Styles in master/subdocuments context like glasses

[eighty2]

If to stay in master and subdocuments context styles and the way how they are used all this seems to work glasses worn by human. Please check if this understanding is right.

If an .odt document (A) is being viewed when open in Writer on direct way (bypassing all possible master documents) one looks at A through A’s own styles, this style set acts like glasses, or filter.
On another hand if one opens same document from a master document the former one is linked to from
one can see A only through master’s glasses (its styles). It seems to be an either-or game as well as master forms its own glasses only for those parts of A for which A and master have identically named styles.

That means A’s look depends on how one is looking at it - through/ w/o master. It is depends also on which A’s styles the master is overwriting with own styles.
There seems to be, at least one, style sync subdocument to master. It is the time when master gets saved to file for first time after it got the very fist link to a subdocument, LO 7.x Writer Help. For me it is unclear right now if further style syncs are run.

[Hrbrgr]

Master documents in Writer

[ajlittoz]

Are you using some automatic translation tool? It is very difficult to understand your question. You could perhaps ask in some ad-hoc leg of this site. This link will give you access to the various supported languages. If none is yours, tell us your native language. There may be regular contributors able to understand it.

Edit your question to mention OS name and LO version.

The general advice with master and subdocuments is to base all files on the same template to guarantee style consistency. Also, again for consistency and predictability, avoid direct formatting.

[Wanderer]

@eighty2

For me it is unclear right now if further style syncs are run.

IMHO there are none. You are allowed to create a nice mess of altered styles everywhere or organize this to your needs, as it is possible to copy styles from one file to another.
.
Follow @ajlittoz to create one master template. If you need to have the same sub-document with different styling in several projects, i would suggest to place styles in the master-documents.
.
Usually avoid styles in sub-documents, but there may be use-cases - for example to show some single import, wich is never re-used.

[eighty2]

In this particular case document is used in one single project only.
I like to see same formatting regardless of I open subdocument directly from file explorer or from within master document.

[anon87010807]

One interesting use of master documents was explained by an expert user of master documents in the now dead oooforum.org. The idea is that if you have a bunch of documents that you formatted for publication in a magazine and now want to publish some of them as a book, you will want to change a lot of the styles. Instead of modifying the styles in each document, you make a new master document, modify the styles to your wishes, and import all the documents that you want to include. And voilà, they all have the new formatting in the master document, but the originals are untouched. This will however work only if you strictly adhere to the use of styles only for formatting, and of course use styles with the same names for the same hierarchical levels in all of those documents, including the master document.

[ajlittoz]

@anon87010807

you formatted for publication in a magazine and now want to publish some of them as a book

I described such a solution for a similar question on this site (unfortunately I can’t retrieve it) where OP wanted to publish his book under 3 formats (export to ePub and PDF under 2 sheet sizes) while having only a single set of files (master + subdocs). The solution is based on switching a template file in the master.

This may seem to add a degree of complexity but facilitates author’s job as all variants are guaranteed to be consistent (same text; when modifications are made, they all are present in the 3 variants).

EDIT
I still can’t retrieve the question. But I found on my computer the image illustrating the case. It is more complicated than in my memory. There is a “master” template containing the “invariant” styles. Then you have 3 masters corresponding to the output format, overriding the styles where relevant (mainly the page styles), all including the same novel narrative (saved as .odf. contrary to what the image may suggest).



where e-B = eBook, HC = hard cover, PB = paper back

EDIT 2
I finally found the original question: In book publishing, how best to change the page size for a new edition? - #5 by ajlittoz

[anon87010807]

You have to be capable of abstract thinking to do this kind of tricks.

And in order to avoid any misunderstandings, the expert that I referred to, is foxcole, a writer of user guides and more.