Is it possible to bulk edit style definitions?

[dajare]

I am a very much a convert to using “Styles” whenever possible (rather than the ad hoc styling from the toolbar). (I’m thinking primarily of Writer.)

However, developing new styles is quite a chore. What I have in mind, for example, is in setting a main font - it requires not only changing “Default Style” (and some other styles propagate from that one change), but also – and at least – for paragraphs: Header (x3), Footer (x3), Footnote + associated character styles. Wearisome! And then there are associated margin, line height, etc. etc. changes to make. You get the picture!

Does anyone know of any tips to speed this up? Is there a means of “bulk editing” selected styles? Something like that?

I’m using 4.1x versions of LibO/Writer. Thanks for any help with this!

[mariosv]

Hi David, I think this is possible now, the styles have in the Organize tab an option about from what style are linked.

and with F11 (Menu/Format/Styles & formatting) you can select in the bottom box Hierarchical order, what lets see the heritage between styles.

Maybe a look on documentation could be very useful to learn in deep about styles.
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Publications#LibreOffice_Writer_Guide

[dajare]

@mariosv - Thanks for this! I was aware of the “Linked with” thing (in my Question: “changing ‘Default Style’ (and some other styles propagate from that one change)”, but I was totally unaware of the “Hierarchical” view in the the Styles sidepanel which helps more than one might think! Will post an “answer” about that below. Thanks again!

[dajare]

The hint to use the “Hierarchichal view” in the F11/Styles side panel in @mariosv’s answer is more helpful that I realized.

Not only can you see at a glance which styles are related, and how – but what is especially useful about it, is that you can drag-and-drop styles into different places in the hierarchy. (Rather than open each entry, enter the value in to the “Linked with” field, save, repeat, etc.)

In my original question, I pointed out that changing the styles for headers/footers required SIX changes:

Now, in the Hierarchical view, I created a new “Headers Footers” entry under “Default Style”, in seconds had dragged the six related entries to nest under it, and ended up with this:

Now simply ONE change in the “Headers Footers” entry propagates to the others.

The thing for me to do now, I think, is set up a default template with the elements nested according to my normal practice. That is one big help with “bulk editing”.

Another (is this worth enhancement request?) would be the ability to select random entries in the list (e.g., with CTRL-click/select) and change properties that way. Then you could “bulk edit” any common value, and that would make it even faster, I think.

Any other tips?

[bencomp]

That is a useful tip! Not sure that I will use it often, but knowing drag-n-drop is possible is cool