Change color globally in Writer

[Funkaloss]

Hi!

Short version:
Is it possible to easily change all instances of a colour in Writer 5.1.4.2?

Long version:
I try to use LibreOffice Writer 5.1.4.2 for a magazine. In every issue I’d like to use a different accent colour on some headings, frames, lines and other objects. Therefore I created a new colour named “Accent” in a palette and used it for all of these objects in the first issue. Great!

Then I changed the hue of that “Accent” colour for the next issue. The objects changed to a colour named “User” and retained the original hue. If I wanted the objects to remain the same, of course I wouldn’t have changed the “Accent” colour in the first place.

Shouldn’t objects keep the colour if you change it, but keep the name?
Is it possible to do this some other way?

Scribus has that possibility, but I gave up using it because I need real table support. And also it’s kind of like a pain in the rear. No offense, Scribus lovers, but I don’t think Scribus is very user-friendly.

Thanks in advance!

[Lupp]

Suppose you are using the character style ‘Default Style’ basically for all the texts. This style is also the basis of the character styles of different predefined paragraph styles. As long as these styles do not define a different font colour, you can achieve your goal this way:

(1.) Define a named character style, say ‘MyEmphasis’, also based on ‘Default Style’ and exclusively changing the font colour.
(2.) Use exclusively this named character style for the emphasis of the kind you are talking of.

You will experience that this way of emphasis will also overlay the new colour over all the text written with the different default settings of paragraph styles not having set a different text colour as compared with ‘Default Style’. It will not change any of the respective properties set for the characters in the different paragraph styles. However, your ‘MyEmphasis’ colour will not override different text colours set by direct formatting.

(3.) Thus: Do not use direct formatting with respect to text colour anywhere in your text, except where you are sure you want to abandon the working of your ‘MyEmphasis’ there…

To now change the ‘MyEmphasis’ text colour just ‘Modify’ it for the named character style.

The above described proceeding will also work for other text properties not changed by the used paragraph style.

Heading styles are paragraph styles and thus eligible for the method. Concerning frames and graphical objects you have to define their extra named styles, regrettably. I cannot imagine a way to make colours persisting based on colour names. There is nothing like a “named colour style”. Colour names are only mnemonic equivalents for RGB triples accessible for the installation they were defined on.

[Funkaloss]

Thank you for your answer. I tried to minimise the number of styles using the “Accent” colour. That way I don’t have to change colour of too many instances.

I’d love the colours of a palette to be more than “mnemonic equivalents for RGB triples”. I’ll make a feature request of named colour style.

[Lupp]

@Funkaloss: (As described above:) You may assign your ‘Accent’ colour to a named character style, and apply this style to a selection of characters (text pieces). I do not know a single predefined paragraph style defining the colour properties different from ‘Default Style’. The suggested proceeding should therefor work without limitation for text.

[Lupp]

I am afraid your feature request will not be successful. It is (imo) not compatible with some concepts of the implementation of colouring. At least the new feature would require to import colours into the palette when a document is opened. What about default names of colurs redefined by the author of that document on his system? What about interoperability with different software? (I cannot test for these supposed issues, however.) Please add a link to your request here.

[Funkaloss]

Here’s the feature request

[Funkaloss]

@Lupp: Thank you for answering.
I understand the character style solution for text. I would prefer a solution that encompasses all instances of a colour. I can give you opinions rather than knowledge due to my lack of knowledge of the colour implementation:

Maybe colours with default names shouldn’t be possible to redefine? That could maybe be a problem when collaborating and/or when using other software.

[Funkaloss]

If you create new colours and/or a new palette, I think you could have the possibility to redefine those, and that the styles using the colours could keep the colour name referring to the original RGB values. This would (imho) make the Tools>Options>Colours way more useful.

The RGB values are still there to use for interoperability or collaboration. Isn’t that what happens today when colours outside the palette colours are used? Are user defined colours restricted to your local computer today?