Tab defaults change when pasting into Writer from some other applications

users
#1

I'm currently running LO v4.2.6.3 on Windows 7, 64-bit, SP1.

I use Writer primarily to create notes for Bible study lessons. In that process, I often copy text into Writer from other programs (most likely e-Sword and TheWord (two free Bible software programs which, I think, both use the SQLite open-source database program). The template I use for this has the default tab-stop setting (Tools|Options|LO Writer>General) set to 0.25 inch.

My problem is that when copying text passages from those (and perhaps other) programs into LO, that default tab-stop gets reset to 0.5 inch, so that I have to go into the Options to change it back after each copy/paste. I don't know when exactly this behavior started, but I do know this resetting did not happen when I was using OOo and then LO 3.x. It either started with LO 4.0 or 4.1.

Has anyone else noticed similar behavior? Does anyone know a solution? Unfortunately, [Paste Special|Unformatted Text] is not a solution for me, because that would eliminate formatting that I want to keep.

Thanks,
-- Tim

#2

I'm not sure why you would want to use default tab stops at all. They are so close that you often need to add multiple consecutive tab characters, and this is surely a recipe for your documents being fragile and not robust to changes of font, paper size, printer, platform, and so on? Tab stops are a property of paragraph styles. Why not set up a paragraph style with just the tab stops you actually need and then apply this style to the text (very easily done) immediately after pasting?

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker

#3

What about using paste special the "Unformated text" option after creating the paragraph style you want?

Dan

#4

I'm not sure how that helps. In any case, the questioner originally said he wanted to retain elements of formatting in the copied text.

Brian Barker

#5

Sorry for the delay in responding. Too many other things going on.

-- Tim

#6

Tim,

I'm way too late in this thread to be helpful as I have been absent for several months (for some reason the list stopped recognizing my email address, so I recently resubscribed with a different address).

That said, I can relate to what I perceive to be your issues. I do a lot of Bible study work with LO and eSword and Bibletime as well as Bible.org. I always run into problems when I copy and paste quotes from one of these sources to LO.

As I look at your document (an interesting study indeed, btw -- love the reference to Origen), I see a lot of formatting inconsistency going on. Font changes, smartquotes here, dumbquotes there, etc. This is the result of pasting formatted text from one source into LO. Now you may not care about this as I'm sure these are probably private notes, not necessarily for dissemination, but...

In my experience with extra-LO sources such as eSword, etc., I've come to always paste using Paste-Special/Unformatted text. That way, I can then quickly apply an appropriate paragraph style to the text and all is well.

Virgil

btw., Ironically, as I'm typing this, I'm sitting in my Law Office Technology class while my students are taking a test on the use of paragraph styles. After teaching this class for five semesters, I've finally found an approach that works. I think Tom suggested it. I give them an unformatted document and ask them to format it using any method they understand. They usually take 30 to 45 minutes and end up with a mess. I then demonstrate reformatting the document with styles and I'm done in about 3 minutes and the document formatting is consistent and useful. I then ask, "If your client was paying $200 an hour to have a legal document prepared and formatted, who would they rather pay, me or you?"

#7

Virgil Arrington-2 wrote

...
btw., Ironically, as I'm typing this, I'm sitting in my Law Office
Technology class while my students are taking a test on the use of
paragraph styles. After teaching this class for five semesters, I've
finally found an approach that works. I think Tom suggested it. I give
them an unformatted document and ask them to format it using any method
they understand. They usually take 30 to 45 minutes and end up with a
mess. I then demonstrate reformatting the document with styles and I'm
done in about 3 minutes and the document formatting is consistent and
useful. I then ask, "If your client was paying $200 an hour to have a
legal document prepared and formatted, who would they rather pay, me or
you?"

A bit OT, but that is a great instructional example on the value of applying
styles to unformatted text.

Thanks!

#8

Hi,

Follow Dan's advice. Pasting unformatted text only does the same as
typing the text into your preformatted paragraphs.
Everything becomes clear and easy to use when your mind starts
separating data from presentation. Once you got there, using paragraph
styles is just a matter of course and convenience.

Cheers,
A.S.

#9

Hi :slight_smile:
It just occurred to me that after collecting a mix of snippets from
different sources it might be easier to
Ctrl a = select all
and then
Format - "Remove direct formatting"

I usually collect single articles at a time and correct the formatting of
one before moving on to the next. So for me it's better to do each paste
as a
Ctrl Shift v
to paste as unformatted right from the start. I guess different work-flows
suit different situations or different folks.

Sadly all my styles are set to be very basic, because that is all i need.
So the document Tim linked to got reduced to a very simplistic layout that
didn't look anything like the original. I guess if you do this quite a lot
then it might be worth setting up styles that do suit this layout much
better.

We used to have quite passionate arguments/discussions about the 'best' way
of handling different documents. It was quite amazing that there were so
many different ways, and interesting to see how those suited different
circumstances.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile: