How To Stop Automatic Indent of Second Line in Sentence?

[abrogard]

Going mad here. These things always come up when you’re short of time. Suddenly in this document I have to edit every time I write a sentence that is longer than the line and continues on to a second line that second line is indented maybe six chars or something.

i’ve set the formatting for that page to justified. In the original it was left justified. but now it is justified. thought that might fix it. but it didn’t. probably hidden somewhere in the configurations but I’m really in a hurry so I thought i’d post this and continue with the work and go back fix it after i get the answer if I do.

p.s. should mention the place in question is in amonst a list of sections and sub-sections numbered like 1. , 1.2, 1.3, 1.3 and so on and I could be trying to address any point within that list so I’m breaking in.

Writer throws up a 1.x when I first go to do that as though it thinks I want to to make a new addition to the list and it adjusts all the 1.x entries further down by adding 1 to them all. I backspace over that and it allows me to do that and resets all the lower parts of the list to where they were.

I guess the whole thing has something to do with that. I’m fine with writing the whole new edit of mine indented if that’s the way to go but I just don’t want everything indented except the first line.

Maybe that changes my question a little bit to: how to insert your comments on a particular statement into such a list of statements?

[Zizi64]

Create, adjust and apply yor own Paragraph style with the desired “indent” and “first line indent” values. (The LO can handle different indent value for the first line of a paragraph.)
Or you can adjust the existing (applied) Paragraph style too.

i’ve set the formatting for that page
to justified.

It is not a Page related property. It is Paragraph related property. You need use more thna one different Paragraph style in a well formatted document.

[abrogard]

Thanks guys. I see I need to do some learning. Need to download and learn the LO Writer Guide. Okay, will do.

To fix immediate problem: create, adjust and apply my own paragraph style. thank you. will do, I hope.

To elaborate my sentence. Perhaps a mocked up example:

Item 1.

1.1 this is the nature of this item.

1.2 and this is the nature of this item.

1.3 and this is the nature of this one

and this is where I try to interpose my 'comments on a particular statement'.
    and it has been going like this..  with the second line and all succeeding lines indented.

1.4 another list item

1.5 and yet another.

[Zizi64]

Please upload a real, ODF type sample file here instead of the “description” of the layout.

[abrogard]

well i don’t want to make public the actual document.

[ajlittoz]

I bet your document is completely formatted with buttons (e.g. for bold, italics, bullets, numbering, …), use of ruler cursors (left/right indent, …) or equivalent keyboard shortcuts. Probably, vertical spacing is done with empty paragraphs. This is called direct formatting and is the cause of formatting hell as you experience.

If this is the case, the toolbar only displays Default Style in the paragraph style drop-down menu.

So, what’s happening?

You have activated list numbering on a paragraph supposed to be a chapter heading. This is faulty because chapter (and sub-chapter, …) heading are supposed to be styled with paragraph style Heading 1 (Heading 2 for sub-chapter, up to 10 for the smallest parts). The numbering by Heading n (which must be explicitly enabled with Tools>Chapter Numbering) is independent from list numbering. Also, Heading n allow to generate automatically a TOC.

Once you have activated list mode, it remains in effect until you disable it. When you hit Return, a new paragraph a created with the same properties as the previous one. If you are in list mode, you get a new list item. When you backspace over the item number, you don’t disable list mode, you simply modify the current list item for an unnumbered one, still member of the list. This can be seen to the preserved left indent. Again, when you hit Return, you create a new list item.

To disable list mode, you must either press again the toolbar button or backspace twice over the list number.

In short, your problem comes from a bad usage of Writer. Although it may seem “intuitive” to format a document with buttons, the right way to do it is with styles. Styles is the only sensible method as soon as a document is longer than 5 pages. It is also the only safe and reliable formatting method guaranteeing consistency and ease of format editing.

Download and read the Writer Guide available on the LO site.

By the way, the “normal” style for document text is Text Body. Default Style is a configuration style to set defaults for all others.

To show the community your question has been answered, click the ✓ next to the correct answer, and “upvote” by clicking on the ^ arrow of any helpful answers. These are the mechanisms for communicating the quality of the Q&A on this site. Thanks!

In case you need clarification, edit your question (not an answer which is reserved for solutions) or comment the relevant answer.

PS:

how to insert your comments on a particular statement into such a list of statements?

Could you elaborate a bit to make this sentence intelligible?

[Hrbrgr]

In addition to @ajlittoz:

[Writer Guide](https://documentation.libreoffice.org/en/english-documentation/)
[Style templates in Writer](https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Style_templates_in_Writer_-_V6)