Hi. I am working with Libre Office 6.3.4.2. I want to write a document with headings When I try to edit the style of the heading the font size is depicted as percentage and not as normal size. Can I change this so that I can choose the font size i want?
Also for some reason that I cannot understand even though I press the button to update the style with the selection that is in the font, font size etc I want the style is not updated. every time I use it I have to change again the font size to the desired one. IT’S SO FRUSTRATING. Please help
Percentage size is also a size unit, but you must understand against which source this percentage is applied.
Paragraph styles in Writer are part of a hierarchy. Styles inherit their “default” attributes from a direct ancestor and the style definition overrides some of the “default” attributes. This hierarchy allows to design a set of consistent styles across their intended usage.
Heading n styles all descend from a common Heading style where font size is set at 14pt. When you see 130% in Heading 1, this means size is 14 x 1.3 = 18.2 pt. Using a percentage, you set the various Heading n sizes in accordance to each other.
This would not be that interesting, but for a smart feature. Should you change the 14-pt size in Heading for another value, all sizes in Heading n are recomputed and they keep their relative ratio. E.g., change for 18 pt, Heading 1 becomes 23.4 pt, Heading 2 20.7 pt, etc. You have no such global update if you use absolute sizes like 18 pt.
You are free to change the font size for any valid unit (pt, cm, inches – anyway they will be translated into pt) but you lose the auto organisation of the Heading n family.
I’d advise against updating the style with the button to copy attributes from the selection because you don’t control accurately what gets transferred to the style definition. You may have a character style active in this location plus many direct formatting (you inserted them precisely for that purpose) but direct formatting remains in effect and you no longer know if attributes come from the style or direct formatting. It may even mess up your formatting by overriding the attributes coming from another style.
To avoid document revision problems, always prefer to configure your styles manually. You know then exactly what you’re doing and you can cancel it easily.
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(Edit only corrected formatting glitches)
Thank you for the time you took to answer but you didn’t answer my question. How can I negate the percentage configuration and have the ability to choose straight pt or what ever size I want for the fonts. And that is because I don’t want 18.2 pt size but 18 etc I need to have absolute sizes in the fonts. Somehow it should be possible to be done. So how can I stop this unneeded inheritance process and setup my own Heading styles with out any other hindrance? Also on my second question. Even if I manually edit my style when I apply it to the next heading it goes to back to its default setting. Is there a way to setup my heading styles without any interference from the software and the SO MUCH UNNEEDED inheritance process?
Thank you again