Updating a document from a template

[LSemmens]

I have about 500 documents created over the years that all follow a the same format. Originally, many of these were created using M$ Word Most have been converted to .odt files. However, for some reason the only way I can seem to standardize the formats in these documents is to cut and paste the original document to a new document based on my default template. There appears to be no way to apply my default template (templ.ott) to existing documents.

I’ve tried importing the styles from said template but that is also hit and miss, one style specifically will not update for some reason. If I modify said styles in the default template they will not be updated in documents not based upon that template.

HOW Do I apply a specific template to an existing document?

[ajlittoz]

Out-of-the-shelf LO does not provide a way to “apply” a template to an existing document. You must install the Template Changer extension.

Note however that you may still experience issues on your documents because they were translated from DOC(X) to ODF when you opened them initially with Writer. Both formats have significant differences so that when first imported some formatting is approximated in the target format, usually with direct formatting. And since direct formatting always has precedence over styling, … (just guess). This is mostly serious with character and page styles which do not exist in Word. Character styling becomes direct formatting and you get one page style per page (naved Convertedxxx).

Translating (I prefer this word to converting because it emphasises the amount of work) from Word to ODF is a heavy task if you want to reach a state where the document will fully behave under Writer styling. This requires a full cleaning of the formatting, checking the result against the styles dictionary (displayed in the style side pane). And it can’t be done with assigning a new template only. All 500 documents must be processed manually.

[LSemmens]

Thank you, most are now in ODF format so I shall try the template changer extension.

[LSemmens]

Works perfectly, thank you