Can Someone Explain Styles?

[MarjaE]

Apparently there’s supposed to be very useful, and easier to use than just marking up the text. But in my experience they’ve been worse than useless.

I have to disable styles and autoformat to edit text.

If I don’t disable styles, then LibreOffice changes how things are formatted. I know styles are supposed to make it easier to apply consistent formatting, but in my experience, they make it harder, because LibreOffice, etc. can:

1. Decide something is a header when it isn’t, or vice versa.

2. Decide something is a list, when it isn’t, or vice-versa.

3. Decide that one list is actually two lists, or partly a list and partly regular paragraphs, with different formatting for each section.

If I don’t disable autoformat, then LibreOffice changes what I’m typing. For example, it collects half-typed and mistyped words, and completes other words. I’m too clumsy [with proprioceptive issues, arm injuries, etc.] to avoid ever mistyping words. For another example, it sometimes tries to apply “smart” quotes. Having seen too many “smart” quotes turn into silly gibberish, especially when written with one app and opened with another, I want to avoid “smart” quotes.

[AlexKemp]

There is a saying by a wise man:-

If you cannot be the Miller, then you
must be the grain.

I do not blame you for switching off Autoformat. The very work of the devil; hold your hands up in the shape of a cross, spit & turn your back. Have nothing to do with it. Most sensible.

You take control of Autocorrect from the menu:-

• (menu):Tools|Autocorrect Options...
  
  (take a little while to switch on/off what you do/not want)

Smart quotes? What’s wrong with that? Is it that it seems so much like magic, MarjaE, that it is giving you the collywobbles? Silly girl / foolish fellow. You have been rubbing shoulders with the wrong people for too long.

LO/OO is Open Source & adheres to Open Protocols. The Protocol in this case is Unicode. “Smart Quotes” is simply changing a pair of plain quote-marks ((U+0022) " Quotation Mark) for a set of curly quotes ((U+201C “) and (U+201D ”)) or single quote-marks ((U+0027 ’ Apostrophe) for curly single-quotes ((U+2018 ‘) and (U+2019 ’)).

It’s easy: use Apps that conform to Open Standards & use fonts that have a reasonable supply of glyphs. As long as both are modern, rather than coming from a time of slavery & proprietorial regimes & you will be OK.

Once you have gained a reasonable mastery of Styles then you will be in control of them, rather than they in control of you. It takes time, but it’s not difficult. It simply remains to be done.

If this helps then please tick the answer ().

[JKEngineer]

@AlexKemp Sorry, but I agree with @ MarjaE about the smart quotes or curly quotes as you call them. I have seen many instances of their turning into codes or gibberish when the item is used elsewhere, such as on a web page. I always try to turn them off.

[AlexKemp]

“such as on a web page” : If the web-page is html5 and/or adheres to the default of utf-8 then no problem. Any other charset, such as were used in pre-history, and you may well have had problems. Come up to date in the modern era & it will just work.

[JKEngineer]

I think we will have to agree to disagree. It’s not just the displays that I see, but those that others see when I or someone else provides smart quotes in text. I may be able to control the programs I use for display, although not always able or willing. I generally can’t control what others use and I’d rather have them see clean text.