New Chapter Template for LO24

Documentation LibreOffice Guides
#1

Hello

I have updated the chapter template to include as many default styles as possible, which has been suggested it should happen. However, there are a custom styles still in use because there is no default style available that describes a style correctly.

Custom paragraph styles are as follows:
Body Text, Indented 2
Body Text, List Intro
Body Text, Note
Caption, Figure
Code
Column Contents
Definition Term
Definition Term 2
Guide Name
Guide Subtitle
Guide Title
Heading Note
Heading Tip
Legend Numbered
New Chapter
Page Break

Custom character styles
Code
Keystroke

Page styles
Front Matter

Please review and let me know your comments.
I will now complete a new User Guide Template, which will incorporate all the changes I have inserted in the Chapter Template.

Regards
PeeWee

Draw Guide 24.2
#2

The filename for the template is New-UG-Chapter-Template-LO24 and is in English > Contributor Sources on NextCloud.
Regards
PeeWee

#3

Example: This character style uses the same Liberation Mono font as the paragraph style Code. It is a default character style in LibreOffice used when the following are used in a paragraph: Code words

  1. Comment above not supported Edit character/paragraph style
  2. I suggest running the Adding listing caption process from a macro
#4

@peewee First set of comments:

  1. Default Page Style is incompletely defined: margins are wrong and it has no footer.
  2. A Heading 1 First is needed (in an earlier version of the draft template, you had this as First Heading, but it should be grouped with Heading 1 on the list.
  3. Left-hand Front Matter (Contents) pages need a space between the page number and the vertical bar. To fix this, add a few extra blank lines below the TOC until page 4 is displayed. After fixing the footer on page 4, delete the extra blank lines to remove that page; the changed footer is preserved in the file.
  4. This template does not have any of the sections that @ohallot added. Do you plan to add them later?
  5. The paragraph style Caption, Figure is not listed in Table 2.
  6. Step 10 in the instructions for “Adding figures and captioning” says “Click in the caption text and change the paragraph style to Figure.” However, it’s already “Figure” and most of the figures in this template have captions with paragraph style “Caption, Figure”. Which should it be?
  7. The instructions for inserting a figure need to include something about putting info on the Options page for the figure.
  8. Indentation of Numbering 3 (i,ii,iii) paragraph style is wrong. See Example ordered list on page 8.
#5

Thank you Jean

I shall be going through your comments and make the corrections.

I did start with a blank ODT file so that the template would not have any errors in the format. Obviously I made a few errors.

It will take me a few days before the 2nd issue becomes available for review.

I shall be using the latest issue of LO 24.

Regards

Peter Schofield
psauthor@gmail.com
Technical Writer, LO Documentation Team

#6

A very complete, difficult and laborious job, but I find some defects (no offense intended):

  • In the character style table, Sample appears instead of the character style name: Code

  • The template does not respect the Style Hierarchy used by Writer. For example, if you want to adapt this template to another language, you have to change the language of many paragraphs (this does not happen with the Writer Style Hierarchy, where it is enough to change the Default Paragraph Style)

  • There are still two residual custom styles from previous templates in the template:

OooComputerCode (Character)

PageBreak (Paragraph), This last style is unnecessary because the Subtitle Style already has a page break. The style after Subtitle should be Heading 1.

  • I suspect that the template has been passed an (incomplete) macro to clean up the direct formatting, so the numbering styles are not reflected as they really are (Jean has already reported this bug in the Numbering List 3 styles) This affects to all Numbering styles, not just Numbering 3:

If you add a Body Text paragraph style and then a Numbering style, the indentation of this new numbering does not match that of the numbering that exists in the template.

#7

I have created a document from scratch, with the styles used in the guides, but respecting the hierarchy of styles that the default Writer template has.

That document / template does not contain the detailed explanations of the use of styles that Peter’s template has. It is rather a more technical complement, where the styles are listed detailing their hierarchy, their abbreviated use and the modifications necessary to adapt them to the format of the guides.

It is Available on Nexcloud in the same directory of English Contributors Resources. Whit Name “UG-2X.x -Definition of Styles”
https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/apps/files/?dir=/LibreOffice%20Documentation/English/Contributor%20Resources&view=-LibreOffice%20Documentation-English-Contributor%20Resources&openfile=1401659
Any indication for its modification is welcome and debatable.

Perhaps an online meeting would be better to discuss the necessary modifications to the final template. I am willing to attend, but my English is very bad and I don’t know if I have an adequate level to participate actively.

#8

New version of the chapter template is now available on NextCloud. The filename is New-UG-Chapter-Template-LO-24-02PS.ott and is in Contributor Sources > Chapter Template folder.

I think I have answered all the queries from Jean.

The figure caption now uses the paragraph style Figure. This automatically centres the caption under the image to create a better format. It use Liberation Sans Italic font and at 10pt size.

I will now go through the comments from bantoniof and start to upgrade the user guide template to version 24.2.

Regards
PeeWee

1 Like
#9

I did create a folder for templates so they are easy to find.

Regards
PeeWee

1 Like
#10

In the new template I see that the old sections have been removed
(SEC_LOGO, SEC_TITLE, SEC_GUIDE, SEC_COPYRIGHT and SEC_DISPLAYAREA)
and new sections have been created.

What is the reason?

  • the old sections were used in the online guides
    Is the structure of the online guides going to change?
#11

Hello Bantoniof

The sections are not new.

I renamed the sections so that a user can easily understand what the purpose of each section is. There are instructions in the user guides to use understandable names when inserting objects into a document so that they are easily identified in the Navigator. Sections are an object that has other objects inside, including text.

Regards

PeeWee

#12

In that case, in my opinion

  • The sections SEC_LOGO, SEC_GUIDE, SEC_TITLE are Lost (They also are used in online guides)
  • The first Title (Heading) of Section “Section Default Pages” must have the “First Heading” paragraph Style applied which also is lost.
    – The First Heading paragraph style inserts a page break (before) to change the “FrontMatter” page style to “Default Page” style
#13

If I’m not mistaken…
Automatic pagination of page styles is carried out by configuring page styles

  • First page (next style = Front Matter)
  • Front Matter (next style = Front Matter)
  • Default Page Style (next style = Default Page Style)

and paragraph styles:

  • New Chapter (Insert a page break before)
  • Subtitle (insert a page break after so the page style changes to Front Matter)
  • First heading (insert a page break before so that the page style changes to Default Page Style)
#14

The use of a single paragraph style for images and figure captions is very successful and simple. Good Job

#15

Hello bantoniof

The idea behind the new version of the template is to reduce the number of custom styles.

First Heading paragraph style would be a custom style and, IMO, is not required.
It is easy to change the blank Body Text paragraph at the end of the table of contents and inside the Front Matter section into a Page Break paragraph style. Also, all the template files I have downloaded from Contributor Resources did not have a First Heading style.

I am trying to create a template so that it is relatively easy for volunteers to use when creating chapters and user guides for LibreOffice. This will help in the creation of a user guide that LibreOffice users can also understand when they are creating documents.

Regards
PeeWee

#16

I think the Page Break style was changed to the First Heading style (both have different applications)

  1. To achieve the page break (and page style change) with Page Break you need to insert an empty paragraph after the table of contents.
  • Many users consider it inappropriate to include empty paragraph in documents.
  1. To achieve the page break with First Heading it is not necessary to insert the empty paragraph
#17

Hello

The blank paragraph has automatically appeared at the bottom of the table of contents each time I created one. The table od contents is inside the section Front Matter.

Regards
PeeWee

#18

Hello Antonio

Your document about the definition of styles is useful information. It will help the LO volunteers in using the template when creating the chapters. I shall incorporate the information into the user guide template as a chapter.

Regards
PeeWee

#19

As a note, I will tell you:
In my old revisions I was unaware of the use of that empty paragraph (with “Page Break” Style) and I deleted it and inserted a page break.
On many occasions, when recharging the file.
The page break was eliminated and without realizing it I was laying out the Display Area section that had the “Front Matter” page format (in the Spanish documentation template different from “Default page style”) and in many cases I had to re-layout the entire document.

  • This has not happened to me with the “First Heading” (I don’t know if it’s because of experience or because I don’t delete the first header)

IMPORTANT :
The “First Heading” paragraph Style add change automaticaly the new pages style to Default page Style.
The “Page Break” paragraph Style do not.

#20

It seems correct to me, if you consider it useful.
But you must keep in mind that both the old templates and the new one do not respect the hierarchy of styles.
I think that should be corrected.

In case it helps you, the styles necessary for the guides are modified and/or included in the styles definition document and they respect the hierarchy.
They may need some adjustments:

  • Delete the “Picture” paragraph style (unnecessary since the Figure style will be used for images and their captions)
  • minor adjustments to paragraph spacing.
  • Consider whether to use the “First Heading” or “Page Break” paragraph style.
  • Consider the usefulness of the “Front Matter” page style and if it is unnecessary, use only the First Page and Default Page styles. and delete “The Front Matter.”
  • And may be others adjusts…

IMPORTANT :
The “First Heading” paragraph Style add change automaticaly the new pages style to Default page Style.
The “Page Break” paragraph Style do not.

Impressum (Legal Info) | Datenschutzerklärung (Privacy Policy)   Content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 license.