Templates and Styles

Templates and styles work hand in hand; get them going ahead of time with the styles you need, and subsequent work will go a lot quicker.

Creating a Template

To use a drawing as the basis of subsequent drawings, just choose File > Save as and select the Draw template file format. Save it in your office/ user /template folder, or in one of the folders within share/template/ language / . Only files in these locations are available when you choose File > New > From Template, unless you've added locations according to Adding Places to Look for Impress Files on page 648.

The section on Writer contains comprehensive information on styles and templates; see Using Templates on page 262.

If your document is acting weird and you want to make sure you created it based on the right template, choose File > Properties and click the General tab. The template used by the document is displayed at the bottom of the window.

Creating Sets of Attributes Using Styles

Styles let you save a particular set of attributes, such as font, color , line ends (round, arrow), for text and for objects. It's a good idea to use styles if you need to use an object frequently that's formatted in a particular way, such as a line with an arrow that you've defined yourself, or text formatting for headings.

For an extended explanation of the ways you can save time using styles, refer to Power Formatting With Styles on page 247.

Applying Styles

Select the object, then use either of the following methods to apply the style.

  • Display the Stylist (choose Format > Stylist), and double-click the style.

  • Choose Formats > Styles > Catalog, and double-click the style.

Creating and Modifying Styles

Once you modify an existing style, you cannot reset it back to the original settings, though you can modify it again if you remember the original values. You may want to create new styles, rather than changing existing ones.

  1. Choose Format > Styles > Catalog to display the Style Catalog (Figure 29-4).

    Figure 29-4. Style list

    graphics/29fig04.jpg

  2. Select Graphics Styles from the list at the top; you'll use Presentation Styles in Impress.

    If you want to narrow down the styles displayed, make a selection from the bottom list.

    • Applied Styles Displays all styles of the selected style type applied in the current document.

    • Custom Styles Displays all user-defined styles of the current style type.

    • Hierarchical Displays all styles of the current style type in hierarchical structure, similar to the directory structure of your hard drive. To view a sublevel in the hierarchy, click the plus sign next to the respective style name .

  3. Select a style that you'll base a new style on, or that you want to modify.

  4. Create a new style by clicking Create, or modify an existing one by selecting a style and clicking Modify.

  5. The Graphics Styles window appears (Figure 29-5). Make the appropriate entries in each tab, then click OK. Information on the entries for the tabs are covered throughout this chapter.

    Figure 29-5. Defining new object styles

    graphics/29fig05.jpg

Making Styles Reusable in Other Documents

Unless you jump through a couple hoops, any styles you create or modify will be available only in the document where you made them. To make them available in other documents:

  • Create the styles in a document that you then save as a Draw template.

  • Then base new documents on that template by choosing File > New > From template.

You can also import styles from other documents following the instructions in Loading Individual Styles on page 266.



OpenOffice. org 1.0 Resource Kit
OpenOffice.Org 1.0 Resource Kit
ISBN: 0131407457
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 407

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net