Nested paragraph styles

David Given · Newbie Joined: 26 Oct 2005 Posts: 4

I wish to use OO to create some structured text. I want the end result to look like this:

jrkrideau · Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 9:14 am Post subject: Re: Nested paragraph styles

David Given · Newbie Joined: 26 Oct 2005 Posts: 4

Because I've got a bunch of different paragraph styles that I'm going to be using as part of the text, which I want to use as part of a section or subsection or subsubsection, etc. If the indentation level is specified as part of the text style then I'm going to have to duplicate all these paragraph styles simply so that each one has its own indentation level. This strikes me as ugly, inelegant and difficult to maintain. I should only have to specify the indentation level once.

I suppose what I really want is to be able to apply multiple paragraph styles at the same time...

jrkrideau · Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2005 11:08 am Post subject:

David Given · Newbie Joined: 26 Oct 2005 Posts: 4

The second of what you mention is what I want, but I'm afraid I still don't seem to be describing it in a way that you're following.

What I want is for the text after 1.1 to be indented 1.5cm, and the text after 1.1.1 to be indented 2.0cm, but I cannot use different paragraph styles, because I've got lots of different styles I need to use for the text, and I'd have to duplicate them all for each indentation level. If I have styles called Text, Comment, Code, Quotation, Sidebar, and Recap, then if they each have an indentation of 1.5cm set then in order to be able to use them with an indentation of 2.0cm I'm going to have to define new styles called Text 1, Comment 1, Code 1, Quotation 1, Sidebar 1 and Recap 1 that are identical to the previous styles apart from the indentation level; and god help me if I decide later that actually I want them indent 2.5cm instead of 2.0cm. I'm going to have to change them all manually, rather than changing one thing.

Using 'next style' (which is not inheritance, BTW; 'linked to' is more like traditional inheritance) doesn't help because it's just a shortcut to save you from having to change the style manually on the next paragraph.

It sounds like OO simply can't do what I want here.

jrkrideau · Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2005 3:06 pm Post subject:

Dale · Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2005 7:21 pm Post subject:

David Given · Newbie Joined: 26 Oct 2005 Posts: 4

I believe the character style overrides the paragraph style. You can then change either style later, and it'll all work the way you expect.

Is it possible to set a style to make the font *bigger*, by a particular amount, without actually having to specify an absolute size in points?

jrkrideau · Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2005 6:33 am Post subject:

xanton · General User Joined: 24 Apr 2004 Posts: 14

David Given:

If I understand right what you want, then I think you cannot avoid having different styles (eg subsection or subsubsection) for each indentation level (eg "xsubsection" and "xsubsubsection" for indentation level 1, "xxsubsection" and "xxsubsubsection" for indentation level 2 etc). This is the bad news.

The good news is you can create a basis style for each indentation level, on which you could base the substyles in this indentation level (eg a basic style "x" for indentation level 1, on which you can base the styles "xsubsection" and "xsubsubsection", another basic style "xx" for indentation level 2 on which you can base the styles "xxsubsection" and "xxsubsubsection" and so on). Thus when you change the basis style (eg style "x") then all styles based on this (eg "xsubsection" and "xsubsubsection") change respectively.

The way to base a sub style on a basis style is by changing the "linked with" property under the organiser tab for each substyle you create (eg for style "xsubsection" linked with "x", for style "xxsubsection" linked with "xx" etc).

I hope this helps