[Tutorial] List of styles

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floris v
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[Tutorial] List of styles

Post by floris v »

List of inbuilt styles
Here you’ll find all inbuilt paragraph and character styles of Apache OpenOffice with a short explanation of their use.
Some of the styles are used in the automatically generated index and table of contents, you should probably never need to apply such styles yourself, but you may want to modify their attributes (for instance font, indentation, etc). Other styles can be used to format specific content in such a way that you can later easily modify that formatting for that specific content. For instance if you use program code and samples of plain text with the same formatting, you can use different character styles for both so that if you want to format the code differently later on, you only have to modify that style.

It's important to use the inbuilt styles as much as possible. They were added to make writing your documents easier, not harder. Don't let yourself be put off by a name that you don't like. Heading 1 is a great name for a style to apply to a chapter title, as well as any top level heading in a document that's not a book. If you don't like the default formatting settings, just modify them.

Paragraph styles
Character styles
Page styles
Last edited by floris v on Sun Dec 11, 2016 12:00 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Reason: Updated with Pages styles link
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Paragraph styles

Post by floris v »

Default
The mother of all styles. This style is applied by default and is probably the most widely used style of all, which is ironic as some people would say that it should not be used at all.
All changes in this style will be adopted in all derived styles, that is, pretty much all styles, except for properties of a derived style that differ from the Default style already. For example, if the font for Default was Times New Roman and for Heading 1 you set it to Arial, if you change the font for Default to Courier New, the Heading 1 font won't change.

Addressee
This is typically intended for use on envelopes. It adds a space below the paragraph.

Bibliography 1
This is used in a bibliography inserted with Insert – Indexes and Tables, Bibliography. It adds a right aligned tab.

Bibliography Heading
This used in a bibliography inserted with Insert – Indexes and Tables, Bibliography. You will probably never use it yourself. It's derived from the Heading style.

Caption
This is used for all captions – titles for pictures etc.

Complimentary close
Intended for use in a letter, just above the signature. You can use it to have some extra space above and/or below it. In the style line numbering is disabled.

Contents 1 – 10
Used in the table of contents generated by Writer. You can modify each style to get different indentation for headings of different levels.

Contents Heading
Used in the table of contents generated by Writer. Basically the same idea as Bibliography Heading.

Drawing
Used in captions of drawings; the style is derived from Caption.

Endnote
This style is automattically applied to endnote text, but you can override it (don't). Use and modify this style if you work with endnotes.

First line indent
This style is intended for use with body text of a manuscript with an indented first line. It's derived from the Text body style.

Footer, Footer left, Footer right
The styles used by default in all footers of a document. They're derived from Default with added center and right aligned tab for page numbers.

Footnote
This style is automatically applied to footnote text, but you can override it (don't). Use and modify this style if you work with footnotes.

Frame contents
This is applied automatically to the text in a frame. It's derived from Text body without any changes.

Hanging indent
The opposite of the First line indent. All lines in the paragraph are indented, except the first, or they indent further than the first.

Header, Header left, Header right
The styles used by default in all headers of a document. They're derived from Default with added center and right aligned tab for page numbers.

Heading
This is the base style from which all heading styles are derived. It's sole function is to enable you to use, for instance, a different font for headings than for the body text of your document. Change any settings here that you want to be the same in the other Heading styles. Don't apply it in your text. Only apply the derived Heading styles.

Heading 1 – 10
These are the inbuilt styles that you can use for all your headings. They are easily linked to the inbuilt hierarchy of levels used in the Outline Numbering (a tool for automatically numbering headings) and much more. Remember that if you don't like the formatting details of a heading, you can always change them, there's no need to make a new paragraph style for your custom heading.

Horizontal line
Use this style to put a line below a paragraph. It uses a very small font size and space below the paragraph. Only use this style if you want such a line in your text, regardless of the paragraph style of that text. If you want a line below all paragraphs with some paragraph style, it's easier to add that line to the paragraph style itself.

Illustration
Used in captions of illustrations; the style is derived from Caption.

Illustration index 1
Used for the entries in a table of illustrations, like the bibliography.

Illustration Index Heading
Used for the heading over a table of illustrations. Derived from the Heading style.

Index
The base style from which Index 1 – 3 are derived.

Index 1 – 3
Used in indexes and automatically applied according to level. You should only modify them, but probably never apply them directly.

Index heading
Used for the heading over an index. Derived from the Heading style.

Index Separator
Only used in automatically generated indexes if you select Alphabetical delimiter (that means that each section of entries starting with the same letter is preceded by a single capital letter).

List
The base style for al list styles. Don’t use it.

List 1, List 1 Cont., List 1 End, List 1 Start
And the same for list styles 2 – 5. The Start, End and Cont. styles are intended for situations where you want space before and after the entire list, so you List 1 Start for the first item, List 1 End for the last and List 1 Cont. for everything in between.

List heading
Special heading style for headings of lists.

List Indent

Marginalia
Intended to mark less important text, by default indented.

Numbering 1, Numbering 1 Cont., Numbering 1 End, Numbering 1 Start
And the same for Numbering styles 2 – 5. See List 1, List 1 Cont., List 1 End, List 1 Start for its use.

Object Index 1
Used for the entries in an index of objects, like the bibliography.

Object index heading
Used for the heading over an index of objects. Derived from the Heading style.

Preformatted text
A special style that can be used to format text that should look like typewriter script, font is set to Courier New.

Quotations
Can be applied to format quotations, based on Default, indents text left and right.

Sender
A special style for use in a letter head or on an envelope/label.

Signature
A special style for use in a letter

Subtitle
This style can be used for the subtitle of a document. Derived from the Heading style.

Table
Used in captions of tables; the style is derived from Caption.

Table Contents
This style is applied to the content of table cells.

Table Heading
This style is applied to the content of table cells in the first row of the table.

Table index 1
Used for the entries in an index of tables, like the bibliography.

Table index heading
Used for the heading over an index of tables. Derived from the Heading style.

Text
A style to be used for plain text.

Text body
The style intended for use for the main text of a document – everything that isn’t a heading, caption etc.

Text body indent
The style intended for indented text in the main body of a document.

Title
The style intended for the title of a document. It’s derived from the heading style. Next paragraph is set to Sub title. Note: If you want to use the Title field, you have to enter the title in the Title box on File - Properties dialog box, Description tab.

User Index 1 – 10
This style is used for the entries in a user defined index.

User Index Heading
Used for the heading over a user defined index. Derived from the Heading style.
Last edited by floris v on Sun Dec 11, 2016 11:44 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Character styles

Post by floris v »

Bullets
Used for bullets in bulleted lists. You can modify the font size to increase or decrease the bullet size.

Caption Characters
Used for special formatting in captions?*

Default
The default character style. You can apply that to text that was formatted with a character style to remove that formatting.

Definition
This can be used in a glossary.

Drop Caps
This style is used to format drop caps – set the paragraph formatting to use drop caps and modify this style to change font face and size.

Emphasis
Used to emphasize text, normally by applying italics. Use this style instead of directly applying italics.

Endnote anchor
This is automatically applied when you insert an endnote.

Endnote Characters
Used for special formatting of the endnote numbers/markers.

Example
Can't think of what that's for right now.

Footnote anchor
This is automatically applied when you insert a footnote.

Footnote Characters
Used for special formatting of the footnote numbers/markers.

Index Link
Automatically applied

Internet Link
This is automatically applied when you insert a hyperlink. You can modify it to change font size, colour etc.

Line numbering
Used for special formatting of line numbers.

Main index entry
This is used for the main index entries, set to boldface by default.

Numbering Symbols
Used for special formatting of numbers/symbols in a list.

Page Number
Used for special formatting of page numbers (fields). Note: it's not applied automatically.

Placeholder
This style turns on small caps and dotted underlining, text color green.

Quotation
Use this for inline quotations. In this style the typeface is set to italics by default.

Rubies
Ruby text is a character layout attribute used in Asian languages. It appears above or below text in left to right writing, and left to right of text in top to bottom writing. (See Documentation/DevGuide/Text/Ruby).

Source Text
This style can be used to format computer code.

Strong Emphasis
Similar to Emphasis, use this for boldface.

Teletype
A fixed width font setting for simulating teletype text.

User Entry
A fixed width font setting for simulating teletype text.

Variable
Used for variables in mathematical formulas, set to italics.

Vertical Numbering Symbols
Used for numbers that are rotated 90 degrees.

Visited Internet Link
Used to mark a visited Internet link.
Last edited by floris v on Fri Mar 02, 2012 11:42 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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RoryOF
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Re: list of styles

Post by RoryOF »

Thanks, Floris v. Perhaps we should make this a sticky.
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Re: list of styles

Post by floris v »

I'm not done yet, I'm still not sure about all styles, either, so flame away. ;)
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Re: Character styles

Post by rudolfo »

Thanks floris v for all the effort you have put in this, particularly the Placeholder vs. SmallCaps is a nice one.
floris v wrote: Emphasis
Used to emphasize text, normally by applying boldface. Use this style instead of directly applying bold.

[...]

Placeholder
This style is used for small caps. Don’t ask me why they didn’t call it Small caps.

[...]

Strong Emphasis
Similar to Emphasis, could be used to set Extra bold, but that’s not available in all fonts.
I remember and have just checked that all my OOo versions that I work with use italic text for emphasis and bold face for strong emphasis. This is following what most browsers do when they render the tags <em> and <strong>. I hope this hasn't changed in the new A-OO. These defaults make a lot of sense to me, because it is closely related to HTML and LaTeX and is just how most people expect it to be.
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Re: List of styles

Post by floris v »

@rudolfo: duh, :oops: you were right about the italics, but I'm proudest about the Ruby style.
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Re: Page styles

Post by floris v »

Page styles are a unique feature of AOO (and OOo) and they have a steep learning curve. Proper use of page styles will make formatting of your documents much easier. Some of the page styles are automatically applied, like Envelope and Endnote. Though you don't have to apply those styles (and it is unwise to apply them somewhere they're not intended for just because you like the formatting settings), you can always modify the settings, as long as you don't change the defining settings (don't change the orientation settings of the Landscape style, for instance).
As of version 4.0 the page styles aren't linked, so if you want to change for instance the size of the pages of a document with more than one page style, you will have to change the page size settings for each page style in use.

Also see the wiki

Default
This is the page style to be used for the body of your text. If you don't need pages with different headers/footers/orientation/margins or whatever, you don't have to do anything: the Default style is applied by default. If you want different content in the headers or footers of left and right pages, you can use the Default page style and simply remove the tick mark in Same content left/right on the Header and Footer tab of the page style properties dialog box.

Endnote
This style is automatically applied to the endnotes page(s) generated by OO if you insert any endnotes.

Envelope
This style is automatically applied to pages when you select Insert-Envelope.

First Page
Use this style for the first page of a document or chapter. It's typically used to suppress a header or footer that you want on other pages of your document. See Tutorial on Page styles and headers/footers for more help.

Footnote
This style is automatically applied to the footnotes page(s) generated by OO if you insert any footnotes and you opted to have footnotes at the end of your document.

HTML
Use this style for HTML pages.

Index
This style is automatically applied to the index page(s) generated by AOO if you insert an index.

Landscape
You can use this style for pages that need the landscape orientation.

Left
You can use this style for pages that have to be left pages. Also see Right.

Right
You can use this style for pages that have to be right pages. You should only use it if you want for instance the first page of a chapter to start on a right page.
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