Using direct formatting is a left over from using a typewriter to create
text. It is much slower than using styles. Furthermore, it makes editing
a very labor intensive task. Personal example: I was hired by a lady to
format the text in a project of hers.
During our collaboration, she changed her mind as to the font size and
color of one of the headings found on more than 10 pages. Using styles,
I did this by changing one style. The font size and the text color were
changed. That task was done. Had I had to use direct formatting, I would
have to first find every instance of that heading, highlight it, change
the color, and change the font. You tell me which would take the most
time to edit for this one change. So, it would be for every change that
is desire as the text is edited. My conclusion is that direct formatting
is a waste of time.
Using direct formatting has been frowned upon both when writing
documentation and when using Writer since the early 2000's. The above
paragraph is only one of the reasons.
Dan
On 10/19/20 03:34, Luke (gmail) wrote:
I've been slowly learning about Direct Formatting in LibreOffice over
the years. I joined this list with the intention of helping document
this area of functionality, and in the coming months I may finally
have some time to do so.
Is there somewhere I can read up on the topic? My feeling is that
it's under documented. Use of styles is pretty well documented I
believe, but direct formatting is not, I think.
E.g. I only recently discovered that if you turn on italics to
directly format a word, turn off italics, and continue writing,
everything from that point on is still directly formatted.
I think the discussion around
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=135871 shows some
of the complexities that can arise, around direct formatting (DF).
I believe the new Styles Inspector will help a lot in the use and
understanding of styles, so perhaps DF is being documented even now?
luke
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