After much trial and tribulation, I finally managed to get a paragraph to bassume the characteristics of a particular Style, by double clicking on the style name - I later found that defined in a manual somewhere. This was a very hit and miss find , as far as I'm concerned. Can I please request the following :- Please add two new actions when you right click on a Style in the "Styles & Formatting" dialog (brought up using F11) :- + Apply Style To -> Current Paragraph. -> All Paragraphs. + Update Style From Current Paragraph. Even better still, add new action buttons onto the "Styles & Formatting" toolbar which also do the above. Maybe label buttons "S>P", S>A", "P>S". This would be useful when a style does not have the Automatic setting checked, so will not be automatically updated when a paragraph using that style is formatted differently to the Style that's associated with it. Being able to manually update the style from the paragraph easily, once the user has decided that the paragraph format is more akin to what they are seeking. Adding these new action buttons will considerably improve the usability of the functionality surrounding applying style formatting to paragraphs. The user shouldn't have to wrack their brains trying to figure out how to do it - it should be as simple as a single click of a mouse button.
The button "Update Style" already exists. Find it in the drop down on the right side in the paragraph tab of "Styles And Formatting" pane of the side bar. If you need it very often you can customize the standard toolbar to show the icon. It is in the category "Templates". Or you use the short cut Ctrl+Shift+F11. In current versions you find the same button in the Properties pane of the side bar as well. Instead of double-click a style you can simple press the Enter key. I do not see that applying a style to _all_ paragraphs is a common use case. If it is really needed in special cases, select all of the document by Ctrl+A and then apply the style. For me this is a "worksforme".
Hi Colin, I agree with Regina and close as WorksForMe. You may be interested, if the software is new to you, to discuss questions with volunteers on e.g. the users list first. See here http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/community-support/ for community support options Ciao - Cor
I read your comments, and can see that there is an option to update style when right-clicking on the paragraph icon. Cntrl-Shift_F11 does nothing on my PC - are you sure you mentioned the correct hot key sequence ? What is still find completely unintuitive and annoying, is the fact that you have to double click on a style to apply it to the current paragraph. You are not making it easy for the user to find this functionality. Despite this, you have decided to completely ignore a request that would make it considerably easier, especially for new users to achieve what they intend. They shouldn't have to go and read the help manual in order to find that out for every little bit of hidden functionality that you choose to implement. If you choose to close bugs without giving the user a chance to comment on your findings, then you are over-riding your user's wishes and undermining their effort to try to contribute to the products functionality and usefulness. More to the point, you lose all quality control if you don't listen to your user base and just close bugs / enhancement requests. Yes, I'm new to using Libre Office, but if you never listen to your users, how to you ever hope to spawn the migration of users from Microsoft Office to Libre Office ? People don't generally take the time to report things unless they have found them troublesome and annoying. I feel that some of the suggestions I have made could readily be implemented. You can't expect users to start trying to customise buttons etc, when they have only just started to use the application. I'm sorry to say , but your suggestion to select all text in the document and apply styles to it is completely ridiculous. I have many different styles in hundreds of handouts that I present to my guitar students. If I did what you suggested, I'd have to go through every paragraph setting them back to the styles they are supposed to be. I've got styles for the Title, the Intro, Notes, Chords, 1st Lines words, 2nd Lines words, Guitar tab sections etc etc. Ive got Styles with specific font sizes, style with specific indents. What you've suggested would cause me a complete headache identifying every paragraph that used to possess a certain style and changing it back to what it is supposed to be. You have not provided a practical or workable solution, and I have to say, this have left me feeling very disappointed, because it makes me realise just what a struggle it's going to be if I wanted to convert my hundreds of handouts so that they display and print correctly in Libre Office Writer :-(
Al the "features" you request as enhancement are already implemented, just not in the way you requested. Please continue to review documentation, and ask (ML, ask, forum) if you are unable to work out details of the UI--just not here in the BZ. Here we'll happily review actionable issues or enhancements. Correctly resolved WFM (NAB would have been a little harsh).
The features are not all implemented - there is no easy way to apply a style to all paragraphs that use that style in a document, and you could make it easier for users to apply a style to a paragraph. This type of functionality should be intuitive, not hidden away in documentation. You ought to try listening to your users rather than totally disregarding what they say and assuming they don't know how to work the product. What's more you give users little incentive to report problems, if all you are going to do is dismiss them, despite the functionality leaving a lot to be desired. Very disappointed with your responses and your refusal to accept that you COULD improve the product.
(In reply to Colin from comment #5) > The features are not all implemented - there is no easy way to apply a style > to all paragraphs that use that style in a document, and you could make it > easier for users to apply a style to a paragraph. This type of functionality > should be intuitive, not hidden away in documentation. The "Appply Paragraph Style" is stateful, set by clicking the 'pouring bucket' icon in the button bar at the top of the "Styles and Formatting" content panel in the Sidebar deck. It will apply the selected style to each paragraph you click on when the mode is active. Or it will apply to any selected paragraphs--including a select all. Or as you note, with the Style to be applied selected--a "double click" on the style name in the list in the "Styles and Formatting" content panel will apply style to the paragraph. But so will positioning the cursor anywhere in the paragraph, and selecting the style from the Drop list in the "Formatting" Toolbar. Likewise it will apply to any selected paragraphs. If you make direct formatting changes to a styled paragraph and want that direct formatting to apply to all paragraphs of that style--use the "Update Style" button from the "New style..." split button on the button bar at the top of the "Styles and Formatting" content panel in the Sidebar deck. So in point of fact everything you asked for is already provided. Clicking in the Sidebar deck, or selecting from the Toolbar dropdown. Sorry, nothing difficult--Illogical or Time consuming--about it.
If you update to the latest version you will find a new top level menu item for styles including all requested functions (an alternative way of interaction to the sidebar use). However, "Replace Style" in a sense of replacing the style 'Text body' on all paragraphs by 'Foo' is not available. Haven't seen this function at any word processor; and it would contradict the idea of styles. The intended way of interaction is to apply a style to paragraphs and to manipulate this style later.
(In reply to Colin from comment #5) > The features are not all implemented - there is no easy way to apply a style > to all paragraphs that use that style in a document (In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #7) > However, "Replace Style" in a sense of > replacing the style 'Text body' on all paragraphs by 'Foo' is not available. > Haven't seen this function at any word processor; and it would contradict > the idea of styles. That is the task of Find&Replace. Use Edit > Find & Replace. Show all options in that dialog. Mark option "Search for Paragraph Styles". Then the Search and Replace fields have a drop-down list of styles. That is a useful feature to exchange styles, which are generated on import of .doc documents.
Thank you for your suggestion. Find & Replace of Styles may come in handy somewhere else, but in this instance, the global replacement of ALL styles in the document (as you suggested) would mean the loss of all style id's - this means that they would all have to be manually identified and re-assigned. A search and replace facility would have no scope or relevance, because identifying what the styles should be is a completely manual and tedious operation. Consequently I would not pay any heed to your initial suggestion, because it would make even more work for me. Due to the fact that I have hundreds of handouts to format if I wish to exclusively use Libre Office, and because there is no easy way of applying the format in a particular style to every paragraph that uses that style, it is impractical for me to adopt Libre Office as my chosen office package. I am forced to dual boot with Windows in any case because Linux Mint does not support my two Dell printers. I've tried every which way to find a way around that, but it's either poorly publicised or is a practical impossibility - can't even install the usual printer drivers in Wine, and that supposed to emulate Windows. I have found that lack of support and lack of readiness of Linux software apps puts serious limitations on new user's prospects of making a clean break to Linux.