Button to change font color at cursor?

aharown07 · General User Joined: 01 Dec 2006 Posts: 13

The font color button doesn't behave in a way i find helpful. I'm usually typing along then want to switch colors and keep typing only in the new color. Is there a way to do that? I don't want to type it first, then select it, then pick the new color. Not very ergonomically smart.

Bhikkhu Pesala · Posted: Sun Dec 10, 2006 11:01 pm Post subject:

This is how I would do this:

Define a character style for each colour that I needed, e.g. Red, Green, Blue
Record a macro to apply each character style
Tools, Customise, Keyboard and assign a shortcut to each macro, e.g. Control + Shift + R,G,B

Using Character styles means that you can change the colour throughout your document just by editing hte style.

Using shortcuts means you don't have to take your hands off of the keyboard.
You may need to save your styles in the default template. Try defining the character styles while editing the default template, save it, then record the macros.
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BillP · Super User Joined: 07 Jan 2006 Posts: 2702

aharown07 · General User Joined: 01 Dec 2006 Posts: 13

Thanks, all.
I'm voting for that issue.
I did see that other font color button and wondered what it was there for... it appeared to be identical to the other one. Will do some playing w/that and see if it does what I want.

Bhikkhu Pesala · Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 11:24 am Post subject:

The button you want is the second of the two listed. The descriptions are identical, but the behaviour is different. I also prefer the behaviour of this second button. It can also be used to apply colour to selected text, but if clicked without text being selected, the text colour at the cursor changes as you type.

Control Shift Space to revert to default formatting.

The only issue is the wrong description in the Customising area.

aharown07 · General User Joined: 01 Dec 2006 Posts: 13

Yes, the second button does exactly what I had in mind.

For an MS Word semi-power user of many years, the transition to OOo Writer has been relatively painless. I'm down to only one or two small annoyances and, of course, some of Word's annoyances are not included in Writer, so, on balance, I'm happy w/how it's going.