Formatting text--irregularities

[abcjmr]

i am totally confused by open office formatting. i am a sophisticated user of text formatting software including almost the entire adobe suite etc. i must be doing something simple wrong but i have not figured it out yet. os: windows 7 oo writer v. 4.1.3

i import a lot of text into my odt files. if i import text without formatting it (usually) ends up in default style. if i try to apply a style of my choosing it does not change the font or the size from the default--even though it indicates that the style is applied. if i then change the type size in the control bar it applies that size to the style and changes everything in the document. add to this that i want to preserve italics in the imported text. it is preserved if i import formatted but then the style applied will not change the font size (but it does change the line spacing). then if i manually change the font size, i have--on occasion--lost the italics. all of this seems to work in an irregular fashion.

in other words it is not clear to me what has precedence in the application of type from the styles pane. it seems that even if i paste the text in unformatted sometimes it assumes style as at the cursor, sometimes default. the only way i get the control i expect is to highlight the imported text and use the drop down "clear formatting." this is a total pain because it breaks the rhythm--even more than importing does.

what am i missing?

frustrated in KC

[RusselB]

A similar topic at viewtopic.php?f=7&t=86985&p=407329

[keme]

Writer formatting hierarchy, as far as I know it:

1. Pick fonts and sizes from Tools - Options - Writer - Basic fonts
2. Modify rendering according to the applied style.
3. Modify rendering according to any direct formatting applied.

If you import the text by Insert - File... or simple copy/paste, and the source supports "pinpoint formatting", the formatting of the source is usually preserved. Any formatting not explicitly controlled in the source text will be taken from the formatting you have applied at your text cursor (or "insertion point").

Paste special (ctrl+shift+V) allows you to select "unformatted text" when you paste. The formatting you have at the insertion point will still be applied to pasted text.

Note also that style sequences may be at work, so if you have chosen a Heading x style and paste multiple paragraphs, the style after the first break will be "Text body".

[abcjmr]

thank you keme for your reply.

here is what i found:
i went into Tools - Options - Writer - Basic fonts and changed my default text style to Arial [closed oo reopened oo]. then i imported a line of text from endnote bibliiography. the style at the cursor was "default." just pasting the type style came up times with italic intact. pasting w/o formatting the type style came up times w/o italic. then grabbing a line of text from your reply and pasting "unformatted" text came up times. same thing if i bring it in from an rtf file. Same thing if i bring the text in from a txt file. presumably this is because the default font is times as noted at the top in the dropdown menu--but this should not be the case because i changed the font at what i take to be a more fundamental level in the program i.e. through options. OK so options does not override the font in the dropdown. fine but then when i go to change the default text style from the styles pane the font associated with dafault is arial consistent what shows in Tools - Options - Writer - Basic fonts but not in the font style drop down box at the top.
this is why i call it irregular.
then i change the font style at the dropdown at the top to arial. i paste an get arial. then i go to a bloack of text that, even though it is tagged text body (which has arial associated with it in the styles pane and through the options settings), is showing up in times. then i press return to go to a new line, copy the text at the cursor which is supposed to be default and it is imported both formatted and unformatted as times. there is some low level conflict in the code regarding formatting that must be causing this inconsistency--or so i believe.

a quick search of "pinpoint formatting" did not yield a definition i understand.
i am not importing files so that is not my problem
i am trying to find a workaround for being able to paste a block of text from one application into oo writer without having to highlight the text, clear formatting, and then associate the format i want from the styles pane in order to get the formatting i want. what started me down this path the desire to preserve the italics in the documents from which i am copying but to apply altered font, size and leading (at least) to the copied text. i am on the forum because i believe the irregularity of formatting outlined above is driving me away from oo which i think is great in so many ways (not the least of which is integration among programs) but is a deal breaker for me, as a designer of word processor documents. again thank you for your help

screen grab of settings described in the post

[ema]

Accent irregularities

When I type accents (U+301 hexadecimal = 769 decimal) into words, the program automatically replaces the letter in an undesired way:

Interestingly, this does not happen in LibreOffice Spread Sheet

Thanks in advance for your kind reply!

[RoryOF]

Try with a different font.

[ema]

Arial = negativ
Times New Roman = negativ
Calibri = negativ
Microsoft Sans Serif = negativ

Do you know how to disable the autoreplacing with accents?

[RoryOF]

Your spreadsheet example uses Liberation Sans. I was able to do your

Code: Select all

Céмь чacóв

example using /Insert /Special character with Times New Roman, Arial, Calibri, Liberation Sans, running on OpenOffice 4.1.3 on Xubuntu 16.04

[ema]

Interesting! Still, if this works well on the Spread Sheet, I have to imagine that there is problem in the autoreplacing of my Writer Version. This autoreplacing is probably deactivated on the Spread Sheet by default to overcome undesired outcomes with numerical or logic formulas in the cells. Thanks in advance, if you simply describe a simple way to deactivate the autoreplacing, as I do not need it. I could not find it in the submenues.

[ema]

Interesting! If you mark the text and you re-format it with the same font, the problem disappear.

While marking, the font field becomes blank. This means that the program cannot digest the fonts mix.