Altering Spacing in Lists

[gwgerrity]

I have an original document in MS dock that I have converted to MS doc format. I have the same document in oct format. The original document was extremely badly formatted and needs to be edited extensively before it can be published on the web as a PDF document.

I have saved the styles in an odt document in the folder set aside for personal styles, and have been editing these styles as I go along. Unfortunately, altering steles seems to be difficult, and especially for bullet lists. I have been able to replace the bullet character, I have been able to set the indent level, but I have had zero success in altering the spacings — no matter which level — using the “Bullets and Numbering ...” Pulldown menu. Everytime I change the tab position in the Position sub menu, it defaults to 17.64 pt. I cannot alter this for any level of bullets! I have created special styles labelled Bullet 1, Bullet 2, Bullet 3, but they also will not allow any alteration. This is the case for oct, doc, and ott files.

My thought is that all these styles are inherited from a base style in the original dock file, but I am unable to delete any styles from the styles and formatting menu, nor do I have a way to determine where the original styles are used.

One possibility is to set the default style of the document to another clean style, but my guess is a) all styles not in the clean style will be copied over.

Please, any thoughts welcome!

[Zizi64]

I have the same document in oct format.

This is the case for oct...

Do you mean the native, international Standard .odt format?

[RoryOF]

I don't do List and Outline numbering so do not speak with any specific knowledge. Remember that /Tools /Line numbering and /Tools /Outline numbering settings exist and that position and spacing settings can be changed on the tabs on those menus. These may offer a more robust method of making the changes you wish.

[acknak]

... Everytime I change the tab position in the Position sub menu, it defaults to 17.64 pt. I cannot alter this for any level of bullets! ...

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand what's happening here. Do you mean that you can't change the "(Tab stop) at" number in the Bullets & Numbering dialog window? Or do you mean that the number reverts after you save and re-load the document file?

17.64 pt is 0.245 inches. I wonder if this is coming from the default tab setting, Tools > Options > OO Writer > General > Settings > Default tab stops.

[gwgerrity]

First, I am using a Mac running OS X 10.9.5 (Mavericks), so the access to Preferences (Tools > Options > ...), Tools, Styles, Formats, etc is different from access in a PC running a version of MS Windows.
Second, some uncaught errors induced by the automatic spell checker: dock —> docx; oct —> odt.
Third, a typo: “I have saved the styles in an odt document” —>“ ... ott document”.

RoryOF wrote “Remember that /Tools /Line numbering and /Tools /Outline numbering settings exist ...” Thank you RoryOF. I hadn’t looked into that, but it seems to create more problems. looking at /Tools/Outline, I find that the maximum number I can put in “Numbering followed by Tab stop at” is 1.95 pt. the maximum number that I can put in “Numbering alignment at [Left] Aligned at” and “Numbering alignment Indent at” is 15.92 pt.

acknak wrote “Do you mean that you can't change the "(Tab stop) at" number in the Bullets & Numbering dialog window? Or do you mean that the number reverts after you save and re-load the document file?” I mean that the number reverts as soon as the curser is tabbed to a different entry, or when I save and reload the document. I have checked after looking at RoryOF’s comments and the problem here is that 17.64 pt is the maximum number I can enter into any bullets and numbering style.

acknak also wrote “17.64 pt is 0.245 inches. I wonder if this is coming from the default tab setting, Tools > Options > OO Writer > General > Settings > Default tab stops.” Answer: no. the Default tab stops setting was 35.97 pt and I was able to alter it to 36.00 pt.

I have now managed to update just about all styles to get rid of receptions and to rename them to something useful, but still cannot find out how to deal with the limitations on Outline and List Styles.

[RoryOF]

If you change the tab settings for the paragraph style, you can then increase the setting in Numbering followed by tab stop to the limit of that tab setting.

I may have time to come back to this thread later, but other duties call.

[gwgerrity]

If you change the tab settings for the paragraph style, you can then increase the setting in Numbering followed by tab stop to the limit of that tab setting.

I may have time to come back to this thread later, but other duties call.

Tried that. Doesn’t work! Moreover, if you apply the list style, the paragraph settings revert, although tab stops don’t change.

[Zizi64]

Tried that. Doesn’t work! Moreover, if you apply the list style, the paragraph settings revert, although tab stops don’t change.

How you applied that 'list style': by manual (direct) formatting? (you clicked on the list icon on the toolbar?

You must use an another style for the Lists, and need adjust the TAB properties of the applied style.
(Note: the paragraph styles (and other styles too) will inherit the properties from the parent style. To see the relation between the existing styles switch to 'Hierarchical' view in the Style list of the Sidebar.)