LO Writer misses to paste "merge formatting" like MS Word (Deutsch: Einfügen Format zusammenführen

[dietrich.krebs]

LO Writer misses the option to paste “merge formatting” like MS Word. I found 3 questions regards this, answering to use “Paste Unformatted Text” but this gives not the significant benefit of Paste with Merge Formatting: Bold / Italic / Indentations / Hyperlinks / Bullets of lists are transferred from the source formatting into the format styles used at the destination place. Whoever used different data sources to compose a new text knows that benefit. No new format styles are transferred into the destination text.

Did I miss any way to find the function? I tested all formats for paste in Version 7.3.5.2.
Any plan to implement this function?

(Deutsch: LO Writer vermisst die Option zum Einfügen von “Format zusammenführen” wie in MS Word. Ich habe 3 Fragen diesbezüglich gefunden, die mit “Unformatierten Text einfügen” beantwortet wurden, aber dies bietet nicht den signifikanten Vorteil von Einfügen mit Zusammenführen der Formatierung: Fett / Kursiv / Hyperlinks / Einrückungen / Aufzählungszeichen werden von der Quellformatierung in die am Zielort verwendeten Formatvorlagen übertragen. Wer schon einmal verschiedene Datenquellen zum Verfassen eines neuen Textes verwendet hat, kennt diesen Vorteil. Es werden keine neuen Formatvorlagen in den Zieltext übertragen.

Habe ich die Funktion irgendwo übersehen?
Ich habe alle Formate für das Einfügen in Version 7.3.5.2 getestet.
Gibt es einen Plan, diese Funktion zu implementieren?

[mikekaganski]

@dietrich.krebs

Whoever used different data sources to compose a new text knows that benefit.

Sigh. The questioner expects answerers to only those intimately familiar with Word, not accepting answers from people who mastered Writer (and know how to make things done), but don’t know Word…

FTR: relevant Word documentation might help others understand what OP talks about better.

[Hrbrgr]

@mikekaganski
or people read the guide to realize that the description of other programs might be useless.

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However, one could also see the fact that questioners like to read no guide as occupational therapy for answering users.

[Hrbrgr]

Transfer Styles in Writer

On this website you will also find a German version.

[ajlittoz]

Your question didn’t tell the whole story. You didn’t mention how the “source” data is formatted: HTML copied from some web site, text from some document processor like M$ Word or LO Writer, other, …

In the case of text already formatted by some processor, how is this text formatted? Through styles or manually?

M$ Word has implemented “merge formatting” because it lacks the ubiquitous notion of styles. It defines only paragraph styles and all the rest is direct formatted while LO Writer has also character, frame, page and list styles. Writer discourages direct formatting. Consequently when canonically-formatted text is pasted into Writer, the only merge which occurs is style dictionary merging.

If you provide Writer with direct formatting source (as will be the case with Word data), it is impossible to decide if such sequence is a one-of-a-kind or just another occurrence of a common one. Remember that typographical effects are rather limited. Italics may denote emphasis, foreign words, voluntary bad spelling, comment, … So when you meet direct italics, to which significance or style should it be associated? A wrong decision may be worse than the present state and turn your document into a no-longer manageable one.

If you switch from Word, take the time to learn the (huge) differences between both suites and work with styles.

If you routinely paste “external” data, prefer to paste unformatted and afterwards restyle freshly entered text. This will avoid importing slightly different styles and mess up your style dictionary. You can paste formatted if both documents are based on the same template (warning! this word has a special meaning in Writer parlance) and you didn’t change locally style definition in any document.