LibreOffice paragraph style "properties?" problem...

English Applications
1

If it matters I’m using:

LibreOffice
Version: 5.1.3.2
Build ID: 10m0(Build:2)
CPU Threads: 4; OS Version: Linux 4.1; UI Render: default;
Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8)

On Opensuse Leap 42.1

But first let me explain that I’m only using it because I’m writing a series of
Ebooks and Smashwords.com wants me to upload them as “word documents”

If I want them to submit the book to other retailers such as Barnes & Noble I need to
format the book precisely the way they want it. And they want almost all formatting
done by paragraph styles. Manually inserted formatting is strongly discouraged.

In order for “me” to make it work I have to clear all formatting and then starting at
the top, apply carefully crafted custom paragraph styles until I reach the end of
the document. Then add hyperlinks to the TOC etc…

It took me a while to craft a complete set of all the paragraph styles I needed well
enough for the process Smashwords affectionately calls the meatgrinder to convert it
to all the recommended Ebook formats without throwing errors. Once it did so however,
I made a copy of the uploaded “word.doc” and wiped all the text content before saving
it as a preformatted BLANK word.doc with all the paragraph styles I needed to repeat
the process.

Somehow, something I never knowingly selected, found it’s way into my blank word.doc file.

Which caused every paragraph style I tried to apply to also add underlining and a
blueish font color to the text. Eventually I found the “Properties” sidebar option
where I could untick the bold button. And I could select black instead of blue for
the font color. But selecting BLACK font color is NOT a good idea for Ebooks because I
can’t control the end readers background color settings. I’m supposed to use a default
that doesn’t preselect the text color so the Ebook reader can automatically adjust the
text color according to it’s background settings. I think Smashwords describes this
color as “automatic”…

However I couldn’t find any way to deselect the blue without selecting a new default
color… I know it has to be there somewhere. But almost all the controls are based
on meaningless {to me} icon like buttons.{I need labels} AND I don’t actually compose with
LibreOffice, to have slowly become familiar with very many of them. I actually compose
in LyX {which keeps me from fat fingering extra spaces between words and many other
formatting errors that would prevent my Ebook from making it through Smashwords
meatgrinder…} Then I wash the text through leafpad so that I can paste a plain text
version into my “blank” word.doc, and start applying the paragraph styles.

It may be the “hard way” But as long as my blank word.doc file remained unchanged, it
was repeatable. Unfortunately something did change. But I really would like to avoid
recreating the twenty odd paragraph styles from scratch…

So could somebody explain how to truly undo having any preset font color. So that the
end user’s Ereader can automatically adjust it as needed???

Thanks

–
Joe

2

You are doing a rather specialized job, so I’m not sure if the following might apply.

  1. Avoid any (bluish) background color:
  • open your blank word.doc in LibreOffice Writer
  • hit F11 (the Styles and Formatting panel should open)
  • select the first button if not already selected (should read “Paragraph Styles” while hovering the mouse above it)
  • right-click on “Default Style” then “Modify…”
  • a panel opens, select the “Area” tab, then “Fill > None”
  • “Apply” then “OK”.

Unless you have done something unusual, all your paragraph styles should inherit that “Fill > None” property; if that is not the case, you should repeat the procedure for any custom style still showing the bluish background.

  1. Font color “Automatic”
  • same as the above, but select the “Font Effects” tab
  • select “Font Color: > Automatic”
  • “Apply” then “OK”.

Hope this helps.

3

It would appear that on Sep 10, OrsoBruno did say:

> You are doing a rather specialized job, so I’m not sure if the following
> might apply.
> 1) Avoid any (bluish) background color:
> - open your blank word.doc in LibreOffice Writer
> - hit F11 (the Styles and Formatting panel should open)
> - select the first button if not already selected (should read
> “Paragraph Styles” while hovering the mouse above it)
> - right-click on “Default Style” then “Modify…”
> - a panel opens, select the “Area” tab, then “Fill > None”
> - “Apply” then “OK”.
>
> Unless you have done something unusual, all your paragraph styles should
> inherit that “Fill > None” property; if that is not the case, you should
> repeat the procedure for any custom style still showing the bluish
> background.
>
> 2) Font color “Automatic”
> - same as the above, but select the “Font Effects” tab
> - select “Font Color: > Automatic”
> - “Apply” then “OK”.
>
> Hope this helps.

Thank you for replying. I must have been real tired when I gave up solving this
myself last night and asked for help.

The problem was {note past tense} in the “properties” side bar dialog rather than the
“styles and formatting” dialog. {I had already checked my paragraph style definitions
and none of them set underlining nor font color.} But there was something in the
“properties” dialog that was overriding my custom styles.

I had already been able to deselect the underline button there. But for some reason
when I opened the font color selection tool there I didn’t recognize the little
button {above the pallet} that would set the color back to “automatic”. For which I
feel really stupid because it was the ONLY font color setting there that was actually
labeled.

I’m also a bit confused. Since these properties seem to be tied to the currently selected
style, I think it should have resulted in changing the visible settings in the font effect
tab of the paragraph style definition, where I should have been able to set it back to
“automatic” and (without) using the font effect settings there. Instead, the font
effects tab of the style “modify” dialog incorrectly indicated that it was still set
to automatic and without. And I had to make the fix in the less intuitive “proprieties”
side bar dialog.

But in any case it’s all good now.

Thanks again.

–
Joe

4

Not sure to understand what you actually did, but please be aware that any setting from the “Properties” sidebar, apart from “Styles”, is SUPERIMPOSED on your “Paragraph Style”, affects only the selected text/character and does NOT change the “Paragraph Style” itself.
So, if I understand the “meat grinder” correctly, I would NOT TOUCH any setting in the Properties sidebar except for the “Styles” drop down menu.

5

It would appear that on Sep 11, OrsoBruno did say:

> jtwdyp;2792047 Wrote:
> >
> > I’m also a bit confused. Since these properties seem to be tied to the
> > currently selected
> > style, I think it should have resulted in changing the visible settings
> > in the font effect
> > tab of the paragraph style definition, where I should have been able to
> > set it back to
> > “automatic” and (without) using the font effect settings there. Instead,
> > the font
> > effects tab of the style “modify” dialog incorrectly indicated that it
> > was still set
> > to automatic and without. And I had to make the fix in the less
> > intuitive “proprieties”
> > side bar dialog.
> >
>
> Not sure to understand what you actually did, but please be aware that
> any setting from the “Properties” sidebar, apart from “Styles”, is
> SUPERIMPOSED on your “Paragraph Style”, affects only the selected
> text/character and does NOT change the “Paragraph Style” itself.
> So, if I understand the “meat grinder” correctly, I would NOT TOUCH any
> setting in the Properties sidebar except for the “Styles” drop down
> menu.

That would be my plan, especially now that I know about it. What I can’t figure out
is how those two effects got set in the properties sidebar for every single custom
style I had, when I never ever went there before???

The only thing I do to LibreOffice is, when it gets upgraded I hunt down and disable
any and all of the auto correct settings I can find. I really wish they made it easy
to disable ALL automatic document modifiers in one easy to find master switch…

And the only time I actually USE LibreOffice {aside from an occasional spreadsheet} is when
I’m done composing, editing, and typo fixing my LyX document I bypass LyX’s output {which
is more suitable for latex typesetting etc…} by using {ctrl}+{a} then {ctrl}+{c} in LyX’s
composer window. Then pasting it into a text document via leafpad. After which I run


grep -v '^$' input.txt > output.txt

on the resulting text file to eliminate the blank lines. Next I open that output.txt
in leafpad and copy the whole thing to the clipboard. Finally I open a copy of that
blank word.doc with all my custom paragraph styles and paste. Mark all, clear
formatting and then starting from the top I start applying the paragraph styles in
such a way as to make the WYSIWYG word.doc closely resemble the pdf output I could
have generated from LyX. While deleting a few undesirable lines such as LyX’s
frontmatter & backmatter ERT tags as I encounter them. After which I insert bookmarks
for all the chapter headings, then replace the TOC list with inserted hyperlinks.
Save the bookname.doc and then save as an bookname.odt document that calibre can convert
to an bookname.epub. Which I use to give the text & formatting one last sanity
checking read through, before uploading the bookname.doc to Smashword’s meatgrinder.

And that is ALL I ever do with LibreOffice. So I’m at a complete loss to explain how
the Properties sidebar settings got changed to superimpose underlining & blue text color
to all my custom styles in the first place… Unless, until my recent purchase of a
Kensington Orbit trackball, I was putting up with a wheel mouse. Occasionally I would notice
that the wheel would scroll some scrollbox settings that I hadn’t even selected. {I
hates wheel mice more than Yosemite Sam hates rabbits…} But I would have thought
that the properties sidebar would have had to be active for that to have made any
changes there.

However, it’s all good now. And if it ever happens again, at least I’ll know where to
look for the problem.

Thanks again

–
Joe