting, which creates a hot mess.

I have never had a problem with LO when I have controlled the formatting. I use my own styles that I have created and everything works smoothly. But if someone else touches my work and starts inserting direct formatting, then it’s whack-a-mole time. I don’t fault the program for this, whether its LO Writer or MS Word.

I recall years ago, another FOSS program, AbiWord had a feature called “lock styles,” which prevented direct formatting. I haven’t looked at AbiWord in years so I don’t know if it is still there. I can only imagine the average user being frustrated by being locked out of direct formatting, which highlights an inherent problem with programs like LO and Word.

They work best when used with styles, yet I dare say most users don’t want to take the time to learn how to use styles. I tried in vain to teach styles to my secretary and she couldn’t be bothered. She complained that, while I was spending time creating and editing styles, she was actually getting work done. I could never persuade her that, once learned, styles make things so much faster and easier. I suspect that her attitude is more prevalent than LO’s developers would like to admit. Hence…

Whack-a-mole!!

Virgil