Paul54 wrote:I don't know much about xml, but I'm going to dive into it.
It is an opportunity to learn more about OO.
As soon as I have solved it I will post a message and mark the icon solved.
Hi, Paul. I apologize -- I wasn't suggesting you change the XML I was simply showing you what happens when you use that Format> Bullets and Numbering dialog --- you get a font character from a fixed location in a fontset, no matter what font is currently specified. This is not something you can fix easily by diving into the XML.
That bullet comes from the List Styles category in the Stylist. These by default use font-based bullet characters that, as you have noticed, run the risk of changing due to font substitution.
Try clicking on the List Styles tool in the Stylist (Styles and Numbering pane, F11) and right-click on List 1. Choose Modify. You will see that it brings up exactly the same dialog as you found in Format> Bullets and Numbering. Now click the Options tab. Here is where you can see the default assigned bullet character by clicking the Character button.
When I do that I see that the selected font set is Tahoma, which has a larger bullet style than the same bullet in MS Reference Sans Serif2. The MS Reference font style is overriding the default Tahoma (if that's what is also default in yours... maybe not, maybe yours are coming from Wingdings or Arial or some other font).
So how do you prevent a bullet character from changing because of font settings and substitutions? The only way is to use a graphic bullet. You can create your own and modify the List 1 style to use it.
You can use any graphics editor to make a bullet point. I do mine in Draw and GIMP, like this:
- To create the bullet in Draw: Make a small textbox, set the point size for the paragraph style, choose Insert> Special Character, and select the fontset and the character. (Use the drop-down box on the right to narrow the view of characters. There should be a "general punctuation" option.) Now if you click away from the textbox you should still see the bullet character. Click on the textbox to select it, then File> export it as a gif.
Edit the .gif to trim unwanted white space (I find this easiest to do in GIMP which has an Autocrop tool, so I don't have to fuss with dragging handles. It automatically trims all the extra white space around the bullet.)
Now you can either assign the new graphic to the List 1 list style or apply it directly with the Format> Bullets and Numbering dialog: Both methods follow essentially the same steps because they go through the same dialog.
If you opt to update the List 1 style, you'll select the text to be bulleted, then double-click on the style in the Stylist to apply it. Select the List Styles category in the Stylist (F11, if it's not already open). Right-click on List 1; choose Modify.
- Click the Graphics tab and select any graphic bullet.
- Now click the Options tab, and you'll see that a Graphics drop-down list labeled Select has been added to the dialog (one did not exist there with a font-based bullet).
- Click on level 1 in the left pane.
- Click the Graphics "Select" drop-down and choose "From file". Browse to the newly created bullet .gif.
- To adjust the spacing from bullet to text, click the Position tab, click list level 1, and specify the spacing you want.
Each user who needs to apply that bullet graphic will need to receive a copy of the bullet file and assign it to the list.
Because styles are stored in the document, rather than centrally, this new style will need to be loaded into each document the next time it's edited. The change should be made in the default template for each user, so the style exists in all documents going forward and so OOo can offer to update each document's styles when it sees that the document's base template has changed.