I've been trying to understand kword2 (currently using beta 3), but I can't make sense out of the interface. I'm currently using OpenOffice writer, so I'm familiar with the concept of using styles; but I can't get styles to work in kword. I have a dialog on the side that lists various styles, but nothing happens when I click on them. I type a title, for instance; click on the "title" style, and nothing happens. If I keep clicking around on the styles long enough, it might end up as a bullet point list. It seems utterly broken to me, but I'm trying to give the devs the benefit of the doubt that it wouldn't reach beta 3 with something so obviously broken. Thus, I must be doing it wrong.

So, can any Kword gurus tell me how this works, and what I'm doing wrong? Is beta 3 supposed to be usable?

AKAIK beta 3 is for testing. So check the bug reports and, if no-one else has reported this bug, report it.

Yes I realize that. But sometimes you see something so glaringly obviously wrong you can't bring yourself to think the developers would have missed it. I would assume by the time software hits beta 3, the basics are working fine 90% of the time; so if it's not working at all, it's highly likely that it must be my general lack of knowledge about the software.

That's why I'm asking here first before I go make a fool of myself at the bug tracker.

I am another user who is trying to make sense of the kword use of styles.

I have found the button which applies a style, so no problem there!

I do not, however, seem to be able to understand the basic concept of the use of styles in kword. (Incidentally, I imagine my problem is more general in KOffice, but I have only really looked at kword.)

Please correct me if I have missed an important step, but it seems that, at present, a paragraph style can have only one associated character style. Other character styles may be created and may be applied to selected text within a paragraph, but they inherit nothing from the paragraph style.
Thus, if I define a character style called "blue_text" which constrains its text to be blue, then application of blue_text to selections from paragraphs which are, say, "Head 1" and "Standard", will leave all blue-text not only blue, but identical in all other font-related attributes, such as size, decoration and so on.

It also appears that there is no inheritance between styles. Thus, changing the font of Head 1 does not affect Head 2, nor does there appear to be any such mechanism available.

In other words, each style, be it paragraph or text, is merely a collective definition. Defining a character style saves me from applying a whole set of attributes several times and with consistency, but that is all. There is no echo of the concept of, say, cascading style sheets.
Am I looking for too much? Does KOffice not aspire to such usage? Or am I either too early (version 2.1.0) or just missing the point?

Please forgive me for using a thread which has been inactive for quite a while, but it (the thread) really does not appear to have reached a satisfactory conclusion.

I proposed an idea for "linked styles" in kword:
brainstorm.php?mode=idea&i=57874#p75935
3 votes and no comments...

@RGB brainstorm may not be a good place to report stuff; never looked there myself. bugs.kde.org is the normal place. But read on for an answer

@owdbob
The styles docker is a bit unfinished, I agree. The basic concept is that a paragraph style holds a set of properties like alignment, indents etc.
A character style holds all the properties for fonts and colors and the rest.
A paragraph style wraps a character style, so you can say a paragraph style as applied is the combination of both the character and the paragraph styles.

The buttons at the bottom allow you to create a new character style you can reuse in any paragraph style. Well, thats half true. You are supposed to be able to reuse it in any paragraph style. But the UI for that is broken and disabled.
Same with paragraph styles having a parent style and thus linking them (hi RGB!). The concept is implemented and largely debugged, but the UI for it is missing.

Volunteers welcome...

@zander

Many thanks for responding to my post.

I obviously did not make my worries very clear. I have no real problem with the UI. I do not like the fact that the button with the "tick" icon is the *only* way to apply a chosen style - it is not nearly as convenient as, say, a double-click - but that is a minor detail.

What worries me here is the underlying concept of styles which appears to be in use in KWord.

Let us look at a simplified real-life use case. I need to be able to write documents in two languages. The base language is UK English. Some 30% of the document, however, will be in French. What I need is to be able to designate selected text, or even paragraphs, as being in French. The French text will be spell-checked appropriately as French and will be presented in a chosen font colour which will be standard for all French portions of the document. The document is likely to be large (perhaps 200 or 300 pages) and complex with many paragraph styles. I need to be able to define a single "French" style which can be applied anywhere in the document, regardless of the paragraph style in force. With a logic akin to cascading style sheets this is a simple matter. "French" character style can be applied to selected text anywhere. Other attributes - font face, size, justification etc - are inherited from the active paragraph, say, but the language and font colour are dictated by the chosen character style.

In addition, I wish to be able to define a style - perhaps a paragraph style - and attach subsidiary new styles. Later, should I change a standard attribute of the "parent" (class?) style, then that change will be reflected throughout the inheriting style family.

At the moment in KWord I appear to have a style system which allows me to define a totally inflexible character or paragraph style which affects only itself.

And, of course, I have not addressed the problem of spell-checking!

Or, again, am I missing the point?

Incidentally, why have a "brainstorm" thread if no developer looks at it? RGB was not reporting a bug last May.

Regards

First; the language is part of the character style. So in your language usecase you would likely want to make all your paragraph styles be English.

While you are working on your document you may type some French (or copy paste it) and then you can mark that section as being French using a set of methods. With the semantic desktop coming in, the language may be pre-applied at pasting, for instance. But in the worst case scenario you may select the text and open the language dialog and select French.

Notice how this does not affect the style already applied to the paragraph at all. Even if you change a style later the fact that you applied 'French' manually will be remembered. This is very much the same as, for example, you making a word blue and later changing the whole paragraph to be a different style. The blue word should stay blue.

So, your suggested workflow to have inheriting character-styles is currently not possible. Only paragraph styles (and their font properties) can be inherited currently. It would be interesting to see if it can be added, for sure.

owdbob wrote:In addition, I wish to be able to define a style - perhaps a paragraph style - and attach subsidiary new styles. Later, should I change a standard attribute of the "parent" (class?) style, then that change will be reflected throughout the inheriting style family.

This is possible in the engine, just not in the GUI. It should become possible as soon as I have some time for it. Or anyone that can write some Qt code, naturally.

owdbob wrote:Incidentally, why have a "brainstorm" thread if no developer looks at it? RGB was not reporting a bug last May.

The 'brainstorm' section on this site was started by volunteers and has nothing to do with KDE or KOffice. The only place where bugs and wishes should be filed is on bugs.kde.org.

Again, thanks for your precious time.

I think some of what you say is good news! Certainly I am encouraged that style inheritance is likely to arrive in due course. Good luck with that!

As regards applying character styles to parts of paragraphs, my problem remains that I cannot apply just my chosen attributes. As you point out, I can change paragraph style and have my blue text stay blue. Sadly it also keeps other attributes which I never actively chose. Later perhaps?

"Wishes should be filed on bugs.kde.org"? Really? Gosh! Well, how about closing unwatched and unwanted threads? (Let's not even start to discuss the "Friends of KOffice" website here!)

I think my coding skills are far too out-of-date to be of use to you, but I do wish you every success. I really want KOffice to succeed. I install Linux and KDE on other people's machines. I tell them that KDE is great - which it certainly is, especially now with 4.x. But I am a tad embarrassed when I have to recommend the excellent, but non-KDE, Open Office.

Bon courage!