Version: 7.1.3.2 / LibreOffice Community Build ID: 47f78053abe362b9384784d31a6e56f8511eb1c1 CPU threads: 4; OS: Linux 5.4; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3 Locale: en-GB (en_GB.UTF-8); UI: en-GB Calc: threaded An example may make the request clearer. Suppose you want to change the style of an existing paragraph from "Header 1" to "Title", but don't want to change the properties of the paragraph. In this case,there is no direct way to clone the properties from "Header 1" to "Title"; you can't use "Side bar > Styles Actions > New Style from selection" to create a style called "Title" because you are not allowed to overwrite the existing PRESET called "Title". AFAICS, the only way to acheive this is to change the properties of "Title" manually from the "Title" Paragraph Style dialog. This can be daunting if there are a lot of paragraphs you want to change in this way I believe there may be a case for a feature that allows the user to easily clone the properties from one sidebar Paragraph style to another.
I think, you can just create a new style based on another one with needed formatting options. You want do easy things by hard way -1 from me
As Roman has already stated, you are complicating easy things. You state: "change the style of an existing paragraph from "Header 1" to "Title", but don't change the properties of the paragraph." How would it be possible to change the paragraph style to be the same as another existing paragraph without changing the properties (aka Style) of the paragraph? Applying the Style of any other existing paragraph would change the properties (aka Style) of the paragraph it was applied to. So -1 from me too.
Here is an example of how it might work: Suppose that Writer had a dialogue with a list of existing paragraph styles in the left-hand column, and an identical list in the right-hand column. You select a "donor" style in the LH column, then a "recipient" style in the RH column, then press the "Apply" button. All properties, except those in the "Organizer" tab, are transferred from the donor to the recipient. The dialogue stays open, allowing further substitutions, until the user presses "Close".
What you are proposing is an extremely convoluted mechanism for creating a separate (other) style loosely based on an existing style. We already have a relatively simple mechanism to do this, by clicking on the sidebar "Styles Action" button and selecting "New Style from Selection" option, to create a a separate (other) style based on an existing style. As someone who has trained users in the use of this software since 2001 and contributed to it's documentation, I can justifiably claim that the most difficult aspect of Writer is to explain to new/inexperienced users is "Styles", what they are and how to use them. We already have numerous complex all singing/dancing sidebars and toolbars and another Styles creation mechanism would only add more unnecessary complications. The software has many other important issues the devs need to address, before looking into fanciful suggestions like this. My take, the existing mechanism WFM. So -1.
What I wanted to do was to overwrite some DEFAULT paragraph styles using the "New Style from selection" button? You can do this for custom styles but not default ones. The workaround is easy enough, but I wondered why default styles are reserved. Otherwise I'm OK to close if the consensus is nay.
You can move styles from one parent to another inheriting those attributes when not overwritten. For example, Default PS > Heading > My Blue Heading (using blue font color): take "Heading 1" and move it under this node to make all H1 blue using the same uniquely defined attributes such as font size. And I 100% sign Dave's "keep it simple".