Writer Guide

What are styles?
Most people are used to writing documents according to physical
attributes. For example, you might specify the font family, font size,
and weight (for example: Helvetica 12pt, bold).
Styles are logical attributes. We use styles every day. For example,
there are two styles of personal computer: desktop and laptop. Each
has its own distinctive set of properties. You never say “my computer is
a low-weight, one-piece unit with an LCD screen attached to a
rectangular casing containing the computing components and the
keyboard”. Instead, you could say that you have a laptop.
OpenOffice.org (OOo) styles are a way to do the same thing for your
document. Using styles means that you could stop saying “font size
14pt, Times New Roman, bold, centered” and start saying “title” for
describing that particular font usage. In other words, styles mean that
you shift the emphasis from what the text looks like to what the text is .
Why use styles?
Styles help improve consistency in a document. They also make major
formatting changes easy. For example, you might decide to change the
indentation of all paragraphs or change the font of all titles. For a long
document, this simple task could be prohibitive. Styles make the task
easy.
The time is 9:50 AM, and Jane is finishing the 30-page paper for
school that is due at 10:00 AM. She looks over the assignment one
more time, and suddenly she realizes that:
• The text must use Arial font instead of Times New Roman.
• The headings must be dark blue and indented.
• The title must appear at the top-right of every page except the
first.
• Even-numbered pages must have a wider right margin, and
odd-numbered pages must have a wider left margin.
Thankfully, Jane used OOo Writer and styles. She makes all the
changes in only two minutes and hands in the paper on time.
Chapter 6 Introduction to Styles 185