OOo Off the Wall: Paragraph Styles, Part II

So, you've chosen the fonts for your paragraph style and its
positioning. What next? In many cases, nothing is next. Font and positioning choices are the basics
of paragraph styles in OpenOffice.org Writer. Often, you need nothing
more. But, when you do need more, Writer's paragraph styles have a grab bag of tricks
waiting for you. These tricks include:

• Assigning a paragraph style to a numbering
  style
• Including or excluding a style from line numbering and resetting the
  numbering
• Making the formatting depend upon
  conditions
• Adding drop capitals to the start of the
  paragraph

Except for conditional formatting and drop capitals, all these options
are available from Format -> Paragraph if you are formatting
manually. They also are available from the window for each paragraph style. Because conditional formatting
requires consistency of styles, it is unavailable when you format
manually. Learning these tricks now not only readies you for future
needs, but it give you some ideas to try.
By the Numbers
Unlike most word processors, Writer does not make bulleted or numbered
lists part of the paragraph style. Instead, both ordered and unordered
lists have a style of their own called numbered lists. Paragraph
styles can be associated with a numbered list style for adding numbers
automatically.

This division of lists and paragraphs has several advantages. To start with, it reduces confusion
by separating the two different functions of setting up lists and
formatting paragraphs. More than one MS Word user has complained of not
knowing which they were editing, but with Ooo Writer, this confusion
is eliminated. Equally as important, by separating lists and paragraphs,
Writer not only gains the interface space for giving lists a complete
set of options, it also avoids burying the options deep in the menu
structure. Moreover, because lists are separate, they can be used by
more than one paragraph style, which saves users time. For instance,
if you want two paragraph styles to use Roman numerals, you need
to set up the numbering only once. Changing a paragraph's numbering style is
equally easy. This is the economy of effort that all styles are intended
to provide.
Paragraph and line numbering can be added
from the Numbering tab. Paragraph numbering associates a numbering style
with the paragraph style. Line numbering is set in Tools -> Line
numbering.

If you set the view in the Stylist to List Styles, you should notice that
Writer's pre-defined paragraph styles contain styles called List 1 through
5 and Numbering 1 through 5. The List styles are meant to correspond
to the pre-defined number styles called List and are intended for bullet
lists. Similarly, the Numbering styles are meant to correspond to the
pre-defined number styles called Numbering and are intended for numbered
lists. No doubt, matching paragraph styles to the
numbering styles they link to helps you to see the relations between
them more easily. Still, I personally prefer to define custom styles
for both paragraph and numbering that describe the type of numbering,
such as Arabic Numerals Red. These style names are even more convenient.
OOo Writer comes with pre-defined list styles.
However, you are better off designing your own styles with descriptive
names.

Both the List and Numbering paragraph styles also include special styles
for the start and end of a list and for lists continued at the top of new
pages. Such styles can be useful for adding extra space above the top or
bottom of the list or for adding a continuation message. However, if you
give enough thought to design, you usually can do without these styles.

The Numbering tab also includes options for including the paragraph
style when Tools -> Line Numbering is turned on and for restarting or
changing line numbers with each instance of the style. Unfortunately,
paragraph numbering does not include a similar restart option, the way
that FrameMaker does. Instead, you have to use the Restart Numbering
button on the Function tool bar that becomes available when the mouse
cursor is in a list. Click the blue arrow on the right if this button
isn't visible second from the right on the tool bar.
Non-Pavlovian Conditioning
Making a paragraph style conditional means it changes its formatting
depending on where it is used. For example, a paragraph style could be
smaller when used in a footer or a header instead of in the body of the
document. Similarly, if a page contained frames with a blue background,
you could set the style so that the Body Text style was its normal black
elsewhere on the page and white in a frame. In each circumstance chosen,
the style takes on the formatting of another style.

However, these goals can be accomplished equally well by applying multiple
styles. Probably the most common use for conditional formatting is with
single style outlining. Single-style outlining is a type of outline
numbering designed with a Numbering style, rather than with Tools ->
Outline numbering. Instead of using different styles, it changes the
number formatting whenever you press the Tab key to create a subordinate
heading.

The only trouble with single-style outlining is all levels look the
same. That's where a conditional paragraph style comes in handy. Assign
the paragraph style to an outline numbering style in the Numbering tab
and then open the Condition tab. There, you can assign the levels of the
outline numbering style to other paragraph styles. Then, when you press
the Tab key while using the paragraph style, each level of the outline
takes on different formatting, making single-style outlining even more
convenient than it is on its own.

The only drawback to conditional paragraph styles are the limits to their
use. Pre-defined styles cannot be set as conditional. In one sense,
the Default style is conditional, because other styles are based on it.
Although the on-line help refers to this fact, it's of no practical
use. More importantly, if you want to make a style conditional, you have
to do it while the style window still is open for the first time. After
the window closes, the condition tab no longer appears in the window.
This tab is available only for styles, not
for manual formatting, and only when the style is first created. It
allows a style to masquerade as another one under certain conditions.
Options for Asian and CTL Languages
Enable Asian languages support in Tools -> Options -> Language
Settings -> Languages suddenly gives you two new tabs for paragraph formatting: Asian
Layout and Asian Typography. These two tabs, which really could be merged
into one, are used for Japanese, Korean and Chinese characters. The
Asian Layout tab sets up Japanese double-line characters. The
Asian Typography tab activates use of the lists of forbidden characters for
the start and end of lines set in Tools -> Options -> Language
Settings -> Asian Settings, the use of hanging characters and the spacing between
different sets of characters.
The Font tab, with control for Asian
and CTL languages enabled.

You'll also notice that the Fonts tab has another setting for the
default Asian language. If you enabled Complex text layout
(CTL) for languages such as Arabic and Hebrew, a third
default font will be listed as well.

None of these settings, of course, magically add support for
other languages. That has to be available on the operating system
level. However, depending on the fonts available, some CTL characters
can be added using Insert -> Special Characters and are governed by
the language support enabled in OpenOffice.org.
Getting the Drop on Capitals
Drop capitals are characters at the start of a paragraph that are larger
than the rest of the text. Originating in medieval manuscripts, today drop
capitals are common ornaments at the start of a new chapter. In Writer,
you could add drop caps relatively easily by using a text frame, but
Writer automates the process through a tab in the paragraph style window.

Start the design of drop capitals by making a new style linked with
the Default or Body Text style, whichever you are using for the main
contents of the document. The style automatically inherits all the
settings of its parent style. Call the new style Drop Caps, so its
purpose is obvious at a glance. Then turn to the Drop Caps tab for
the new style. Enable drop caps,
and start designing.
The Drop Caps tab automates the use of
drop caps and gives a preview of the settings. The tab only
available only for styles, not for manually formatted paragraphs.

In medieval manuscripts, drop caps often were decorated richly
with intricate patterns of knotwork and intertwined beasts. Some
manuscripts even used gold-based inks and expensive dyes to make their
drop capitals as lavish as possible. Modern drop caps are a faint echo
of this splendor. You can find many fonts that imitate the drop caps of
medieval manuscripts, but their decoration is limited to size, weight
and font effects. Fortunately, these tools are enough to achieve your
main purpose--making the drop caps look different from the rest of
the text. You can set the drop cap font's characteristics by using a
character style specifically for that purpose. A character style called
Drop Caps is pre-defined for precisely this purpose.

The Drop Caps tab has a grayed out field called Text that is supposed
to start a paragraph with a particular word or phrase instead of using
the opening of the paragraph. However, I have yet to encounter any
combination of choices that enables this option. Instead, your choices
are limited to setting the number of characters that the drop-cap picks
up from the paragraph's contents, the number of lines that a drop cap
occupies and the spacing between the drop cap and the text.

Guidelines for using these options are simple. The more lines, the
fewer characters in the drop cap; otherwise, the drop-caps overwhelm the
paragraph. Similarly,the larger the drop caps, the more space that is
needed around them. Too much space, however, can make the transition from
the drop caps to the rest of the paragraph hard to read, so experiment
before finalizing your choices.

When you use a paragraph style with drop caps, at first the only sign
of the feature is the gray border denoting a field around the letters
to be presented as drop caps. Be patient. As you type, the drop
caps gradually assume their full size and position. When the paragraph's
number of lines reaches the height of the drop caps, the drop caps
finally are revealed in all their glory and your document has a small
touch of elegance.
As you type, the drop cap gradually grows into its final form.
Moving Right Along
Fonts, positioning, tricks--no other type of style in OpenOffice.org is called upon
to do as much as paragraph styles does. Cell styles in
Calc are their nearest equivalent, but even they are nowhere near as
versatile. Master paragraph styles, and you still have a lot to learn,
but already your documents should be looking better and your work flow
should be streamlined.

Next column, the topic is numbering styles--and there's more than lists
to be discussed in it.

Louis Suarez-Potts, the Community Manager for OpenOffice.org, reminds
me that this year's OooCon is scheduled for September 22-24, 2004 at
Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. Two programming tracks are
scheduled, one for programming and one for business, marketing, open
source and the Ooo community. The conference is soliciting papers until the
end of July. Last year's conference, the first, attracted attendees
from 35 countries. Given the rising interest in OpenOffice.org,
this year seems likely to be even more popular. You can find out more
about OooCon here.

Bruce Byfield was a manager at Stormix Technologies and Progeny
Linux Systems and a Contributing Editor at Maximum
Linux. Away from his desktop, he listens to punk-folk music,
raises parrots and runs long, painful distances of his own free will. He
currently is writing a book on OpenOffice.org