[SOLVED] Specify language for several (contiguous) paragraphs at one go

Cbhihe · February 13, 2022, 2:47pm

Hello,

I use LO 7.3.0.3 and want to know if there is a way to specify the language for a selection involving several contiguous paragraphs. All I see if the possibility to “Set language for paragraph” or “Set language for selection” when my cursor sits inside any given paragraph … When I select (highlight) several paragraphs, the possibility (or rather the menu items) to specify the language property of the selected object disappear(s).

I currently have several language-dictionaries installed and have content in various languages inside one document. It makes automatic spell-O correction tricky and overly time-consuming, in particular when I have lists of items where each bullet content (formatted as a paragraph) may be in a different language.

Any help or suggestion is welcome.
Thank you.

ajlittoz · February 13, 2022, 3:18pm

LO 3.7.0.3 indeed? Must be something like 15+ years behind. Or a typo for 7.3.0.3?

Cbhihe · February 13, 2022, 3:43pm

You are right. It was a major typo, the kind that makes you land on Pluto rather than Mars… Fixed. ;-))

anon87010807 · February 13, 2022, 3:14pm

First, we don’t recommend that you select some text and apply formatting from the toolbar or menubar. It tends to mess up your documents in a grand way.
Instead, if each paragraph in your document is in one language, you can define separate paragraph styles for each language, based on the Text body style, and named Text body us, Text body gb, Text body nl and so on. You can then in Tools - Customize set up key bindings to apply the paragraph style with the correct language to the paragraph where the cursor is. If, on the other hand, you have different languages in one paragraph, it’s better to also define character styles for those different languages. The downside is that you have to select text first to apply English or Dutch.

Cbhihe · February 13, 2022, 4:22pm

I am an occasional user of LO, and for that reason, beside knowing than style formatting is a very powerful paradigm, my use of it is not nil but parsimonious. In fact I do not usually go about defining styles in the perfectly fine way you describe, unless a major task involving a unified text presents itself.

What I try to avoid is to have to position my cursor in EACH paragraph. If, for instance, I had a sequence of paragraphs with say 3 paragraphs in Dutch, then 4 in English, then 5 in French, etc, could I with your method, just highlight the, say, 5 paragraphs in French and then, using the custom key binding, apply the custom French paragraph default to those 5 paragraphs in one fell swoop ?

If not the alternative for me would be unsavory, i.e. turning the automatic spell-checker off and look the other way at every spell-o. (Of course the ideal would be for LO to recognize language automatically, but that may be a long way off.)

anon87010807 · February 13, 2022, 4:40pm

Yes, you can. You don’t have to even select the entire paragraphs (you can select from half-way down the first until half-way down the last), because a paragraph style takes effect on the entire paragraph. And if you, when you define the styles, are so smart as to set the attribute Next style on the Organizer tab of the paragraph style dialog box to the same language for each of your styles, once you have set a paragraph to French, you can press Enter at the end and continue in French without any more effort on your side.