The best way to learn is to experiment and set up a style according to your own preferences. You will then be presented with a large selection of options. Right click anywhere inside the 'Styles and Formatting' panel.Open the 'Styles and Formatting' panel as an option through the Sidebar.The 'Styles and Formatting' panel will appear.This panel is accessed through one of the following methods: You can create, edit, and apply styles to your document through the 'Styles and Formatting' panel. They permit the creation of an automatic table of contents, numbered chapters, the setting of colors, insertion of symbols, and more. The change will then be reflected throughout our document.īeyond this, styles can provide a lot more than just consistency and ease of administration. For example, to change the font used for all chapter headings, we only need to modify the definition of 'Heading 1'. In this way, the administration of document becomes much simpler. Likewise, we can predefine the body formatting in a style named 'Body Text' and apply this style to the body text of the document as necessary. This way, each time we come across text we want to make into a chapter heading, we can simply select 'Heading 1' as its formatting. Suppose that instead of setting each chapter heading's formatting individually, as shown above, we predefine all these rules in a style named 'Heading 1'. What happens if you decide you need the body of your report to be displayed in a different font, or that you need your chapter headings to be slightly smaller? If you've applied the formatting directly, you'll need to do a lot of work to fix this. While it is possible to accomplish this with direct formatting, two problems arise: consistency (remembering to use the exact same font size, font face, and alignment each time) and maintenance. 'Liberation Serif, 11 points, justified.'.'Liberation Sans, 16 point, bold, centered.'Īt the same time, we want the rest of our text to be displayed in a smaller, serif font, as follows:.To apply this formatting manually, we would need to set up the following formatting for each heading individually: We also need these headings to be displayed in large, bold text, and centered on the page. We need these headings to be displayed in a particular sans serif font. Suppose we've written a long report that is divided into chapters, each marked by a heading. Styles can be used in all Apache OpenOffice programs with the exception of Apache Math.īenefits of Styles Over Direct Formatting While this may seem complex at first glance, it is actually an easy-to-learn tool that affords a great deal of flexibility and consistency when authoring documents. You can save yourself a lot of time and trouble by using styles and templates, which cause your document to follow predefined formatting rules. However, this can be repetitive, and problematic when working with longer documents. To a new user, it may seem easier to format a document directly, applying formatting only as needed. You can do so directly using menus and toolbars, or you can use styles and templates. In Apache OpenOffice, you can apply formatting to documents in two different ways. 2 Benefits of Styles Over Direct Formatting.

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