I want to create a blank document with no or just one styles, and create my own set of styles.
Is it possible to delete or rename the default styles? I do not see any options to delete or rename them.
Is it possible to create a document with no or just one style?
Thanks a lot.
It is just contradictory to the very logic of the ODF file formats (everything must be style-based). You can’t.
An open text document in Writer always has at least one style associated with it.
Open the sidebar ( Ctrl+F5 ).
There you will find the styles.
Right click on a style and for most of them you can select “Modify”.
You can change the name or the properties.
Most of the styles provided by LibreOffice cannot be deleted.
But you can hide them.
And you can create your own custom styles.
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Professional text composition with Writer
Thanks a lot!
How do I change the name of a style? I am using Linux Mint 21 Cinnamon. The name of the style is dimmed. I do not seem to be able to change it.
Yes, sorry, for changing a name, you have to create a twin via New.
Thanks. And after creating a twin, I can hide the original style? Is it correct that I won’t be able to delete the original style?
As also stated in other comments or answers, the drop down menu at bottom of the style side pane allows you to filter thelist. Custom Styles displays only your styles. Applied Styles displays those in use in your document (may include built-in styles in addition to yours).
The original style can be deleted if it isn’t a built-in style.
No you can’t. Even if you edit the XML, and remove all styles there, Writer will re-create these styles from its internal defaults.
Many of the default styles are required for Writer’s correct work (e.g., its code expects those styles to be present when doing some operations like adding paragraphs after a table, when it must change styles from table-specific to generic, and so on). There are some built-in styles that exist only because some felt they would be generally useful, and it would be reasonable to be able to drop those, (and there’s a bug report about that IIRC, similar to tdf#150985, because it’s not possible now - but note that even then it won’t let you to avoid all built-in styles).
Built-in styles are there to define a common frame of reference for all users. They already suggest a structural organisation of your document: headings and topic development with, at minimum, Heading n and Text Body. This is a first approach to good practice and Writer intended usage.
If you’re presently discovering the possibilities and power of Writer, I recommend you stick with built-in styles when marking up your document (after all, styling is tagging your text with semantic metadata: this a heading, this is a bulk text topic, this is a list item, …). Refrain from naming a style based on the appearance (“red text” or “italics”). This will limit your creativity, create confusion about the significance of such decorated text and hamper your formatting maintenance.
Built-in styles have special properties. One of them is translation of their names into the local language. This may seem inconspicuous but is in fact a high-valued item allowing to create language-agnostic templates you can load from the Internet and immediately use on your computer in your own language.
I personally don’t see any interest in deleting built-in styles. On the contrary.
EDIT: if your question is motivated by the “clutter” resulting from the high number of built-in styles in the style sidepane, you can “organise” the list by choosing Hierarchical from the drop-down menu at bottom in the pane. This will result in an expandable tree view of the styles and give you visual clues about the relationship between styles. Any change in a style will cascade down to its descendants (unless this setting has ben overridden in one of the chidren, of course).
The best way to work with styles is with the Styles deck of the Sidebar.
You cannot delete or rename default styles. But you can modify them, taking advantage of their basic structure and relationship with one another.
On the other hand, you can hide unwanted styles to unclutter Sidebar.
If you understand the structure and interrelationship of styles, you can create the styles you want to use. Then, use the Styles Filter at the bottom of the Sidebar to only show Custom Styles.
Once you’ve done all this in a blank document, save this as a template, checking the box to use this template as the default template. Then, whenever, you open a new document, you will have the styles you want.
