Created attachment 120447 [details]
unuseful area in actual panel

I have a feeling, that Panel for Styles and Formatting has staid in the half of way and is not very good usable. Problems:
- A lot of free space in the Panel that resulting in needing to reserved a lot of space in the desktop (see image origin, size ...).
- Not all type of objects can be formatted by this Panel (tables, frames, some part of graphic setup).
- Good implementation of the Panel can spare a desktop place as work area can be higher through transfer icon from toolbars into this Panel (typical height of monitors is not very optimal for text processing and each pixel is useful). There is also not very pleasant effects during switching icon toolbar during, for instance, transiting from plain text into table, or image.

Suggestion:
1. Redesign the main control elements (a part of that are duplicated) on the right side. It would be the best to concentrate these control elements into one select box placed direct to the window header (if it is possible; width of the Panel is reduced from ~300px to ~250px, about 20%. see image main menu)

All other suggestions are related to Properties. Other parts of the Panel (Styles and formatting, Gallery and Navigator) are without changes.

2. Redesign layout of the Panel for text editing (character, paragraph). It would be perfect to move select box for character and paragraph styles into header of the section. See image new concept, panel size is reduced bellow 250x300 px

3. Add sections for Insert, Table, Frame, Header and Footer, see image section. It would be perfect to place direct into head context sensitive buttons for inserting Table, Image and Graphic, see image new context.

4. Popup section for Table, see image Table.
When the cursor is in the table, this section contents icon for add and delete row and column, split and join cells, setting color (highlighting?), vertical aligning, border, suma, formula editor and sorting. It is by my opinion base set of operation with table.
When cursor is in the plain text, there can be a button for inserting a table in the header of this section (and body of section absent).

5. Redesign section for the Graphic – add control for anchor. I think, that a better way for setting wrap is using Select box, as icons are not very understanding. In this section is added position of image. See image Graphic.

6. Popup section for Frame, see image Frame. This is similar to section Graphic, see image Frame.

7. Redesign section for Page into state similar to other section, see image Page. It would be more convenient to use a classic Select box as is used for instance for select style. Actual are used extraordinal widgets and Panel for Styles and formatting is closed during selection – very unpleasant. These includes actual control of page size, orientation, margins (I would prefer to use the same control elements as are in the panel Page style – left, right, top, botton) and number of columns. It would be perfect to add select box for page style direct into the header of the section and select box for Layout setting – page layout. 

8. In the same manner add section for header and footer – with control elements for same content left/right, same content on the first page, spacing and autofit height, see image Header.