Hi everybody,
when I was using MS Word, I used to select the paragraph–symbol at the end of a paragraph, copy it, and then paste it over that of another paragraph to apply to the latter the formatting style of the former.
It seems not to work in @libreoffice. Am I missing something?
Writer has a much more elaborate form of formatting than M$ Word based on styles. You can effectively copy paragraph style when you paste a block of text straddling a paragraph mark.
However it does not work well when you try to replace an existing paragraph mark.
The Writer way of assigning formatting to a paragraph is to select one of the paragraph styles from the toolbar menu and double-clicking on a style name in the side style pane (and this works also for other style categories: character, page, frame and list).
Note that the basic styling in Word does not encourage a consistent use. That is, you frequently manually add attributes to an existing paragraph and you copy this modified set to another position. In Writer, you should use different paragraph styles (using built-in ones, customising them or creating brand new ones) without manually added modifications.
This is because Writer uses a layered model:
- paragraph style at bottom level,
- character style to change word appearance inside a paragraph (e.g. to bring emphasis on some words),
- direct formatting at top level (inspired by Word to ease transition to the style architecture)
Each layer is independent from each other with upper layers overriding lower layers. Except for direct formatting, styles are centrally controlled which allows to change dramatically document appearance in a matter of seconds without the pain of tracking manually applied attributes.
One very important remark: don’t consider styles as formatting directives. As an author, styles are THE way to meta-mark up your text as to its significance. Don’t bother for formatting. Mark up for common text, headings, comments, emphasis, side remarks, notes, … Note I don’t use words like font size, italics or bold. These words don’t convey meaning. Concentrate on your text value, not on its aspect. Appearance should derive from meaning, not the other round.
Once your text is marked up with styles, you assign visual attributes (font face, size, weight, angle, colour, indents, spacing, …) to the style. Of course, you can plan ahead and define your styles before typing.
Refrain from direct formatting your text (except for experimentation). This will always play nasty tricks on your back.
I recommend you read the Writer Guide for an introduction to styles.
To show the community your question has been answered, click the ✓ next to the correct answer, and “upvote” by clicking on the ^ arrow of any helpful answers. These are the mechanisms for communicating the quality of the Q&A on this site. Thanks!
In case you need clarification, edit your question (not an answer which is reserved for solutions) or comment the relevant answer.
In addition:
It could be a compatibility problem between Word and Writer.
Basically:
Always create and save your files in LibreOffice and save them in ODF format (ODT, ODS, etc.).
Always keep these files as their source. If you need other formats for distribution to partners, you can open an ODF file and save and distribute another format with ″ Save as… ″.
This way, you always have working files available in your system environment.
See:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Faq/General/118#Edit_different_file_formats_in_LibreOffice