One is accessible from the Paragraph configurations menu, and the other is accessible from the Bullets and Numbering configuration menu? Are they related?
In a recent project, I created a user defined paragraph style from the Default Paragraph style, but the bullet of choice was only definable in the Bullets and Numbering. Can someone clarify if this as overlap, or an attempt to make user of every knowledge level happy?
Writer is intended to be style-driven. ODF (the standard definition) has pushed the concept of styles far beyond what you find in other document processing applications, notably M$ Word.
Clear understanding of the style categories (which objects they address and how the categories interfere with each other) is not immediate. Consequently, a fall-back control method is provided for newcomers. The competition has so deeply marked text entry it is now called “intuitive” because of the quasi-monopolistic position of M$ Word, though it is only one entry method among others.
The fall-back method is designated direct formatting in Writer. Author manually applies attributes to text instead of using carefully designed styles.
This is the easiest conversion path from Word because Word only knows (and partially) of paragraph styles. Everything else must be applied manually or through precooked commands (impeding full customization).
Format>Bullets & Numbering is one of these fallback direct formatting actions.
When you have repetitive bullet/numbering to apply to a list (don’t use Bullets & Numbering on chapter headings otherwise you’ll create conflicts and end up in a real mess; these are controlled from Tools>Chapter Numbering), the best to do is to record your bullet/numbering configuration into a list style.
Note that list style is a bad choice for the style category name because it does not define the complete appearance of a list item but only of the bullet or number part and its position.
List styles are listed when you click on the fifth icon in the style side pane toolbar. There you’ll find similar configuration controls as in Format>Bullets & Numbering. However, when you customize, I recommend to play only with Position & Customize tabs. The others are shortcuts for various parameter settings which override and replace those in the mentioned tabs. This means if you click in the first tabs after setting something in Position or Customize, your settings will be changed. So, stay with these, they provide full control about what’s happening.
Once you have defined a list style for your taste, there are two usage schools:
you manually apply your list style to any paragraph (double-click on the list style name when the cursor is inside the target paragraph)
This allows to use any paragraph style for a list item. But this is a kind of direct formatting which may lead to a loss of flexibility when you review your document for appearance (in this step, you only play with styles and in principle no longer modify in any way your text).
you attach the list style to a paragraph style in the Outline & Numbering tab, Numbering style menu.
After that the paragraph style can only be used for list items because it systematically displays a bullet or number. I personally consider this approach better than the former one because I add another bit of information to my document: semantically, this paragraph is a list item. Also I separate formatting of “common” text from list text. When I review my document formatting, I can act separately on list and common text through separate paragraph styles.
To answer your question about the relation between Format>Bullets & Numbering and other configuration: there is only one bullet/numbering engine in Writer. This engine is controlled by list styles. To give quick access to bullet/numbering to people not aware of the list styles, Format>Bullets & Numbering offers manual operation. But, what you set in this dialog does not survive close and reopen (your text is preserved but not the dialog configuration because, as a manual procedure, it can be applied to independent lists; a previous list must not be affected by your new settings while changes to a list style will be forwarded to all so-styled lists).
(edit only fixed typos and misspellings - nothing new)
As the OP, I can’t thank you enough for this concise, detailed explanation. I will have other questions, but will post them separately.