Sams Teach Yourself StarOffice® 5 for Linux in 24 Hours

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Hour 9: Using Advanced Formatting Tools

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Creating Your Own Styles


Now that you've seen styles in action from the Stylist window, you're ready to create your own styles. The pedantic way to create a new style is to follow these steps (We won't go into detail on this one):

1. Choose Styles and Templates from the Format menu, and then choose Catalog from the submenu that appears. The Style Catalog appears (see Figure 9.15).

Figure 9.15
The Style Catalog is a good access point for everything having to do with named styles in your document.

2. Choose the New button.

3. Enter a name for the new style on the first tab, Organizer.

4. Review each tab in the dialog box, entering the correct formatting detail for the style that you want to create.

5. Choose OK to finish creating the new style.

You're probably in a bigger hurry than that, however, so here's an easier way to create a new style: It's called Style by Example.

Creating a Style by Example

A Style by Example enables you to format a paragraph just as you want it to look, and then to say to StarOffice, "Record how that paragraph looks and duplicate it at my command."

The advantage to Style by Example is that you don't have to wade through all the dialog boxes to see whether you're missing something in the formatting. You can use the standard formatting options that you've been learning about to set up a paragraph, and then name it as a style.

To create a named style by using a sample paragraph that you have already formatted in the style that you want to use, follow these steps:

1. Open the Stylist window.

2. Click on the paragraph in your document that you have formatted, so that the cursor is in that paragraph.

3. Click on the New Style by Example icon (the middle icon of the three on the right side). (See Figure 9.16.)

Figure 9.16
The New Style by Example icon creates a new style based on the text at the current cursor location.

4. When the Create Style dialog box appears (see Figure 9.17), enter a name for the style that you are creating.

Figure 9.17
Enter a name for the style that you want to create by example.

5. Choose OK. The style name you entered is added to the Stylist window. Its attributes are those of the paragraph in which the cursor was positioned.

In addition to creating a New Style by Example, you can create a new style based on an existing style. This can be a lot quicker than setting all the needed formatting options--if the style you want is similar to another existing style, but with a few modifications.

To create a style based on another style, follow these steps:

1. Place the cursor in a paragraph of the style that you want to use as a basis for your new style.

2. Open the Paragraph Styles window.

3. Right-click anywhere in the Paragraph Styles window.

4. Choose New from the pop-up menu that appears. The Paragraph Style dialog box appears.

5. The settings in this dialog box are those of the current paragraph. Notice that the Based on field contains the name of the style for the paragraph in which the cursor is located.

Caution - The Based on style is not the style highlighted in the Stylist window when you select New from the pop-up menu. It is always the style of the current text paragraph.


6. Enter a name for your new style in the Name field.

7. Change any formatting areas that you want in this new style.

8. Choose OK to add the new style to the list of styles for this document.

Styles are a powerful feature within StarOffice. You've seen only the most basic features of styles, but it will still be enough to make the formatting of your documents go a lot more smoothly.

Sams Teach Yourself StarOffice® 5 for Linux in 24 Hours

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Hour 9: Using Advanced Formatting Tools

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