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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 ....'
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
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.
Hi
I think you are thinking of Word rather than Writer. Also you are talking about "House Styles" for different companies, different institutions, different professors. Language and fashions do evolve too as you were also saying.
In Word Styles do tend to get very messy very quickly and it's overly complicated. Plus you can never be sure that a style's definition will hold all the way through a document.
By contrast LibreOffice Styles "Cascade" (a bit like Css but different) so it's easy to change (for example the font of) one level of headings and find that change ripples out to other relevant styles. KISS for internally consistent documents.
Regards from
Tom
I first learned about styles and templates with Microsoft Word, and I think it is clear that this is something that all word processors do, for a very good reason. Back in the 1990s I developed a course for our degree completion students (basically people in their 40s who had started on a bachelors degree but never finished it). They needed to demonstrate proficiency with office software programs to graduate, and if they could not pass a test they could take my course and pass it. What almost always happened was that they put it off until the last possible time either because they thought they already knew it all, or because they thought they couldn't learn computer stuff and were afraid. By the time I was done with them, they almost always complained that they should have been given the course at the beginning because it would have saved them so much time. So people can learn this, and people can see the benefit of learning this.
I now do training sessions at placed like Ohio LinuxFest, and they are very well received. I just did another this past weekend at Penguicon, and had very enthusiastic participation. These are all people who chose to be there, so there is no possible implication of force involved. These are tools, and every tool works best if you learn how to do it properly. If you pick up the wrong saw and use it the wrong way, you may eventually cut the piece of wood, but it will look bad and take a lot more effort than it should.
Regards,
Same experience here;
the rules keep changing, so I stick with the Keep It Simple
system 
One additional thought: those who have learnt HTML and CSS should find
using styles quite natural — it is the same separation of content from
presentation (styles).
NO
it was a Writer file from the 3.4.x days.
The file needed a lot of work and additions to reflect the changes from 3.6.x to 4.0.x. I was not the one who created the document, but I had it for over a year and finally had some time to work on that documentation. I almost gave up. The person must have done a lot of "experimentation" with every style option in the document, even where it was not needed. I even found a sentence that has just a few words in it with their own style that was not used anywhere else. I ended up going back to an exported unformatted .txt file and starting over from there.
I hope the guy did not write the LO document in Word, but he could of, since he still has Word 2007, if I remember correctly. I use to use both Word 2003 and LO in the early days on a Win XP system, since I had to give others Word documents, so I made sure the LO .doc file looked correctly in Word. Sometimes it was easier to just do the editing in Word when I was using my laptop at their home or office. Now I just use 4.0.x on all my Windows systems, since it is better at dealing with the .doc/.docx files I am getting via email. I never went beyond MSO '03.
The KISS standard is something many "experimenters" do not use many times. They want to be to "creative" for my tastes.
BUT
as for the original posting. . . .
I really like the idea of teaching people to use LO in the higher education environments. The younger crowd would be easier to teach since they were not so "frozen" onto the MSO mentality and concepts. Making learning fun and people of all ages might learn more in a faster time and enjoy the learning process more than I found in most of my college courses, and in the high school courses I had to teach as a substitute teacher.
Templates vs. Styles is a whole different discussion with pros and cons with each. For the business world, templates might be easier to deal with for the user, since they do not need to remember which styles go with which document[s] they are required to make. Then you do not need to see if the "master document" creator's work with styles gets to work with all of the user's individual desk systems. I really do not know how to import a number style from computer to another so they can be used on different documents. The same problem might come up with one writer including a font in their document that the next person using it does not have that font installed. The document states/displays the correct font in the font drop-down window, but Writer tries to use a different installed font as a substitute.
Hi
I think that is called "a teaching moment" and they are extremely rare. In 20 years of teaching one can expect about 4 of those.
Regards from
Tom
Do you use styles?
The point with OO/LO is that unfortunately, like Word, its style concept
does not allow to work in the "structure markup" way.
So, even if you tried to use styles consistently, you wouldn't be able
to benefit from it the way you can with e.g. LyX/LaTeX or document
processors like Wordperfect or Framemaker (or any other document
processing application that I know of - except LO/OO and Word).
Just look at the official documentation (which would be supposed
to be a showcase of how to work with LO) and try to work with it. For
example, to make the documents actually readable, try something as
simple as replacing the body text typeface with one actually made
for readable text.
In any document processing application with a well-implemented style
concept, this would require the change of one single definition in
one style. With LO/OO, just like with Word, you're in for a whole day of
work. Because you'll have to modify each and every style individually
and besides, due to invisible (and incorrectible) "bugs" in the
formatting parts of the documents will still require manual
re-formatting. And once you're done with that, besides a seriously
strained wrist, you still have an unstructured spaghetti document.
This is why I wouldn't use LO to teach what structure markup (e.g.
"styles") is about in the first place. And why I don't use it for
*writing* documents. Only for generating them from databases.
Sincerely,
Wolfgang
Comments inline:
Do you use styles?
The point with OO/LO is that unfortunately, like Word, its style concept
does not allow to work in the "structure markup" way.
What do you mean by a "structured markup" way? Please be specific.
So, even if you tried to use styles consistently, you wouldn't be able
to benefit from it the way you can with e.g. LyX/LaTeX or document
processors like Wordperfect or Framemaker (or any other document
processing application that I know of - except LO/OO and Word).Just look at the official documentation (which would be supposed
to be a showcase of how to work with LO) and try to work with it. For
example, to make the documents actually readable, try something as
simple as replacing the body text typeface with one actually made
for readable text.
How about some specific answers instead of aaccusations? What font is unreadable? (I have been able to read them easily for more than a decade.) Why is it unreadable? What font would you prefer were used instead. What chapter and Guide are you referring to as official documentation? What version of LibreOffice was used to produce it? (This is found below the Copyright.) What paragraph style was used by LO to define the fount that was used? Why can't a person change the font from what it is to what you would prefer?
I actually work with styles beginning first in OOo 1.0.2 and continuing up to today. What is it that I have been doing could have been done easier and quicker?
In any document processing application with a well-implemented style
concept, this would require the change of one single definition in
one style. With LO/OO, just like with Word, you're in for a whole day of
work. Because you'll have to modify each and every style individually
and besides, due to invisible (and incorrectible) "bugs" in the
formatting parts of the documents will still require manual
re-formatting. And once you're done with that, besides a seriously
strained wrist, you still have an unstructured spaghetti document.
Please give us a specific example of what you are talking about. What bugs? Why are they causing problems. What has to be manually re-formatted? How about an example of a structured document and an unstructured spaghetti document?
--Dan
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.
This clearly shows that, unless the word processing learning is part of the course, the teachers/professors/whatelse should provide a template for the paperwork they are requesting.
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.
Yes, sure.
Any template should come with a manual and/or a refcard describing the workflow and the styles usage. The tool is the software *and* the template.
The point is, styles are great in concepts, but some people can get
carried away with their complexity.
Sure, too.
People having to *write* shouldn't be bothered with any conceptual complexity (the template manufactoring). This should be taken care elsewhere by someone else.
But developing Templates and Styles is what lets me concentrate on writing and not formatting.
Regards,
I would prefer it if there was no direct formatting. If the buttons Numbering, Bold, etc. actually applied a style on their use. They could all have their own style if need be assigned to the button. For the normal user the fact they are styles is hidden but it would mean that the document is not full of direct formatting. One of the most frustrating things is fixing other peoples documents that are full of direct formatting.
steve
Several of the posts have brought me to thinking a few random thoughts.
1. There's a difference between *using* styles and *creating/editing* them. In the LyX/LaTeX world, as well as the HTML/CSS world, one is indeed forced to used styles (called "environments" in LaTeX speak) because that's the way the system works. The styles/environments are created by supposed experts who create document "classes," or templates. But, neither the classes nor the environments are easy to modify. The end-user selects the environment he wants (\chapter, \section, \quote, etc.) and then lets the program do the work. As one writer mentioned, it truly separates the operations of writing and typesetting/formatting. Markdown editors in the HTML world also allow such clean separation. None of the WYSIWYG word processors (Word, LO, OO, AbiWord, etc.) provide such a clean separation between editing and formatting. And, yet...
2. In the LyX/LaTeX world, it all works very well...until you want to modify a small formatting parameter for a specific paragraph. Yes, it can be done, but it's not intuitive, nor encouraged. Despite the advanced formatting capabilities of LyX or LaTeX, few writers use them, I believe in part because making even a small change from the default settings sometimes requires a massive on-line search for the right command to change.
3. In the Word/LO world, this case of the "one off" paragraph modification is where I see resistance to styles from end-users. I've got paragraph style for just about every possible situation, but there may be a single paragraph where a user wants to change one parameter. If the user doesn't understand styles, he'll just apply direct formatting to the paragraph, without creating and/or modifying a style. Thus, just having users write with templates and styles created by others will only take people so far. At some point in time, they will need to learn how to create and/or modify styles. Otherwise, they'll have documents with a mixture of styles and direct formatting, the beginning of what could grow into a mess. I believe AbiWord has (or had) a feature to "lock styles" meaning a person could be locked out of changing formatting directly. All formatting changes would have to go through styles. I'm sure it would be a maddening feature for the uninitiated, but it would encourage people to learn to do use styles in the "right" way.
4. Document collaboration is a real bugaboo. We lawyers share documents repeatedly. I would create a document using styles, and send it off to a colleague for further edits. I would get it back with a mess of styles and direct formatting. I see no answer to this conundrum, simply because our programs allow so many different ways of accomplishing the same tasks, and I couldn't expect a colleague to listen to my styles tutorial when all he wanted to do was make a small edit to my proposed contract.
5. I agree that LO's styles work much better than Word's. With LO, I can list my styles hierarchically, so I can change a parameter in one high level style and have it changed in all lower level styles based on the same higher style. (So, no, you don't have to change each and every style just to change the font throughout a document). Word has styles based on other styles as well, but I have yet to find a clean way to list them in the style box in a hierarchical manner.
Virgil
As an end user, I'd like to ask one follow-up question to your third point. This is an "I don't understand" type of question, by the way, not a challenge.
Are you implying that if I want to, say, indent one paragraph with no other changes, I should create a new style for that? Seems like a lot of work since it can be done with one mouse clicks (or, if I ever get around to learning how to create shortcut keys, one keystroke combination) plus navigating to the paragraph.
(Just for the record, the indent and outdent keystrokes are probably the thing I miss most from MS Word, and there's not much that I miss.)
Dave
Dave asked,
Are you implying that if I want to, say, indent one paragraph with no
other changes, I should create a new style for that? Seems like a lot
of work since it can be done with one mouse clicks (or, if I ever get
around to learning how to create shortcut keys, one keystroke
combination) plus navigating to the paragraph.
Valid question. Your example demonstrates the tension between using styles and direct formatting. To make such a small change using styles would indeed be more work than using direct formatting. But, in my experience, too many users use that one paragraph as an illustration of why they don't want to learn or use styles at all. In order to keep from spending a few minutes to create a new style, they end up sentencing themselves to hours of unnecessary labor directly formatting paragraphs when they could be much more efficient with styles.
Obviously, that one change to that one paragraph isn't going to destroy your document, but small changes like that tend to multiply. Do it too many times in a document, and you will end up with formatting problems, such as remembering which paragraphs were formatted with styles and which were formatted directly. Also, let's say you make that one small change, and then later decide you want to change something more globally. That one directly formatted paragraph could get in the way of a later global change.
Also, don't get sucked in to comparing amounts of labor to perform a task. At first, the creation of a paragraph style *always* appears to take more work than direct formatting, which is why many users never cross the styles threshold. But, cross that threshold once, and you will save yourself mountains of labor later by using the styles it took you so much time to create in the first place.
Ideally, I will use styles for each and every paragraph in my documents. It provides formatting consistency, and I never have to remember which paragraphs I may have formatted directly. Yes, on occasion, I will spend more time formatting a single paragraph by creating a new style, but I consider that a one-off "cost of doing business" with styles, which will be more than offset by the hours I will save myself later by using styles throughout my documents. I also remember that I'll probably use that same paragraph format later in a different document, so having the style created and saved in my default template saves me more time later.
Virgil
As an end user, I'd like to ask one follow-up question to your third point. This is an "I don't understand" type of question, by the way, not a challenge.
Are you implying that if I want to, say, indent one paragraph with no other changes, I should create a new style for that? Seems like a lot of work since it can be done with one mouse clicks (or, if I ever get around to learning how to create shortcut keys, one keystroke combination) plus navigating to the paragraph.
(Just for the record, the indent and outdent keystrokes are probably the thing I miss most from MS Word, and there's not much that I miss.)
Dave
From a personal perspective,you would not have to create a new style if you are only going to do this one time. However, if you then find that you want to do it more often, you probably should create a new style and use it every time you indent a paragraph this way.
Creating such a style involves these steps: Suppose your paragraph style is named TextBody. Remember that this also requires the Styles and Fromatting window open (use the F11 key to open it).
1) Right click TextBody in the Paragraph styles list.
2) Select Modify from the context menu.
3) In the Organizer tab, name this new style (I suggest: TextBody-Indented).
4) Click the Indents & Spacing Tab.
5) Select the amount of the indentation you want in First line.
6) Click OK.
Yes, for me this takes 6 steps. But most of it can be done with a mouse. Actually, only naming the style requires using the keyboard. Another point: this new style is identical to the original paragraph style except for the amount of indentation.
It is really about moderation. It is also about some planning of what is to be contained in a text document. If you are creating several paragraphs that have the same format, a style that defines that format is a good idea. If you have only one or a very few paragraphs that are different, you might not want to create a style for only a very few paragraphs.
Having said that, here is a real example that someone asked about on the OpenOffice.org mailing list several years ago. They were writing a document that contained two languages. Some of the paragraphs contained one language, and the rest contained a second language. How can words in two languages be spell checked?
The answer was to create a paragraph style for one language and a second paragraph style for the second language. (This requires similar six steps to what I mentioned above. Step 4 would be to click the Font tab. Step 5 is to select the language desired.) Since the person had already installed the dictionaries for these languages, all that was needed was to assign the proper paragraph style by language. Then to check the spelling, the F7 key is clicked. Both languages have their spelling checked.
--Dan
My preference for that one mouse click to indent the paragraph would be a small prompt "Update Style or create new style".
Steve
True: (Ctrl+A followed by Ctrl+M)